Trivial Pursuit Sept 2, 2001 Jeremiah 2:4-13 Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 ***** Probably most of you have played Trivial Pursuit.. that game in which you are rewarded for knowing a variety of trivial things... Like who was the male lead in the movie "Rebel Without a Cause" Or what team won the world series in 1943. But when the prophet Jeremiah talked about it, trivial pursuit was what the people of his land were doing at the time... They had turned away from the God who had brought them out of Egypt and into a fertile land and were pursuing all sorts of false gods and worthless idols. They were defiling that land and making their inheritance a wasteland. My how times have NOT changed. Here we are in the land filled with the most amazing wonders on every side... With opportunities not known by mankind since the garden of Eden With freedoms never before available to humanity... With abundance on every side and we are trashing it through our pursuit of the most trivial things. And it extends from shore to shore... from children to senior citizens... from atheist to Christian... And it includes every single one of us here. But before I get into this , let me make a few comments. I had long ago decided that when we finished the series of sermons on Luke’s parables that I would return to the lectionary and seek to focus on the Old Testament to preach from those scriptures primarily for a while. Little did I know beforehand what that would mean. For when I turned to this morning’s scriptures, I found myself staring at a mirror. A mirror that reflected on me and the society in which I live. I found myself recalling that passage we talked about last week where Isaiah is in the throne room of God, saying, "Woe is me... I am lost... for I am a man of sinful lips and I live among a people of sinful lips..." And you know friends, it isn’t simply the words we say either... Its our pursuit of the most trivial things. The bottom line is a phrase that we’ve become used to in recent times. The bottom line means that money is the god in our society. The bottom line directs virtually every decision in our country. We’re told that the bottom line forces companies to lay off workers, and to expect people to give their lives to the same company which will lay them off with a moment’s notice. The bottom line requires us to compete in a world market by sending manufacturing to cheaper workforces overseas... It means that benefits must be cut or eliminated. The bottom line means that the environment and the people must come second to profits. The bottom line means that children come in a distant second to adults. The bottom line says to us in so many ways that the single most important product is the amount that’s left over at the end of the year for stockholders. The bottom line in a church absolutely limits the amount of mission work, youth work, and increasingly even whether churches can afford clergy or not. Its this kind of bottom line thinking that made Jeremiah cry out. Its this kind of thinking that led to his outburst today. But before we get to that, lets take a few moments to get to know the man Jeremiah and the times in which he lived. ***** He was born in Judah about 650 BC during the reign of  King Josiah. His father was a priest, and by many accounts he was the "High priest." Josiah was a good king. According to the book of  Second Chronicles "Josiah did what was pleasing to the Lord." He destroyed the pagan shrines and temples. He saw to it that the altars to Baal were torn down. He had the Lord’s temple restored and worship of the Lord was again undertaken, and he reinstituted the observance of passover. Jeremiah apparently liked Josiah and his reforms. But when Josiah died during a battle with Egypt, a new king came into power... Jehoiakim... who was weak, conniving, and who once again instituted worship of idols and other forms of pagan worship. Now, I said that this history is important in understanding Jeremiah. Because it is during this time, and later during the time of the Babylonian captivity that Jeremiah was called to speak God’s word to the people. Jeremiah saw the apostasy that was going on and God called him to speak out against it. You know, there’s a difference between profit, spelled p-r-o-f-i-t and prophet spelled p-r-o-p-h-e-t. The first is what we think of as the bottom line... the second is what God thinks of as the bottom line. I’m convinced that the world today needs a lot more thinking about God’s bottom line and a lot less thinking about the world’s bottom line. Today’s scripture reading is the first of many prophecies that God tells Jeremiah to say. In the second chapter of his book we hear him leveling God’s indictment against the Israelites: "I brought you into a fruitful land to enjoy its bounty and goodness. And you defiled that land. You corrupted the inheritance I had promised you. The priests did not ask, "Where is the Lord? The judges ignored me, the rulers turned against me and the prophets spoke in the name of Baal. Go west to the land of Cypress... go east to the land of Kedar. Think about what you see there.  See if anyone has ever heard anything as strange as this.  Has any nation exchanged its gods for another god, even though its gods are nothing.  Yet my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols.  The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back in horror and dismay, says the Lord. For my people have done two evil things:  They have forsaken me-the fountain of living water, and they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that hold no water at all!" Lets talk for a few moments about prophets, spelled p-r-o-p-h-e-t. Who are they? They’re people who see with a "third eye" .... Now I’m not talking about some giant from Gulliver’s travels here. The prophet’s third eye is the eye that looks beneath the surface to examine and expose God’s truth of any matter. Prophets are God’s investigative reporters, commissioned to make certain that God’s viewpoint is heard. But of course, a prophet is often a very lonely voice... because there is no profit in it. He’s that voice crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." This was what had Jeremiah so upset. He saw the desecration of the temple, he noted how the people were turning from God to Baal selling their birthright for a mess of pottage. and his third ear... the ear tuned to God’s voice called him to warn the people... and he did. As I said before, How times have NOT changed! Look at our own society today. We’re so intent on following the p-r-o-f-i-t-s, that we’ve lost sight of the p-r-o-p-h-e-t-s. Let me give you a few examples: Last week I read that the New York Giants football team decided to hire a new placekicker. The minimum wage for an experienced person in the NFL is $475,000 per year. They ended up paying him that much plus more incentives if he does good. And yet suppose that you wanted to take a job as a nursery teacher in this country. With a college degree, you’d be lucky to find a job paying $20,000 per year. Where are our values? The AIDS disease is absolutely decimating Africa and other third world countries. Children are often losing both their parents to it. And yet how much energy and effort and money is being applied to solving this crisis. We spend more on pets annually than we do on this disease. Nearly every crisis has a "not in my backyard" element to it. Who thinks that if the issue of dredging were reversed, that is with the dredging happening downstream and the cleaner rivers up here, that the people calling for dredging and those opposed would not switch? Here’s another: I absolutely love the work that we’ve done on our building in the past few years. The new entryway, the renovated bathrooms and offices, the new parking lot... and even the Thrift Store... I wonder what it would be like if we applied the same energy to evangelism as we have to these things... Would the church not be filled to overflowing each and every Sunday? This is what we are commanded to do by our Lord. And why is it that this church, and most every other one I know is struggling financially each year to meet our bills. You know that the bottom line in this case means that there are many things that don’t get done. And what about our commitment to our children and youth... How hard it is each year to come up with Sunday School teachers and youth workers. And then there are the constant battles that church leaders fight over one issue or another. Of course the current one that has been sapping our strength for ten years now is the issue of ordination of homosexuals... Before that it was women in the pulpit, and before that, I don’t know what. If we should ever manage to deal with this one, who thinks that we won’t immediately find another one to fight??? I wonder if God isn’t getting fed up with us too. Thank God that we have Jesus to intercede.