Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
September 21, 2025
Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

The audio of this sermon is available here. The livestream of the full worship service is available on the Trinity Church YouTube channel.

The prophet Jeremiah could have taken the words out of my mouth. “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick” (Jeremiah 8:18). This is a lament, a poem of mourning for the people that Jeremiah knows and loves. They are a people who are hurt, confused, angry, and afraid. It was a violent time of internal upheavals and external threats all those many centuries ago, and Jeremiah breaks down for his people. “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” (9:1). In his time, in the prophet Jeremiah’s time, the people of Israel had come to resent each other and, because they had lost a sense of themselves, they were on the verge of catastrophe. Jeremiah goes on. “Beware of your neighbors, and put no trust in any of your kin; for all your kin are supplanters, and every neighbor goes around like a slanderer. They all deceive their neighbors and no one speaks the truth; they have their tongues to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent.” (9:4-5).

As faithful Christians, we go to the holy scriptures, yes for hope, for consolation, for inspiration. And for the truth. However uncomfortable it may be. For the prophet Jeremiah, while speaking to the ancient people of Israel, also seems to be holding up a mirror to us. Everything old has become new again. What he says is true. We have become weary of our neighbors. We distrust some of our own kin. No one seems to be speaking the truth. Oppressed, worn down by deceit, confused by this world in which we live, we have become too weary to repent. That’s the line from Jeremiah that catches me most of all. “Too weary to repent.”

I do not intend to make any specific comments on all that has happened in the past two weeks. You don’t come to church to hear me offer commentary on current events. But isn’t it funny – you can watch hours of news on your preferred cable news channel, but you get squirmy if I go for more than twelve minutes up here. Huh. But even if you do not come to hear my commentary, I know that you’re trying to figure all this out. And that’s where I think the Church can help. The Church, the scriptures, they don’t tell us what to think, but they help us figure out how to think.

That’s why I’m so drawn to Jeremiah. To me, Jeremiah has properly diagnosed what all is going on. We’re too weary to repent. We’re just tired. Tired of waking up to see yet again this kind of violence and the all too predictable fallout. Tired of the rancor, tired of the bickering, tired of the endless “gotcha” moments that play out in the comments section of Facebook. We’ve resigned ourselves to this, almost as if its’s part of our cultural self-defense mechanism. Some atrocity happens. We all talk about it for fifteen minutes, but we know, in our bones, that something else is eventually bound to happen. So we move on, hunker down, and brace ourselves for whatever is next. Jeremiah isn’t telling us what to think. No, he’s helping make sense of it all. Like the people of Israel must have felt all those centuries ago, we feel powerless to do anything about the state of the world, too tired, too exhausted, too worn down, “too weary to repent.”

So what do we do? How do we get ourselves out of this predicament? How can we move forward without giving into the worst part of ourselves? Where is God in the midst of our weariness, our discontent, our pain? As the prophet Jeremiah asks, in such haunting voice, “Is there no balm in Gilead?”

The Lord God responds with a resounding, “YES.” There is a balm in Gilead. There is hope. There are ways to be different, to do different. God has provided for the “better angels of our nature” (Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address). This is the mission of Jesus. The mission of Jesus is to reconcile the world to God, and the world to each other. Jesus stretches wide his arms upon the cross, pulling me and you together. And when that happens, when we allow the crucified God to grab us and pull us in, no one can say that the suffering belongs to one side or the other. No one can claim that the violence belongs to one or the other. Because, we believe, as Christians, that the suffering is borne by God, by the Lord Jesus who is at the center. The violence, the pain, the agony – Jesus has taken all that upon himself. All we can do is turn everything over at the foot of the cross. That is the balm in Gilead. That is the promise of the prophet Jeremiah. That is our hope. In Christ. 

And how do we get there? Remember what Jeremiah says, “too weary to repent.” I think that’s what we need to keep in mind. We need God to give us the strength and the courage to do the hard work of repentance. Jesus wants to pulls us in, but Jeremiah is right – to repent, to turn around, to get out of the rut, it takes a lot of energy. And right now our spiritual and emotional batteries are all used up. The inertia of this moment weighs heavy upon us. And though Jesus offers to pull us in, we’re too exhausted to move, so we stay right where we are, in our ruts.

So, you’ve heard me say this before – put down your phones. Turn off the TV. Believe me, the news will still be there. That’s how they make their money. Recharge yourself. Go to Bible Study. Say your prayers. Go volunteer. In the words of holy scripture, following the ten commandments, observe the sabbath day and keep it holy. Rest. Spend time with God. God commands us to rest not because it’s good for God, but because it’s good for us. The world is speeding along at breakneck pace. And I do not believe that we have the capacity to keep up with it. It burns us out and uses us up. And we’re left behind, emotionally and spiritually scarred. But there is a balm, a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole, to heal the sin sick soul. This is the Spirit of the living God. Who offers peace and consolation and, thank God, quiet rest. And when we’re rested, when we’re rooted in the grace of God, that’s what gives us the energy to repent, to turn around, to pour ourselves out as vessels of God’s grace to everyone else in the world who is hurting. 

You see, in a way, you are the balm in Gilead. As Jesus heals us, we do the same for the world in the power of the Holy Spirit. You are the one who is called by God to provide some measure of healing and grace and comfort to the people in your lives who are exhausted and burned out. Our souls, our society, our culture are all deeply wounded. And each of us, we have two options. We can rub salt in the wound, or we can be balm for the wound. And if we’re tired, and grouchy, out of touch with God, our thoughtless words will rub salt the wound; making everybody just a bit more irritable. A bit more on edge. And we’ll just keep going along as we’re going. But the opposite is also possible. When we’re well rested, restored in God’s love ourselves, then our words, our actions will be a balm, to make the wounded whole, to heal the sin sick soul. This is our call, as individuals and as the Church. To be rested, grounded in love, found in the cross. Then, and only then, will you and I reach out, like Jesus, and together, we can all repent.

So come to Jesus, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens – anger, and sadness, and resentment, and despair – and he will give you rest. Take his yoke upon you, and learn from him, for he is gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For his yoke is easy, and his burden is light.