August 30, 2026 - Jeremiah 15:15-21 - Proper 17

As Lutherans, we tend to talk about sin a little differently than some other churches. Sometimes we get into trouble because we don’t talk about sin enough. The Gospel is always paramount and we need to talk about the Law and about sin so that people will desire the Gospel message. God declares you forgiven, but if you don’t think you need to be forgiven then that doesn’t mean much.

For us, God’s Law and God’s Gospel are the two defining elements that run through just about everything he does. Sometimes what he does is Law. Other times it’s Gospel. Really, everything God does is a mixture of both. Whether you see it as Law or Gospel really depends on whether you trust him or not. As Luther points out, both the Israelites and the Egyptians were baptized in the Red Sea. The same act of separating the waters and bringing them back together was a message of salvation and life for the Israelites, but condemnation and death for the Egyptians.

So, because we talk about the Law, we talk about sin. If don’t talk about sin, all of the various sins one can commit and if we don’t point out how destructive they are, then you might come to the conclusion that they aren’t harmful and you won’t even realize the danger until it’s too late.

Sin is death. Sin is separation. Sin is isolation; dark, lonely, and eternal. God doesn’t want you to suffer that fate. He doesn’t want you to do that to yourself. We Christians don’t want anyone to end up in that situation either. So, as a pastor, one of the things I do in my sermons is highlight to dangers of sin. Week after week, I call attention to sin, usually picking out different sins and dangerous habits so that you don’t get too comfortable in those sins and that you recognize them for what they are.

That’s what the prophets like Jeremiah are doing. Century after century, prophet after prophet, each sent to a people who are getting far too comfortable in their sins. For the most part, the messages the prophets bring is unmitigated bad news. There are a lot of sins to draw their attention to. There are a lot of people who think they’re just fine the way they are and see no reason to change. Things will go bad for them, very bad. Famine, drought, and plague, war and the destruction of their cities, destruction of their way of life, exile and death, all of it coming to those who refuse to repent, and that’s just the earthly consequences.

Sin hasn’t changed. The dangers haven’t changed. The church continues to speak the same message because the need is still there and always will be until Jesus returns to complete his victory over sin. Even lifelong Christians get caught up in thinking they’re safe and that the bad things they do aren’t actually sinful.

Much of the book of Jeremiah details his interaction with the stubborn and recalcitrant people of Israel. He does his prophetic duty and calls attention to their sins. No one likes having their sins pointed out and Jeremiah gets the response you’d expect from a lot of comfortable sinners being told they’re evil. They end up treating him pretty horribly. There’s a time or two it looks like he might be at the end of the line.

In this particular instance, the issue is a little more nuanced. Sin is still the problem, but in a different way than we often talk about. Back at the beginning of this section, Jeremiah bemoans his unfortunate lot in life. “Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land! I have not lent, nor have I borrowed, yet all of them curse me.”

Here the problem isn’t coming to terms with sin and admitting it as evil. In this case, the evil and sin has him in its clutches and he doesn’t know how to get out. He can’t seem to escape from it and he calls out to God for deliverance.

God’s response is a little strange. “If you return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me.” Return? In order to return it would mean I had to leave. That doesn’t seem right.

In this case, Jeremiah is under actual, physical threats, but that isn’t really the problem God is addressing. God is instead dealing with a man stuck in a funk. It’s completely understandable why Jeremiah is in a funk, why he’d be depressed, stressed, scared. Still, he is a man stuck and who doesn’t see a way out.

As I said, we talk a lot about sin. Many times we talk about it in terms of how it separates you from God, but here the problem is a bit different. Sometimes the problem isn’t knowing that sin is bad, it’s about knowing how to get yourself free from it. Sure, Christ died so that your sins will be forgiven and the eternal consequences of your sins will be wiped away, but you still live a life full of sin. Even if you know something is a sin, that doesn’t mean you can just choose to be rid of it any more than a drug addict can simply choose to stop taking drugs.

Are your enemies physical? Are they spiritual? Perhaps some of both. Whether Satan is driving people to make your life miserable or whether sin has you in its clutches, whatever the case may be, you’re stuck and you can get yourself free from it. In situations like that, you may find yourself wondering where God is and why he isn’t doing something about it.

The scene calls to mind one of the scenarios every parent dreads and every parent probably has to deal with at some point: looking around and not being able to find your kid. We’ve made a point to try and impress on Paul the need to let us know where he’s going to be. If he’s out at a playground and wants to move to a new spot, he just needs to let us know so we can go with him. We try not to be helicopter parents. We understand the need to for kids to experience the world, to skin their needs and bonk their heads and that sort of thing. The world is full of that and worse and if kids never experience a little of that reality then they can come to the conclusion that the world is all sunshine and puppies. Still, as parents we have an understanding of what sort of things lurk in the darkness that kids have no awareness of at all. There are people out there who will do things no one should ever have to experience, much less a child. So we have to be watchful and vigilant, so that kids only experience as much reality as they’re ready to handle.

When you’re a kid out on the playground, looking around, and you see your parents are nowhere to be found, what do you do? That might depend a bit on what kind of parents you have. If your parents are prone to wandering off, then you may have to go searching for them. But what if they aren’t? If your parents are the type that take their job seriously, that watch out for you and try to keep you safe from anything truly dangerous, what does it mean when you can’t find them?

“Remember me and visit me,” Jeremiah says. “Will you be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fall?” Are you going to always be running away from me and leaving me to fend for myself? Jeremiah wonders where God went.

God doesn’t give him the answer he might have expected. “If you return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me.” I didn’t wander off. You did. You’re the one who left my watchful gaze and my protection. I’ve been right here all along. Instead of continuing to run off, come back, come back where you are safe. Go to where you know you will find me and I will still be there.

The earthly threats against Jeremiah were real, but the grief, the anxiety, and all of the misery that Jeremiah felt were not God’s doing. God had not abandoned him or walked away. Jeremiah was trying to manage things on his own and then complaining when that didn’t work out as well as he hoped. We face our own sins, our own afflictions, our own torments. Sometimes we have to be reminded that we are bringing them on ourselves, but sometimes we know they are bad and want to be free of them. Still, the torments continue because we never seem to get out from under the burden of our sin. Where is God? Why isn’t he protecting me?

The answer to that first question is that God is where he always is. He hasn’t gone anywhere. He never left and he certainly didn’t cast anyone out. There’s a reason why God treated his presence on the Ark of the Covenant as special. Anyone who was looking for him would always be able to find him there. He promised to be there and it was from the Holy of Holies that God gave his grace to a world of sinners. Now we don’t look so much for a place, but for a person. The gracious presence of God is now found in the person of Jesus. Wherever Jesus is, there God is in mercy and grace.

So, where is Jesus? The answer is the same as it always has been. He’s right here. He’s here in the Scriptures. He’s here in the sacraments. He never left. If you’re experiencing stress, torments, grief, and misery. If you’re wondering where God is, the simplest and most direct answer is that it’s probably you that wandered off. Even if you haven’t completely left the fold, just heading that direction has you facing away from God. If you’re a kid in the playground who can’t find his parents, maybe you just need to turn around, then you’ll see they hadn’t actually gone anywhere.

As a baptized child of God, hopefully you have a sense of what sort of parent your Heavenly Father is. He is not one to abandon or cast out. If you don’t see him in your life, then it’s probably you who wandered off. Your Heavenly Father is gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Even when we accuse him of leaving us to fend for ourselves, he gently reminds us of what’s actually going on. He is always willing to forgive, even these false accusations.

He reminds us of where to find him. He reminds us to spend more time with him here, to spend time with him in his word, to spend time with him in prayer, to know that he is always here, right where he promises to be.

Communion is truly the greatest gift God gives us in this world. It isn’t just that he offers his grace through it, as important as that is all by itself. It’s also that God is here. Being here with God at his table is the safest place in the world to be.

Whenever you are frightened, whenever you are sad, whenever you are in doubt, return to the Lord. Return and be restored by his grace and you will stand before him, safe and secure.