"Is there no balm in Gilead?"
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Proper 20C, September 23, 2007
A Sermon by Fr. James Haney V
It's one of the most popular poems in the English language. It's also one of the darkest and most depressing: "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe. The protagonist of the poem is grieving. He is trying to both remember and forget his dead lover. And as an embodied symbol of the dark state that he is in, a talking raven comes and perches on the statue of Pallas Athena above his doorway. And the raven only says one word, "Nevermore."
And the man asks if he'll ever be able to forget his lost love. And the raven says "nevermore."
Then he asks if his soul will be reunited with her in heaven. And the raven says "nevermore."
And he asks if the raven will depart and leave him alone. And the raven says "nevermore."
And the final stanza is dark and haunting and without hope:
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted — nevermore!
There are dark times in life. Sometimes they come and go quickly. And other times they perch, and roost, and sit there, and sit there, and sit there. If you've never experienced it, just wait, you undoubtedly will. Loss, divorce, protracted illness, grief, depression, death. And it can seem sometimes that the darkness will go on forever, that it "shall be lifted nevermore."
That's certainly the very dark theme of our reading from Jeremiah this morning. Jer ch8 p696.
This section is one of Jeremiah's laments. And the pain in this section swirls around. It swirls around so much that you're not sure who is speaking: is it Jeremiah, or is it God?
But perhaps since Jeremiah is speaking as God's prophet, we shouldn't even try to figure that out. Perhaps we need to see this section as a reflection of both Jeremiah's pain, and God's grief over his wayward people.
Our lesson this morning is six verses. And half of those verses simply speak of Jeremiah and God's pain. Hear the pathos:
ch 8 v18 "My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick."
v21 "For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me."
ch 9 v1 "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! "
What profound pain. 'I wish I could cry unlimited tears. I wish I could cry 24/7.' It's hard to imagine a higher level of pain than that.
Sometimes we think that God sits above everyday human emotion, that God is immune and oblivious to human pain. It's especially easy to think that way when you're in pain yourself. "If I'm in pain, that must mean God doesn't care."
Hear God's words through Jeremiah: 'I am hurt, I mourn, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.' Why? 'Because my people are hurting.'
Remember, when God became incarnate in the person of Jesus, he didn't float through life 12 inches above the sorrow and the pain. He experienced pain fully. His heart broke. He cried real tears. He died a real death, a very painful death.
If you're in pain, if you're suffering, if you're struggling, it's often tempting to think that God is distant, that God doesn't care. The word of God through Jeremiah reminds us. God is there. God does care. And his heart is breaking right alongside yours.
That's half of the message of our lesson this morning. God shares our pain and grief and sorrow.
But there's more we need to hear. And this is perhaps the tougher piece for us to hear. There are three other verses in this section woven into the three verses describing God and Jeremiah's pain. And we need to listen to them as well.
The first of these three verses describes the people's complaint but also gives God's complaint.
v19 "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?'"
In the midst of destruction, in the midst of having their nation wiped out and their capital city destroyed, they ask, "Is the LORD not in Zion?" In other words, where is God? And, they ask, "Is the King not in Zion?" In other words, where are the human institutions we've trusted in, that we've looked to for security?
Yet, look at God's comment in the middle of v19 "Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?"
God is saying, 'Yes, I'm in pain.' But God is also saying, 'My people are asking where I am. They're asking where I've gone. And yet my people are the ones who have turned away from me. My people are the ones who have put their trust in idols instead of me.'
It's like the old bumper sticker, "If God seems far away, who moved?" If God seems distant, but you've turned your back on God, if you've let your love for God grow cold, if you've turned to placing your trust to power or possessions or sex or pleasure for your security, then maybe you need to reexamine your life and your relationship to God. Maybe some repentance, some change, some turning toward God is in order. In our baptismal service we ask, "Do you turn to Jesus Christ?" But we also ask, "Whenever you fall into sin, will you repent and RE-turn to the Lord?"
The message of v19 is, if you feel that you're in the darkness, some self-examination and repentance may be in order.
In the second verse, v20 the people say, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."
This is such a wonderful statement. 'We've waited several months God. We've given you 90 days, or 120 days, and you haven't jumped in and fixed things.' That's such a typically human statement. We want it fixed, and we want it fixed now. We want you to do something now.
It turns out that God will turn things around. After Jeremiah's time, God will bring his people back from exile. And God does it 49 years later. Not a few days or weeks or months later. Not even a few years later. But almost 5 decades later. It reminds us that God's time scale is not the same as ours. God may not always act as quickly as we'd like.
If you're living in a dark time, the message of v20 is that you may be there for a while. God's plans may take awhile to play out. You might not get the instant gratification you want. There might even be spiritual lessons for you to learn in the darkness. But you still need to wait expectantly for God to act, and trust that he will act, that he will bring light, in his own good time.
The last of the three verses gives us one more spiritual clue to dealing with dark times.
v22 "Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?"
The balm of Gilead is resin from a balsam tree. It was used in ancient medicines and perfumes.
"Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?"
This verse has often been misinterpreted. In fact, Edgar Allen Poe gets it wrong. In one of the stanzas of "The Raven" the man asks the bird,
"'Is there— is there balm in Gilead?— tell me— tell me, I implore!'
Quoth the Raven, 'Nevermore.'"
The raven's message is that there is no healing, that there is no hope. But that's not what Jeremiah's saying.
"Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?" That means, "Don't you know that there is healing balm available in Gilead? Don't you know that there are physicians there to help you?" It's kind of like traveling to the Mayo Clinic for specialized treatment. So when Jeremiah asks, "Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?" he's basically saying, 'If healing is available, then why aren't my poor people seeking it, why aren't they looking for it?'
The spiritual message is that there is hope, there is light, there is healing that can come from God. The tragedy Jeremiah points to is that his people are not seeking that kind of healing. In his day, seeking healing in Gilead demanded travel, demanded leaving your comfort zone. Spiritually the same thing holds true. To find God's healing, you may have to make a spiritual journey to a new place. You may have to leave your comfort zone behind. You may have to sally forth, trusting in God more than you have before.
But God is there. God is compassionate. And God offers hope. God offers healing. God offers light.
You may need to make a change in your life.
You may need to wait, it may not come as fast as you'd like.
But the message of Jeremiah is that, even in the midst of great pain and grief and darkness, hope is always there.
Edgar Allen Poe Gets it wrong. But actually, the old Afro-American spiritual gets it right:
"There is a balm in Gilead, to make the wounded whole,
There is a balm in Gilead, to heal the sin-sick soul."
In the darkness, seek that healing. Help us O God. Make us whole.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Rev. James P. Haney V
Good Shepherd, Wichita
September 23, 2007
