Sun. Jan. 2, 2011 (Henry Neufeld)

Henry Neufeld told of Jeremiah being imprisoned by his government for not being patriotic and for continually criticizing government, even going so far as to declare that God was surely on the enemy's side, not that of the Jews. When Jeremiah's cousin offered to sell land to the prophet--land that was already under enemy control and was inaccessible to Jeremiah, he bought it anyway, a seemingly hopeless gesture which was intended to make a point: One should look ahead, with faith in God, and act accordingly. Hope can be merely a thought or it can be expressed concretely as an act. Jeremiah hoped that, in spite of the impending crisis, his future descendants would eventually live on this new parcel of land. In a similar way, he also looked ahead, in hope, to the time when God would be able to make a new covenant with people, one not extolling external regulations but rather one which internalizes moral and ethical values. Do we look ahead and act, in hope, in ways that will possibly benefit future generations long after we are gone? [JEK] Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday, January 2nd, 2011 using your browser's preferred media player.