“Hidden Treasure”

Jeremiah 1:4-10

I Corinthians 13:1-8

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. Amen

This morning we race through history. We have heard from the prophet Jeremiah who lived through one of the most tumultuous periods of Hebrew history: the fall of Jerusalem in 587BCE and the dark days when the victors marched God’s chosen people to Babylonia and held them captive. We have listened in on a letter that Paul composed in the first century in the year 50 - 17 years after Jesus had died. This letter would have been read out loud to that new group of Jesus followers in the sophisticated, primarily Gentile, and decidedly pagan city called Corinth about 40 miles south of Athens.

We see before us symbols that recall another empire: The British Empire and The Proscription Act of 1746 that banned not only arms, but tartan, saying in part, “No man or boy shall under any pretext put on clothes commonly called “Highland Garb.” We remember today the history and the legend about Scottish Highlanders that made their way to the kirk in 1746 with remnants of tartan hidden away in their coats. Today we look to a Scottish immigrant in America “A Man Named Peter” that gave voice to the faith of our fathers by blessing “Kirkin” the Tartans in Washington DC in 1941 as the winds of war blew across Europe.

What possible thread could unite these disparate people, in vastly different circumstances from the 7^th century Before Christ to 1941 in Washington D.C. into a meaningful pattern that will speak to us of God? The answer is love. Love is the thread that weaves Jeremiah, Paul, Scottish Highlanders, Peter Marshall, and even us, together this day. What but love could explain how a reluctant prophet watching the fall of Jerusalem could speak God’s word of judgment and hope to a people faced with exile to Babylon, or how the Pharisee of Pharisees, Paul, could become the “Apostle to the Gentiles?”

What but love can explain how a defeated people could hold fast to traditions banned by the English Parliament and how a Scottish immigrant, grieved by World War II, could bring an ancestral tradition to worship to celebrate hope and raise money for war relief for Scottish churches.

In the letter of Paul we hear how Paul dealt with that fledgling group of Jesus followers in Corinth: a people he struggled with mightily. One would expect Paul to send a firm corrective to them for their wayward behavior but he sends instead a corrective but in the form of a love poem. There is a reason many people know the verses we just heard – we have all heard them read at weddings, and all sorts of special occasions. The poem is not about our love for each other, however. It is about a love we can only imagine: God’s love for us. The love that binds us together through the ages is not our spiritual ancestors’ respective love for the people of Judah, or Corinth or the Scottish Highlands or our past but rather God’s eternal love that creates a future out of even the most difficult times. God’s love us and in that love he offers us three things: identity, resolution and surrender.

First: identity. Every prophet tells us about his call. It is what gives them authority and credibility and there are typically four stages of call in the great stories of the bible; from Abraham to Moses, Ezekiel, Gideon, Samuel to Jeremiah to name a few. Jeremiah reports his call earlier than the others but the rest is a parallel to Moses: he is called by God, resists & debates, his qualifications until God reassures him. It is when God says, get over your self: this has nothing whatsoever to do with your gifts but my power to transform you that the reluctant prophet says yes and God promises to be with him.

Jeremiah undertakes a life work none of us would want to contemplate. He shall proclaim not his word, but Gods word. The messenger for God knows what happens to messengers bearing bad news of judgment. Worse he tells them the only way to the hope that rests on the other side of pain is repentance. He was not popular and was severely ridiculed – his life became his prophecy a life that mirrored the dark days he lived through but hi message of hope sustains us still. Professor Patrick Miller says it best: Jeremiah is the first instance of “predestination:” but not for salvation or damnation but destiny to bear God’s word into the world at all costs. God loves us, calls us by name and we might look to our prophets to remember that God will decide how to use our gifts and we ought never to underestimate His ability to work through our weaknesses as well as our strengths.

The second thing God’s love offers us is resolution. Now this is a trait we find in Paul. Paul is resolved not to give into his impatience with his rambunctious, fractious superficial, arrogant, petty new community. He is resolved to take all their pride, and his own pride in his skills, and dash it against the rocks - smash it to smithereens to make a great point: love trumps all.

He lists 15 descriptions of love that we could spend a lifetime trying to emulate but for today let us consider this: love is patient. The Greek word refers not to patience with circumstances but patience with people. If Jeremiah is a prophet to lead us through tough circumstances, Paul is the disciple that leads us through the war zone called getting along.

Simply put nothing speaks of Christ like patience with an adversary. For example, consider Lincoln’s relationship with Stanton. He had leveled bitter, crass ridicule at Lincoln yet, Lincoln never responded in kind. After he defeated Stanton and became president he appointed Mr. Stanton Secretary of State saying, he is the best man for the position. Years later it was Stanton who stood at Lincoln’s bedside as he lay dying and remarked, “There rests the greatest ruler of men.” Lincoln has resolve and it was said his oft quoted verse of scripture was, “Judge not that you be not judged.” Lincoln was a great ruler of men because he knew how to rule himself.

The third gift God’s love offers us is a chance to surrender – yes surrender. That is what our Scottish Highlanders knew how to do: at a time when they were not only defeated but forced into service for the King of England to fight in America and in Europe. One by one members of the clan came - walking warily to the kirk. And there in the sacred space of eternal time, they grasped hold of something they held dear: the tartan the symbol of all that protected them economically, politically, socially, and they offered it to God for a blessing.

Once we give over something to God for blessing we lose control of the outcome. The word “bless’ is unique to English. Its closest ancestor is a prehistoric German word for blood. It literally means to “mark with blood” and it refers to religious rites of sanctifying altars with blood. Over the time it has become associated with a much kinder word, bliss which means happiness. The Greek word for blessed is translated “fortunate.” The god Fortuna bestowed good or evil upon the ancients but we believe and celebrate today that our God bestows love upon us in all times of good and bad fortune.

As our tartan bearers come forward, we too can raise the tartan that rest in our heart: whatever we treasure and hide close to our heart that symbolizes who we once were, or hoped to be, or wish we could be is there. It could be joys we want to hoard or a relationship we need to let go of, or the scorecard we need to throw out, or the debt we need to forgive, or the bill we need to pay. Whatever it is we are holding onto for safe keeping because it is ours can be blessed today rewoven into the tapestry of love Paul describes to the Corinthians.

As we raise the tartans and thank God for our heritage and our Presbyterian tradition, let us also lift our hearts and offer all that we hold dear and trust God to bless all that we are if we surrender to him entrusting ourselves to our God who so greatly loved us, long sought us and mercifully redeemed us.

In this brisk walk through history we have considered the valley of death at the time of Jeremiah, Paul, the Scottish Highlanders, World War II and such fears remain with new names: Iraq and Haiti. Today we celebrate the fact that in Christ we see not the shadow of death but the shadow of God who offers us love that is eternal, and by his amazing grace, we too can lift our “tartans” to God and become instruments of peace and messengers of hope in our time and place. Amen

The Rev. Elizabeth Kuehl

Temple terrace Presbyterian Church

January 31, 2010