Disappointment with God
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
David C. Wright
Jeremiah 20:7-18
January 30, 2011

          A couple years ago the title of a book by Philip Yancey caught my eye.  It was entitled Disappointment with God.  It sold very well and became the book of the year for a couple of Christian magazines.  I was intrigued that this book struck such a chord.  Apparently many Christians feel disappointed with life and with the God who created it.
          This is not a new phenomenon.  The Psalmist said similar things.  But Jeremiah turns the complaint against God into an art form!  Six times in his book he opens up and shares his frustrated heart with the Lord.  Biblical scholars refer to these passages as Jeremiah’s “confessions.”
          The context of the confession we’re looking at today is found in the first six verses of chapter 20.  Jeremiah has just delivered his famous temple sermon that took place about 600 B.C.  In that sermon, Jeremiah challenged the conventional wisdom of the day that the presence of Solomon’s great temple in Jerusalem would protect the country of Judah from its enemies.  God lived there, after all!  But Jeremiah questions whether the people even have a relationship with God any more, and therefore, whether God would protect them, temple or not.  After his sermon, one of the high priests became so angry that he struck Jeremiah and had him fastened in the stocks, which were a form of torture.  But when Jeremiah was released the following morning, he continued to boldly proclaim that the nation of Judah would indeed be destroyed and that the very priests who beat and imprisoned him would be carried off into captivity by the Babylonians. 
          If that’s all we knew of this story, we would think that Jeremiah had been strengthened by the Lord during his imprisonment and was doing well in his calling as a prophet.  But listen to what he says in verses 7-8 of Jeremiah 20.
          O Lord, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me.
          8  For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, "Violence and destruction!"
          Here we find a man at the breaking point.  He accuses God of “enticing” him.  This is a strong word in Hebrew which is used of seducing a young woman.  He also accuses God of overpowering him.  When did Jeremiah feel like God enticed and overpowered him?  Probably when God first called him to be a prophet, which I preached about a few weeks ago.  I’m sure those of you who were present remember the details of that sermon, but for those who were not present, let me review!
          God called Jeremiah to be his spokesman to the nation of Judah, telling Jeremiah that he had been created for this task!  Jeremiah protested, saying that he couldn’t speak well and that he was too young.  But God countered that no one is too young if God is on their side to protect them.  And God promised to give him the words to speak.  Finally, God said that Jeremiah would have authority over nations “to pluck them up and pull them down, to destroy and over throw them, to build and plant them.”  (Jer. 1:10)
          But it didn’t happen that way.  Jeremiah faithfully proclaimed God’s Word for many years.  He told the people that God’s judgment would come if they did not repent.  But they didn’t repent and no judgment came!  So, Jeremiah felt like a failure.  He was a laughingstock; everyone mocked him because his prophecies had not been fulfilled.
          He accused God of enticing him into this ministry and overpowering his objections with promises that he didn’t keep.  Jeremiah was deeply hurt by all of this.  Think of the social isolation that his calling required.  Lou was right last week when he referred to Jeremiah as the “Debby Downer” of his generation.  I don’t think Jeremiah got invited to too many parties, do you?  Can you imagine it?  “Hey, Jeremiah?  What’s new with you?”  “Same old, same old.  Death and destruction are coming, and no one will be spared!”  (Wah! Wah!)   Jeremiah is tired of the ridicule of his fellow citizens.  And he also feels trapped.
          Listen to the next verses, “For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and a derision all day long.  If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” (Jer. 20:8b,9)
          Do you understand his dilemma?  If he remains true to his calling, he must proclaim the coming destruction of Judah, which results in ridicule by some and threats by others.  But if he decides not to say anything, it is even worse.  God’s message is like a fire in his bones and holding it in wears him out.  He’s in a no-win situation.
          Some of us have felt a little like Jeremiah.  We find ourselves in situations that seem to demand more than we are capable of.  Perhaps we have taken a strong moral stand at work or at school or in a community organization or even at church.  Maybe something having to do with integrity or how other people are treated.  And we have been ridiculed or threatened or shunned by others because of the stand we took.  And nothing good has come of it.  And it just seems to be more than we can handle.
          Or, maybe life has given us a situation which seems overwhelming to us- a serious illness or the illness of a family member.  A child with great needs.  A marriage partner who is unwilling or unable to be the kind of spouse we need.  An out-of-control financial situation. 
          And like Jeremiah, we wonder where God has gone.  When we came to faith in Jesus, we thought he would always be with us.  That he would “walk with us and talk with us” like the hymn says.  That we would sense his presence in times of need and that he would tell us what to do.  But it hasn’t worked out that way.  And truth be told, we’re a little put out about this.  We’re disappointed with God.  There, we’ve said it!
          But this is not the end of the story for Jeremiah, or for us.  Listen to the next verses.
          11 But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior;
             therefore my persecutors will stumble,
             and they will not prevail.
          They will be greatly shamed,
             for they will not succeed.
          Their eternal dishonor
             will never be forgotten.
          12 O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous,
             you see the heart and the mind;
             let me see your retribution upon them,
             for to you I have committed my cause.
          What a change!  Suddenly, Jeremiah remembers that he can trust in God.  “But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble and they will not prevail.”  (Jer. 20:11) Jeremiah now speaks in faith.  Even though he cannot see the final outcome, he believes that God will be with him and that he will ultimately be delivered and vindicated.  He asks God to intervene and strike down his enemies.  Then he concludes this section with a prayer of praise, “Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord!  For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.”  (Jer. 20:13)
          If the confession of Jeremiah ended here, we would have a fairly easy lesson this morning.  Just hang in there and trust God and everything will be all right.  And I would have a happy, tidy little sermon with no loose ends!  But the confession doesn’t end there.  It continues.  Listen to the next verses.
          14 Cursed be the day
             on which I was born!
          The day when my mother bore me,
             let it not be blessed!
          15 Cursed be the man
             who brought the news to my father, saying,
          ‘A child is born to you, a son’,
             making him very glad.
          16 Let that man be like the cities
             that the Lord overthrew without pity;
          let him hear a cry in the morning
             and an alarm at noon,
          17 because he did not kill me in the womb;
             so my mother would have been my grave,
             and her womb for ever great.
          18 Why did I come forth from the womb
             to see toil and sorrow,
             and spend my days in shame?
          Whoa!  What the heck happened?  Jeremiah was just praising and rejoicing in the protection of the Lord and suddenly he’s back into despair, wishing he had never been born!  It’s like some kind of spiritual whiplash!  And that’s how this passage ends!  Not real uplifting is it?  Where’s the “and-he-lived-happily-ever-after” ending?  It’s just not there!
          So, what are we to make of all of this?  What is this wild careening between complaint and praising God and back into despair?  Well, perhaps this wild ride is the point.  Many of us have a wide mixture of feelings and experiences with God.  It is not all light and joy.  There is also darkness and profound sadness.  And that is normal.  When we experience these feelings of anger and disappointment with God- and some of you are experiencing them right now- we should be assured that there is nothing wrong with us, for even the greatest of God’s workers experienced these same feelings. 
You see, we live in a fallen world, a world that has fallen from the purposes for which it was created.  And in such a world, we constantly encounter the forces of evil and sin and death.  And we are called to battle against those powerful forces.  Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose.  Sometimes our frail human spirits are able to discern God’s presence and make sense of his plans and other times we are not.  Sometimes God seems closer than a brother and other times we struggle to believe God still exists because of his deafening silence.  That is the reality in which we live.  And we must learn to come to terms with it.  That’s part of the message of Jeremiah.
          Jeremiah’s confession also reminds us that God measures success differently than we do.  Jeremiah felt like a failure partly because no one took his message seriously.  He preached for 40 years and had almost no converts!  Of course he got discouraged.  And of course he questioned why he was doing this terrible work.  But God needed a faithful witness in Judah.  God had decided that his people would turn away from the destructive practices of idolatry and turn back to him one way or another.  They could turn back to God on their own, or God would drive them back to him through painful exile in Babylon.  God gave them every opportunity to avoid exile and repent on their own, as he kept sending them his message through Jeremiah.  Jeremiah was not called to be successful.  He was called to be faithful.  The outcome wasn’t up to him.
          That’s your measure of success, too.  To be faithful in being the person that God has called you to be.  To be honest.  To be pure.  To be loving.  To be an advocate for those who are weak.  To be generous.  To help the poor.  To proclaim the love of God in Jesus Christ to others.  To be a good husband, wife, child, father or mother.  To be a good worker, a good neighbor.  We’re called to be faithful to those tasks.  The outcome is in God’s hands.
          When Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic monk and university professor in the early 1500's, the Catholic church had gotten so far off track that you would not have recognized it as church!  Imagine worshiping each week in a language (Latin) that you could not understand.  Imagine a service without hymn-singing, without a sermon, and with little opportunity to participate.  Where people just roamed the floor of the cathedrals for most of the service.  Imagine a church in which the rich could buy their way out of eternal suffering and could do the same for their loved ones.
          Luther felt called to do something about this, so he posted 95 theses, (or propositions for change) on the door of the Cathedral at Wittenberg where he taught.  This ignited the Protestant reformation in Germany.  Luther began to reform the church there, introducing such innovations as holding the mass in the language of the people, restoring preaching to the worship service, re-introducing congregational singing, translating the Bible into German so the common people could read it, and disputing the ultimate authority of the pope.
          The Catholic church rejected these reforms, and Luther was hounded by church authorities for the rest of his life.  He was threatened, and finally he was forced to stand trial for heresy in the town of Worms, Germany.  I’ve been there and seen the place of his trial.  When it was clear that he would be convicted and probably executed, he was given an opportunity to recant and save himself.  His response is a classic, in the spirit of Jeremiah.  “I will not recant,” he said.  “Here I stand.  I can do no other.”  Like Jeremiah, he knew what he had been called to do and there was no escape from it.
          Like Jeremiah and Martin Luther, we have been called to live a certain kind of life, a way of life that may well cause misunderstanding and opposition.  It may cost us in our friendships and even our jobs.  And we may feel disappointed with God and even abandoned by him at times.  But in spite of our feelings, in spite of our limited knowledge of what God may be up to, like Jeremiah and Luther we must stay true to our calling.  We say with them, “Here I stand.  I can do no other.”

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