"Hopeful Realism in Troubled Times"
Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16; Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Rev. Dr. Bruce Epperly, Westmoreland UCC
Sep. 28, 2025
The enemies were at the gates of Jerusalem, and Jeremiah, defying reason and prudence, bought a farm.
Jeremiah said, “The word of God came to me: Hanamel is going to come to you and say, ‘Buy my field that is at Anathoth, you have the right of first refusal.’”
Jeremiah’s friends must have thought the prophet crazy. The Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful ruler of the 8th century BCE, was at the city gates and within weeks, Jerusalem would fall. The great city of David would be in ruins and the best and brightest, the powerful and privileged citizens of Judah exiled to Babylon.
Their judgment on the prophet’s madness was confirmed as Jeremiah purchased the land, signed the deed, and placed the papers in a safe deposit jar. They knew that Jeremiah would never live long enough to plant crops and harvest the fruit of his labors. “It’s irrational to plan for a future you won’t live to see…and prepare for generations that you’ll never meet.” Yet, Jeremiah buys a field, trusting God with the harvest, and sustained by the hope that when we see no way, God makes a way.
Beyond our hopelessness, God has a vision, and that vision will outlast the threats we experience today.
Jeremiah does not deny the dire situation. He sees Nebuchadnezzar’s troops in the distance. His hope is grounded in a realistic assessment of what lies in store for Jerusalem and himself. Yet, he sees a deeper reality, God’s providence, that lies within the historical process and our lives, and God’s providence will have the final word in our lives and history.
Theodore Parker, the abolitionist pastor, knew that this deeper providence was moving forward despite the reality of slavery and the real possibility of civil war. “Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”
Despite human injustice, slavery, attacks on democracy, climate change, governmental medical malpractice and the brutality of ICE, God is at work in history, working toward healing and wholeness and God will have the final word, and it is love. Glory hallelujah, God’s truth is marching on!
Today, no one remembers Nebuchadnezzar, but Jeremiah’s words resound through the ages, shaping our lives and giving us hope in today’s troubled times.
God says, “I have plans for you,
Plans for good and not for evil.
For a future with hope.”
Six weeks ago, I preached about hope in the unseen. Hope faces squarely the challenges we face. Yet, hope sees a deeper reality. God is God, and Nebuchadnezzar isn’t! God is God and prevaricating potentates are not!
Recently I chanced upon these words, as I was working on a Lenten devotional text. They describe Jeremiah’s vision and speak to us in just such a time as now. In one of John Lewis’ last interviews, shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer, Jonathan Capehart asked, “what do you say to people who feel as though they have already been giving it their all but nothing seems to change,“ Discerning a future beyond his lifetime, Lewis responded, “You must be able and prepared to give until you cannot give any more. We must use our time and our space on this little planet that we call Earth to make a lasting contribution, to leave it a little better than we found it, and now the need is greater than ever before.” Earlier that year, Lewis wrote these immortal lines, providing an interpretation of the way of Jeremiah and Jesus in these troubled times. Knowing death was imminent, Lewis spoke to us and to generations of people he would never meet.
Do not get lost in a sea of despair Do not become bitter or hostile. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. We will find a way to make a way out of no way.
We will find a way through the storm and the darkest valley, because God is the Way Maker, and God will bring healing to the sick, liberation to the captives, and harvests to barren lands. The God of the future calls us to be God’s companions in healing the world despite the challenges we face.
On Easter morning, the women come to the tomb, asking “Who will roll the stone away?” and discover that God makes a way, that God rolls away the stone, that God seeks possibility when we see limitation. As we sung six weeks ago,
No storm can shake my inmost calm
while to that Rock I’m clinging.
Since Love is lord of heav’n and earth,
how can I keep from singing?
People thought Jeremiah was crazy to buy a plot of land he would never harvest. People thought Greta Thunberg was wasting her time, when she, as a young teen on the autism spectrum, camped out in front the Swedish Parliament to protest the failure of the world’s leaders to respond to global climate change. And, yet still she speaks to world leaders and recently sought to bring food to Gaza.
When the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther was asked what he would do if he knew the world would end tomorrow, the Reformer responded, “I would plant a tree.”
We don’t know the outcome of our endeavors, but in the meantime, we’ve got work to do – holy work and sometimes good trouble. God calls us to be agents of healing and justice, even if the odds seem insurmountable.
Our church is planting seeds that many of us will never harvest: we are growing a vital children’s and youth program that will shape generations to come, we are supporting refugees with hope that their children will flourish and do great things, we speak for peace in the Middle East, we have installed solar panels and an HVAC system that will last longer than most of us and will be witness to our commitment to clean energy and a comfortable and welcoming environment for future generations at Westmoreland.
I have a dear high school friend, whom I have known for over 55 years. A little over a year ago she was diagnosed with late-stage cancer. Her physician told her “You only have six months to live.” Although she would not claim to be religious in the traditional sense of the word, she had realistic hope and fired her physician. A year later, she is alive and rejoices in every new day. Her future is still uncertain, and she still receives chemotherapy. But, as she told me in a recent phone call, “Every morning, I give thanks for the rose garden I planted and for the simple gift of waking up.”
These are tough times for churches, communities, the nation, and our planet. The forces of hate, incivility, dishonesty, and dictatorship are at the gates of the Capitol, and the soul of the nation is on life support. Many of us are struggling with illnesses of body, mind, and spirit, and we’re uncertain about our future. But, like Jeremiah, we can buy a field and plant seeds for the future. Fully aware of the challenges we face and our own anxieties about the future, we can live faithfully, lovingly, gratefully, and powerfully, claiming each day as opportunity to push forward the moral and spiritual arcs of history, and sow seeds of hope in our care for children and youth at Westmoreland, in the West Bank, in Wheaton Woods, and across the globe. Regardless of what the future brings, our hope is in the impact of our lives on our families, friends, neighbors, and nation today, and in communities and generations we will never meet.
Jeremiah bought a field and seventy years later, the exiles returned and planted new seeds and harvested the land. Jeremiah never saw the harvest, but his dream outlived Nebuchadnezzar: he saw the promised land of freedom, he felt the dream of restoration, and he rolled up his sleeves and pushed forward the moral and spiritual arcs of history.
This is our calling today ... what field will we purchase? What dream will we support? For God is with us, inspiring us. Glory Hallelujah! Thanks be to God! God’s hope is marching on!
