The Ground Is Shifting

2025-44
sermon preached at Church of the Good Shepherd, Federal Way, WA
www.goodshepherdfw.org
by the Rev. Josh Hosler, Rector
The Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 16C-Tr1), August 24, 2025
Jeremiah 1:4-10 ; Psalm 71:1-6 ; Hebrews 12:18-29 ; Luke 13:10-17

Last week I said some things about the understandable human desire to just burn it all to the ground and start over. Jesus felt this urge just like we do. What would it take to finally fix the problems of humanity? Can they even be fixed?

Jesus and his contemporaries, of course, already knew the story of Noah in Genesis, which shows us that far more ancient Hebrews also wondered, “What if God just decided we’re not worth the trouble? What might that look like?” Yet even the mythical story of a worldwide flood concludes with a fresh beginning for humanity, and God promising, “I’ll never do that again.”

The Bible is a sprawling metanarrative about what it means to be human, and what God has to do with us. It is full of sudden, shocking endings and surprising, graceful beginnings—from the plagues in Egypt to liberation at the Red Sea—from the Babylonian exile to liberation under the Persian King Cyrus.

So when we hear God’s call to the Prophet Jeremiah today, our ears should prick up. The young Jeremiah feels totally inadequate to the call—and anyway, a call from God always means trouble! Well, God first reassures Jeremiah and then gets real about what this call will mean: “See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

When God calls a prophet, the prophet must be ready to proclaim drastic change. Most people won’t want to hear it. But stopping up our ears does nothing to prevent change and will absolutely make us less ready to endure it.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews makes the same point. This anonymous New Testament writer has given us not so much a letter as a long sermon about what Christ accomplished through his life, death, and resurrection. And the author has just turned from presenting his argument to advising his hearers on what they must do in response. Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot in here about being good to one another and hanging in there—living humbly and allowing ourselves to be called up short so we can change and grow—defending the weak and pursuing peace with everyone.

Having said all this, he then explains in today’s passage why we must approach the world in this way: “We’re no longer in a situation where God is only mysterious and potentially deadly, like Moses experienced at Mount Sinai. The new, figurative Jerusalem that has now been inaugurated as Christ’s Kingdom is the nexus of all that is good in the universe. There is only good news here!

“Even so,” the author goes on, and of course I’m paraphrasing, “this is not the time to pursue safety and security, because that’s not what Christ’s Kingdom is about. Change is still inevitable, and sometimes it will still be sudden and drastic. The way to be prepared for change is to do the work every day to remain in right relationship with one another and with the wider world. Hiding from change will do you no good. The ground under your feet will keep shifting, and you will experience pain and discomfort, but you will never be destroyed. No matter what happens in this world, Christ’s Kingdom is unshakeable.”

The author concludes by referring to God as “a consuming fire.” Centuries of images from Dante’s Inferno do not help us understand what this means. We’re not talking about angry punishment, but clearing the brush—like the “controlled burn” we talked about last week. Everything is in transition, because Christ reigns from the cross that has become a throne. All things are moving toward the good, but on the way, we must go through the valley of the shadow of death.

Well, look around our world today. Look around our nation today. You know what I see? Plucking up and pulling down … destruction and overthrow … clearing the way for a future of building and planting. The evidence of this includes incidents of true evil—and people standing up to it.

Look at the videos that are popping up all over social media. Strangers in masks appear, seemingly out of nowhere. They are quickly surrounded by neighbors with cell phone cameras. The neighbors are crying out, “La migra! La migra! Don’t open your doors!”

The neighbors question the strangers: “Why are you wearing masks? What is your badge number? Do you have a warrant signed by a judge?” The questions are deflected or ignored. The masked strangers have guns, and they are obeying the orders of a lawless federal government. Their purpose is to grab people, stuff them into unmarked vans, and disappear. Through our tax dollars, they are paid obscenely high salaries to snatch people away, in clear violation of the Fifth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment.

Hopefully, those who are seized will know the script they are to use: “Am I free to leave?” “I want to speak to a lawyer.” No other spoken words can be helpful to them.

Did you know that for less than $100, you can order from Amazon all the gear you need to dress up as one of these masked strangers? You see what this makes possible, right?

This is what the United States of America has suddenly become. We have transformed from a country that was merely confused and conflicted about immigration … into a country where it is not safe to appear to be undocumented. How does one appear to be undocumented? Yet this vague quality is all that stands between anyone on American soil and the masked strangers—and more and more concentration camps with cute names, funded extravagantly by Congress.

But sometimes the neighbors manage to appear in such great numbers, with so many phones livestreaming to the internet, that they prevent the masked strangers from carrying out their scheme! Sometimes they have educated one another in advance: You have constitutional rights. DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR … DO NOT ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS … DO NOT SIGN ANYTHING! Videos are appearing all over the place that show the masked ones overwhelmed by the crowd. They back up, get into their unmarked van, and drive away.

Our neighbors are being persecuted. And most of us have a choice. We can engage the situation out of love and concern for one another, at the risk of making more trouble for ourselves. Or we can keep ourselves safe. We only get that choice if we happen not to “appear undocumented.”

We are indeed living in a time of great change. The ground is shifting under our feet. But be not afraid. We cannot be destroyed. Our nation can be destroyed and may still be, but that is not our focus. Those who are afraid of inevitable change will go to great and violent lengths to keep themselves in power—but they are the few, and we are the many.

Such has it always been. Those who are afraid of losing power will use it until it’s gone—like the synagogue leader in today’s gospel, who looks at Holy Scripture and sees only rules to follow, even where there are none. There is nothing in the law to prevent Jesus from healing on the Sabbath. That’s this one man’s interpretation, and he arrives at this interpretation by deciding in advance that the Sabbath is more important than the healing. Later, in the rabbinic era, the Mishnah would chronicle what constitutes work on the Sabbath. Healing would not be on the list.

But Jesus has also decided something in advance: liberation from pain can happen anytime, anywhere. Finally freed from bondage, the woman begins praising God. It’s like being given her citizenship after many years of hiding in the shadows. Yet all the synagogue leader can say is, “Why doesn’t she do it the RIGHT way?”

Of course, there is no “right way” that will satisfy him—not if he has to surrender some of his authority to Jesus. Freedom delayed is freedom denied.

“See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Who gets to do these things? Not the traditional leaders, and certainly not the ones who swagger and bully. The work of deconstruction and reconstruction belongs not to them, but to you.

“Who, me? But I don’t know anything!”

Not yet, you don’t. But you don’t need any advance qualifications. You just need God with you. And God is absolutely with you every single day. Nothing will stop the healing God brings—even through the valley of the shadow of death.

Today, my heroes are those courageous neighbors who see injustice happening and gather in great numbers to swarm the offenders and chase them away. It’s happening all over our country. Any one of us can be a part of that—if we’ve decided in advance that healing is the priority.

Are you ready for this inexorable divine healing? Will you stand in its way because you have already decided who should and should not be healed? Have you already decided how to interpret the things you thought were rules? Or have you already decided that healing can be allowed to surprise you, to reveal situations and relationships that are better than you could have imagined?

The ground is shifting. How will you shift to meet this moment? How will the Church of the Good Shepherd shift? We all get to be a part of that. And I don’t know what that shift will look like. But we can decide in advance that any changes to which we commit will be good for our neighbors, good for those who are persecuted, good for God’s Kingdom.

To prepare for great change, for sudden change, we need to develop a habit of prayer, of listening, of discernment. We need decide in advance that healing is the priority, and then the Holy Spirit work out the details. Personally, I think that’s pretty exciting. Let’s commit to dance on this shifting ground together! Amen.