Whenever I have to preach at a decisive period in my life - private, professional or institutional - I am often attracted by the prophecy of Jeremiah and by the story of the field at Anathoth in particular. I used this passage in the prophecy of Jeremiah for the service of installation when I became General Secretary of EECCS in 1990; I also used it as the basis of a meditation at the CEC Central Committee meeting when the agreement between EECCS and CEC was adopted. It seemed almost natural to preach on it at the last meeting of the CEC Central Committee which I shall attend as a staff member.

Like all the prophets, Jeremiah was responding to the signs of his times and communicating God’s message in the context of his age. But perhaps his message has also a universal application which speaks to all times. For me it has a message which resonates with the situation of today. I sense too a person who was something of an official. It does not work to try to see people of another age in terms of our own but perhaps it is not stretching things too much even to call Jeremiah a bureaucrat. I find appealing the idea of a bureaucrat called to be a prophet. Let us turn, however, from this speculation to the message of the prophet.

Jeremiah was imprisoned because of the unpopular message he was speaking in a Jerusalem besieged by the Babylonians. He was telling king Zedikiah that he was doomed to defeat and exile, although even that message is tempered by Yahweh’s promise to visit Zedikiah in exile. It is in response to Zedikiah’s asking him "Why do you make a prophecy like this?" that Jeremiah gives his account of buying the field at Anathoth.

The action is not that of a prudent businessman. Anathoth is behind the lines of the besieging Babylonians. If Jeremiah was right about the outcome of the siege he was unlikely to be able to occupy the land which he had bought. Nor was it the action of a careful politician, for to buy land in territory occupied by the enemy could be interpreted as the treasonable act of a collaborator. Nor even was it a sensible action as a human being, for the other mention of Anathoth in the book of Jeremiah is of his brothers and family members and others in Anathoth who threatened him with death if he continued to prophecy in the name of Yahweh. In this situation Jeremiah buys a field with all the solemn and necessary legal steps described and has the title deeds of the field put in an earthenware pot for a long period of storage.

The action was an example of an enacted prophesy by which Jeremiah communicated the message that whatever the appearances, whatever the impossible situation in which the country and its people found themselves, however long invasion, siege and exile might endure, the faithfulness of God was such that "People will buy fields and vineyards in this land again". Jeremiah affirms that, through the faithfulness of God, there is and there will be a future for God’s people - however unfaithful some of the people will be.

This enacted prophesy of Jeremiah links with our other Bible readings this morning. The letter to the Hebrews speaks also about those who saw an uncertain future but who nevertheless acted on the basis that there would be a future. The writer of the epistle traces the history of the faith of those who have gone before and who only partially knew the fulfilment of the promises of God made known in Jesus. In the passage which we read, the image of the promises of God is of a city to which their wanderings and journeying should eventually lead them - the search for their better homeland.

In the Gospel of Matthew, we read the words of Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, encouraging his listeners to trust in God above all things. They are to set their hearts on the kingdom of God and on God’s righteousness or justice and all other necessary things will be added. Worry and anxiety are the symbols of lack of faith; the faithful will pursue the kingdom.

So the field at Anathoth, the search for a city and a homeland that is from God, the pursuit of the kingdom of God are signs of our faith in God. They are signs that there is a future into which God is calling us. They are signs that God accompanies us on our journey into that future. That is a message that could speak to the times of Jeremiah, could speak to the persecuted community which received the letter to the Hebrews, could speak to those who listened to the Sermon on the Mount. It can speak to us today and encourage us not simply to speak but to take action.

Where do we buy our Anathoth fields in Europe today? From where could God be calling us to take action for the future? Where do we say that there is a future to which God is calling us? Let me suggest three ideas which seem pertinent to me. Let me start with one which is unashamedly political. For me, one Anathoth field is to say that there is a future for the pursuit of European integration. For over fifty years people in Europe have tried to build institutions which assure peace and solidarity for the peoples and nations of Europe. For CEC’s Church and Society Commission to have sent in a submission to the Convention on the Future of Europe is for me an equivalent of signing the title deeds for a field at Anathoth. We have affirmed that this European journey is something worth pursuing if it continues to contribute to peace, solidarity and reconciliation in Europe, if it enables people to live together in harmony in the midst of their diversity and affirms that diversity as a value in itself, and if it contributes to global justice. It is a path worth following and an aim worth speaking up for.

Second, there is a future for pursuing the unity of God’s people, in seeking the unity of the Church. There is a future in ecumenism. Part of our European journey is the Charta Oecumenica as churches in Europe seek to be reconciled with one another and to heal the wounds which their actions and the actions of their leaders and members have inflicted on the body of Christ over the centuries and exported to other parts of the world. So the Charta Oecumenica is another of the title deeds which we carry into the unexplored future in hope and expectation that it will lead us closer and closer together as the people of God in Europe.

Third, there is a future in being the Church. Too often in Europe we sense that we are tired, we are losing members, we are losing vitality. I am currently reading a book by the British sociologist of religion, Grace Davie, who argues that Europe is an exceptional case in today’s world of a loss of significance of the institutional church. In other continents there is a vitality of believing and belonging while in Europe many people believe but they no longer have the same sense of belonging to the Church. So the discussion on mission in Europe and the work that CEC seeks to do in looking at mission in today’s Europe is another title deed for a field in Anathoth.

I will go into retirement in September affirming a commitment to the unity of Europe as a still desirable goal, a commitment to the continuing search for the unity of the Church and a commitment to discovering the ways of carrying out mission in today’s world and especially in today’s Europe. I hope that those will also remain high among the priorities of CEC. Those are the title deeds which I would want to put in the earthenware pot as assertions of our future. But I also want to remember that the field at Anathoth was not an end in itself. It symbolised a belief that God who is with us always was calling from a future, promising to be faithful in that future and urging God’s people to a faithful response. I take away from here this morning, and I hope that you do too, a commitment to follow faithfully where God leads and calls. May the faithfulness of the God revealed to us in the Risen Christ give us the strength to be faithful and to journey into God’s future whatever it may contain.

Keith Jenkins

3 June 2002