Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

My joy is gone, grief is upon me,

    my heart is sick.

Hark, the cry of my poor people

    from far and wide in the land:

“Is the Lord not in Zion?

    Is her King not in her?”

(“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,

    with their foreign idols?”)

“The harvest is past, the summer is ended,

    and we are not saved.”

For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,

    I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.

Is there no balm in Gilead?

    Is there no physician there?

Why then has the health of my poor people

    not been restored?

O that my head were a spring of water,

    and my eyes a fountain of tears,

so that I might weep day and night

    for the slain of my poor people!

A Balm

I sometimes wish that life came with a manual: a set of instructions that whenever I came up with a question I could just look it up and my answer would be right there.  This manual would be handy for big life decisions or parenting or moral quandaries, those times I am overwhelmed and I just don’t know.  And there are some theologies that would say that this is exactly what the Bible is, that if only we were to know the exact chapter and verse then you could find the answer to any question and it would be right there.  Or maybe, if I just flip to a random page then the word of God will emerge with an answer.  But I would say that although the Bible holds many truths, it doesn’t have simple answers.  And today we are talking about a time when actually those questions and answers are reversed, as deep within Scripture what we hear is not an answer but a question that echoes through the ages of pain and loss and despair and the answer comes not from within these pages but from the workings of the Holy Spirit and a people who knew pain and loss and despair.  The answer comes not from the Scripture but from the song.

The Scripture today comes from the book of Jeremiah, one of the prophets of the Old Testament.  In the last year this church has looked deeply at the book of Jeremiah, the sobbing prophet who speaks to my soul.  Jeremiah is a prophet who sees the sins of his people and feels their state so deeply that he is driven to despair for he sees the upcoming destruction of his people and he spends his time trying to name and amplify this pain in a way it can be felt by others, in a way that perhaps they can choose a different path, and so it’s only when the worse does come and the people are taken into exile, it is only then that he turns to speak of hope.  So the Scripture today comes from Jeremiah’s words of lament: “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.  Hark the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land.  For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.  Is there no balm in Gilead?  Is there no physician there?”  The Scripture is a lament, a song of deep grief and despair as Jeremiah feels the deep brokenness of his people and speaks the deep pain of his people and sees no hope for his people.  And there are times I wish I wasn’t able to empathize with Jeremiah for I, too, know how despair can wake you from your sleep or trouble your hours or perhaps whisper thoughts of dread for there is enough pain in one life that if you are to dwell and wonder you can lead to that feeling of lament.  There’s enough pain in a community that you can feel and hold and feel that cry in your bones.  And goodness knows there is enough pain in the world that if you are to feel it and try to hold it what can you be left with but cry?

Now