Hope in the Field

A Sermon for Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

13 July 2025

 
Jeremiah 32.1–3a, 6–15
John 4.34-38

It was the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah,
            the eighteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
 
It was the year that we call 587 BCE.
            And things were bad—in fact, they were worse than bad.
            Because the Babylonian army was laying siege to Jerusalem. Again.
 
The walls of the city were crumbling,
            the economy had collapsed,
            and death hovered in the air like smoke.
 
And here, in the middle of this devastation,
            Jeremiah the prophet—ever the troublemaker,
                        always out of step with the powerful—
            is under arrest, and imprisoned by the king.
 
It’s hard not to think of Gaza. Of Rafah. Of Jenin.
            It’s hard not to think of refugee camps and war zones,
            of occupied territories and cities held under siege
                        —places where hope feels foolish,
                        where futures are buried in rubble.
 
And into such a moment,
            the prophet of doom buys a field.
 
It’s an absurd thing to do.
            Economically irrational. Politically meaningless. Personally unwise.
 
Jeremiah’s act is not only impractical
            —it’s utterly ludicrous.
 
But that’s the point.
            For the prophet enacts what the imagination dares to dream:
                        that land will again be bought and sold;
            that vineyards will again be planted and harvested;
                        that life will return from exile.
 
And this morning, perhaps more than most,
            we need prophets who will buy fields.
 
The Book of Jeremiah, as many of you will know,
            is not exactly a comfort read.
 
It’s hard going.
            It tells the story of a people in collapse.
 
But nestled in this long, difficult book are remarkable glimpses of hope
            —what Walter Brueggemann calls hope in spite of the data.
 
Chapter 32 is one of those moments.
 
Jeremiah is locked up, the nation is tearing apart,
            and God says to him, “Your cousin is going to come and offer you a field to buy.”
And then, as if to prove that even prophets can be surprised,
            the cousin does.
 
So Jeremiah buys the field.
 
This is not a parable. It’s a land transaction.
            It’s a signed and sealed deed, placed in a jar for safekeeping.
 
It’s boringly bureaucratic.
            And it is the most powerful act of prophetic resistance Jeremiah will perform.
 
We often think of hope as a feeling. A mood.
            But biblical hope is something far more muscular.
 
From a Biblical perspective, hope is something you do.
            It’s the practice of living toward a future not yet visible,
                        but promised nonetheless.
 
This field purchase is not hopeful because things look good,
            but precisely because they don’t.
 
It’s not optimism. It’s resistance.
 
Jeremiah dares to embody an alternative reality.
            He dares to imagine a future shaped not by the brutality of Babylon
            but by the faithfulness of God.
 
And then he dares to live as if that future is coming true.
 
And I wonder—where are the places in our own lives,
            in our city, in our world, where we are called to buy fields?
 
·      What does hope look like in a climate emergency?
·      What does hope look like in a housing crisis?
·      What does hope look like in a broken immigration system?
·      What does hope look like for churches that feel like they are in decline, in exile?
 
Jeremiah’s symbolic field purchase
            is not just a gesture of delayed gratification.
It is a declaration of God’s future being enacted in the present.
 
This is what theologians sometimes call realised eschatology
            —the idea that the reign of God is not just a distant hope
            but a lived reality breaking into the now.
 
Jeremiah is not simply predicting that one day things will be better.
            He is insisting that the promise of restoration
                        is so trustworthy, so real, that it demands action now
                        —even when the evidence suggests otherwise.
 
His field purchase is not about pie-in-the-sky optimism.
            It is a deeply political and theological act,
one that collapses the false divide
            between spiritual hope and material investment.
 
We sometimes fall into the trap of imagining
            that God’s kingdom is only about the life to come.
 
But what if it’s about life right now?
            About justice now, equity now, liberation now?
 
That’s why Jeremiah buries the deed in a jar
            —not to protect it for some heavenly future,
but to preserve it for a restored community,
            on this earth, in that land.
 
This prophetic imagination challenges us:
            do we believe in a God whose promises make demands of our present?
 
A God whose coming reign interrupts our current injustices?
            A God who does not abandon us to despair,
            but who calls us to live as if the New Jerusalem were already among us?
 
At Bloomsbury, we have sought to be this kind of church
            —a people shaped not by the fear of Babylon
                        but by the hope of the kingdom.
 
We do not merely wait for heaven.
            We plant heaven in the middle of history.
 
And poor old Jeremiah is in prison when all this happens.
            Literally locked away.
A prisoner of the king, silenced for his unpopular message.
 
It is not only the city that is besieged
            —so is the prophet.
 
And that’s a familiar experience.
            Sometimes we are imprisoned by circumstances,
                        hemmed in by loss, fear, exhaustion.
 
Sometimes the prison is emotional
            —trauma, regret, or grief.
 
Sometimes the walls are social
            —systems of injustice, racism, or economic exclusion.
 
And sometimes we build the walls ourselves.
 
But Jeremiah’s prophetic act reminds us
            that even from a place of confinement,
            it is possible to choose freedom.
 
Even when the future seems foreclosed,
            it is possible to enact a different story.
 
The work of faith is not always to escape the prison,
            but to live faithfully within it.
 
To do the thing that makes no sense.
            To buy the field. To prepare for return.
            To invest in a future you may not live to see.
 
And so Jeremiah buys the field.
 
He weighs out the silver. He signs the deed.
            He calls witnesses. He stores the document.
 
He does all the things people do
            when they believe there will be a tomorrow.
 
Let’s be clear: this is a terrible investment.
            The land is already under Babylonian control.
            The title deed means nothing to them.
 
Jeremiah will never farm that land.
            And yet, he goes through the ritual,
                        not because he expects a return on investment,
                        but because he expects a return from exile.
 
He is not just engaging in prophetic theatre.
            He is enacting a truth deeper than power:
                        that empires fall, that hope survives,
                        and that God’s promises outlast Babylonian armies.
 
Here at Bloomsbury, we also buy fields
            —metaphorically, perhaps, but no less powerfully.
 
When we welcome the stranger in our midst,
            we are buying fields.
 
When we speak truth to power through our community organising,
            we are buying fields.
 
When we say that LGBTQ+ lives are holy and beloved,
            we are buying fields.
 
When we open our doors to artists, activists, and pilgrims,
            we are investing in futures others cannot yet see.
 
We are stubbornly and prophetically choosing to live into God’s tomorrow,
            even when today feels like exile.
 
There’s something quietly beautiful about the detail
            that the deed of purchase is placed in a jar of clay.
 
It’s a preservation act—proof that history isn’t over.
 
The jar becomes a vessel of hope.
            A container for possibility. A sacred trust to the future.
 
We all have our jars.
            Perhaps they are stories. Or songs. Or sacraments.
Perhaps they are relationships, or communities, or buildings like this one.
 
Things we preserve not to escape the present,
            but to proclaim the future.
 
“Put them in an earthenware jar,” says Jeremiah,
            “so that they may last a long time.”
 
We are the custodians of jars,
            holding space for God’s future.
 
And sometimes, when all seems lost,
            it is enough to keep the jar sealed, to preserve the deed,
to say with our actions:
            this land, this life, this future still belongs to God.
 
The act of placing the deed in a jar is not just about preservation.
            It is about entrusting a story to the future.
 
Jeremiah knows he might not be the one to see the fulfilment
            —but someone will.
 
And his small, faithful act will become part of their story.
 
Some of us carry longings that feel unfulfilled.
            Prayers that haven’t been answered.
            Griefs that have not healed.
 
We wonder if the work we have done
            —our loving, our labouring, our witnessing—
                        has mattered at all.
 
We bury our deeds in jars,
            and wonder if anyone will remember.
 
But the gospel assures us that nothing offered in faith is lost.
 
Maybe you are grieving something that never came to fruition
            —a relationship, a vocation, a vision for life.
 
Maybe, as a church, we look back on times of flourishing
            and wonder if those days are gone forever.
 
But Jeremiah’s deed tells us that memory and hope are not separate things.
            They are the same thing held in tension.
 
We do not need to resolve the tension.
            We are simply called to live within it.
 
To trust that what we place in jars of clay
            —our love, our witness, our longing—is held by God.
 
So keep the deed. Bury it in the jar.
            And know that it is safe.
 
Because one day, someone will find it.
            One day, someone will harvest the field we bought in faith.
 
And when they do,
            they will give thanks for those who dared to hope in dark times.
 
We don’t know if Jeremiah lived to see the fulfilment of the promise.
            Probably not.
 
But the point isn’t whether he returned.
            It’s that he acted as if return were possible.
 
And in doing so, he planted seeds for others.
 
This is the paradox of prophetic ministry:
            it often looks futile in the moment.
 
But it seeds the ground for transformation.
 
Jeremiah bought a field he would never harvest.
            And in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples something remarkably similar:
“One sows and another reaps.
            I sent you to reap that for which you did not labour.
Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.” (John 4:37–38)
 
These words come just after
            Jesus has spoken with the Samaritan woman at the well
—a woman who, like Jeremiah,
            dares to hope in the face of exclusion.
 
And Jesus, in turn, offers a vision of divine purpose
            that transcends the boundaries of time and tribe.
 
The disciples are eager to get on with the harvest
            —to see results, to do something visible, something tangible.
 
But Jesus points them deeper.
            He invites them to live in solidarity with the slow, patient work of the Spirit.
 
To enter into the labour of others.
            To join the quiet sowers of seeds.
 
There’s humility in this invitation, as well as hope.
            Because the work of the gospel is not a solo project.
            It is shared. Layered. Collective. Intergenerational.
 
We inherit the fields others have sown in tears.
            We harvest from justice movements long forgotten.
            We draw from wells we did not dig.
 
And still we sow again
            —trusting that even our smallest acts of love and resistance
            become part of a larger harvest in God.
 
Sometimes we see the fruit. Often we do not.
            But still we plant. Still we water. Still we labour.
 
This is what Jesus calls food
            —his sustenance, his very purpose:
“My food is to do the will of the one who sent me, and to complete that work.”
 
This is the nourishment of the faithful.
            Not accolades. Not outcomes.
But the deep joy of joining our lives
            to the long, slow redemption of the world.
 
So yes—Jeremiah bought a field.
            And we, too, sow our seeds.
 
In sermons preached and bread broken.
            In protest marches and policy meetings.
 
In songs sung and letters sent
            and prayers whispered at hospital bedsides.
 
We enter into the labour of saints and prophets.
            We plant vineyards we may never drink from.
We work for justice we may never fully see.
 
But Christ is the Lord of the harvest.
            And even now, the fields are ripe.
 
In our work—whether in church, in justice campaigns,
            in quiet acts of care and compassion—
            we may not always see the results.
 
But we do not labour in vain.
            The field is bought. The deed is stored. The promise is alive.
 
One day, houses and fields and vineyards will again be bought in the land.
            And the call to us, friends, is to live that truth now.
 
To buy the field.
To store the deed.
To plant the seed.
 
Jeremiah’s story reminds us that faith is not about escaping exile
            but about finding God in the middle of it.
 
And hope in exile is not a vague feeling,
            but a radical act of commitment.
 
It’s not easy. It’s often costly.
            But it is the gospel-shaped way of living.
 
A cruciform hope that trusts in resurrection
            even while standing by the tomb.
 
We are called, here and now,
            to be a people of field-buying faith.
 
So may we, like Jeremiah, risk absurd hope.
 
May we invest in God’s tomorrow, even in the ruins of today.
 
And may our deeds of love and justice
            be found in jars of clay,
            testifying that the story is not over.
 
Amen.

Sowing the Seeds of the New Creation

A Sermon for Christ Church, New Southgate & Friern Barnet Baptist Church

6 July 2025

 

Galatians 6:1–16 

There’s a quiet revolution going on in our passage for today

            from Paul’s letter to the Galatians,
and it’s a revolution that echoes down to our world today,
            because it’s a revolution that resists the loud, combative powers
            of religion and politics alike,
inviting instead a Spirit-shaped life of gentleness, generosity, and grace.

We live in a world that thrives on division.
            Just open your preferred news-app, or scroll social media,
or listen to debates about immigration, gender,
            the environment, or education.

There is so much polarisation, so many lines drawn between “us” and “them.”
            Even within the church, we find ourselves fractured
            —by doctrine, by tradition, by fear of what is changing around us.

It’s from just such a divided world that Paul’s words come to us today,
            not as a clanging gong, but as a gentle summons:

“Bear one another’s burdens…
            and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.”

And I find myself wondering,
            what would it look like if we took that seriously?

If we truly believed that the life of faith
            is not about defending boundaries or proving we’re right,
but about sowing to the Spirit—
            about being people of compassion, of humility, of new creation?

Paul opens this passage with a pastoral instruction that is disarmingly gentle:

“If anyone is detected in a transgression,
            you who have received the Spirit
            should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness.”

It’s a striking departure from the angry tone
            Paul has used elsewhere in the letter.

He has been battling fiercely against those
            who were insisting that Gentile believers
            had to be circumcised to be truly Christian.

But now, as he turns toward his conclusion, his tone softens.
            He stops shouting and starts shepherding.

And the word he uses—restore—
            is the same one used for mending fishing nets.

This isn’t about punishment or exclusion; it’s about healing.

When someone messes up,
            our call is not to cut them off or shame them, but to mend the net.

To gently help them find their way back into community, into wholeness.

This is a hard word in a cancel culture, where failure is often final.
            Our world says, “Expose them. Shame them. Cut them out.”
            But the Spirit says, “Restore them.”

This also means we have to recognise our own vulnerability.

Paul continues, “Take care that you yourselves are not tempted.”
            We’re all fragile. We all fall.

And so we approach one another not from a place of superiority,
            but solidarity.

Church, if we can’t be a community of restoration, who will be?

Paul continues:

            “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.”

This is the heart of the passage.

In a world obsessed with individualism, Paul calls us into a radical mutuality.
            Not just, “Look after yourself,” but “Carry each other.”

The burdens are many.
            For some, it’s the weight of mental illness or depression.

For others, it’s the daily anxiety of poverty or food insecurity.
            Still others carry grief, illness, loneliness, or the exhaustion of caregiving.

The person in the pew next to you may be carrying more than you know.

And Paul doesn’t say, “Fix each other’s burdens.”
            He says “bear them.”

Walk alongside. Be present.
            Offer prayer. Offer time. Offer listening ears.

Sometimes just staying near
            is the most Spirit-filled act we can perform.

But then he adds something curious:
            “For each of you have to carry your own load.” (v.5)

At first glance this contradicts what he just said.
            But the Greek words are different.
The “burdens” we are to bear together
            are heavy, crushing weights.
The “load” each is to carry is more like a backpack
            —a personal responsibility.

In other words, we don’t offload our responsibilities onto others,
            but neither do we let others struggle alone
            with what no one should carry by themselves.

In our culture of burnout and busyness,
            this is a revolutionary vision of church
—not as a place we go to consume spiritual goods,
            but as a community we belong to, where we all give and receive.

Paul then shifts his metaphor from burden-bearing to sowing:

“You reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit.”

Sowing is slow work. It’s not flashy.
            It doesn’t get you viral fame or immediate returns.
But over time, it transforms the landscape.

And sowing to the Spirit means investing our lives
            in ways that align with God’s kingdom:
            generosity, compassion, justice, patience, peacemaking.

In contrast, sowing to the flesh
            —what we might today call ego, status, or self-preservation—
            leads to the withering of our humanity.

Paul is echoing here something Jesus said often:
            that the path to life comes through giving ourselves away.

Paul acknowledges this is tiring work.
            “Let us not grow weary in doing what is right”, he says.

Because the harvest doesn’t always come when we want it.
            Sometimes we sow seeds of kindness or justice and see no fruit.
            Sometimes we wonder if our efforts matter.

But Paul insists they do. He says we should keep sowing. Keep praying.
            Keep showing up. The Spirit is at work.

There’s something powerful, even subversive,

            about Paul’s metaphor of sowing and reaping
            in our current ecological moment.

In an age of climate breakdown, unsustainable consumption,
            and economic exploitation, his words land with renewed force.

“You reap whatever you sow.”

We know this to be true.
            We’re seeing, globally, the harvest of generations of sowing to the flesh
            —of living as though the earth were disposable,
                        as though people were commodities,
            as though we ourselves were gods.

Rising seas, choking forests, displaced communities.
            The world groans, as Paul says elsewhere,
            under the weight of our choices.

But the good news is:
            it’s not too late to sow differently.

Sowing to the Spirit means reimagining
            how we live in the world God has made.

It means aligning our lives with God’s justice.
            Not just personally, but collectively.

It means asking: how do our choices affect others?
            What does it look like to bear the burden of ecological repentance?
            Of climate responsibility?

Sowing to the Spirit might look like divesting from fossil fuels,
            campaigning for food justice,
                        supporting local community gardens,
            or simply learning to live with less so that others can have enough.

It might mean walking alongside those
            whose burdens are increased by the injustices of our systems:
            the poor, the marginalised, the displaced.

Paul’s metaphor is hopeful.
            A seed is small. It takes time. But it carries life.

If we sow generously, intentionally, prayerfully—even in the smallest acts—
            the Spirit brings the growth.

A more just, more sustainable, more compassionate world begins to emerge.

Paul now picks up his pen and writes in his own hand

            —emphasising the final point.

The troublemakers in Galatia
            want the Gentile believers to get circumcised,
not because it’s spiritually helpful,
            but because it makes them look good in front of others.

They want to avoid persecution
            from the more conservative elements of the Jewish community.

But Paul isn’t having it. He says:

            “I will boast only about the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v.14)

Why? Because for Paul, the cross is the great leveller.
            It’s where all our boasting dies
            —whether in religion, nationality, gender, or success.

And then he writes the sentence that sums up his whole theology:

            “It does not matter at all whether or not one is circumcised;
            what does matter is being a new creature.” (v.15)

This is what matters.
            Not whether we wear the right labels.
            Not whether we look religious.

But whether we are part of God's new creation.
            Whether we are letting the Spirit remake us.

This “new creation” is not something that will arrive at the end of history.
            It’s already breaking in—here, now,
            in people and communities where the Spirit is bearing fruit.

Where burdens are shared, the fallen restored,
            the poor remembered, the marginalised embraced.

These are the signs of the new creation,
            the inbreaking kingdom of God.

Paul’s declaration that what matters most is being a new creature,

            is not just a spiritual affirmation.
            It is a radical redefinition of belonging.

In Christ, the old categories that once marked people in or out
            —circumcision or uncircumcision, Jew or Gentile,
                        male or female, slave or free—
            are no longer the measure of inclusion.

What matters is not ethnicity, religious pedigree,
            social status, or conformity to cultural norms,
but whether we are being made new in the Spirit.

This is profoundly disruptive.

It unsettles any community—ancient or modern—
            that seeks security by drawing boundaries.

Because Paul is not interested
            in the maintenance of religious identity for its own sake.

He’s interested in how the gospel
            breaks down walls and builds something new.

And that’s as challenging now as it was then.

We, too, live in a world of labels.
            Conservative, liberal. Cis, trans.
                        Citizen, refugee. Black, white, British, other.

Labels that help us organise society
            —but also divide us, categorise us, judge us, and exclude.

But in Christ, Paul insists, there is a new logic at work.
            The church is to be the place where these labels are relativised,
                        where no one is dismissed or elevated based on their category,
            where each person is received as a bearer of the Spirit,
                        a participant in the new creation.

This doesn’t mean pretending differences don’t exist.
            It means they no longer determine value or belonging.

It means being a community where everyone
            —regardless of background, status, gender, sexuality, or history—
            is seen as a beloved child of God.

To be the church in this way is not easy.
            It asks us to surrender control, to widen our circle,
            to trust the Spirit’s work in others.

But it is exactly here, in this kind of inclusive community,
            that the cross takes root and the new creation becomes visible.

So what does this mean for us—here, now, at Christ Church?

Paul’s words call us to ask: What kind of seeds are we sowing?

• Are we sowing seeds of inclusion, or exclusion?
• Are we sowing grace, or judgement?
• Are we sowing community, or competition?
• Are we sowing gentleness, or aggression?

We are in a moment of great opportunity.
            The world around us is asking big questions
            about truth, identity, justice, and community.

People are hungry for places of authenticity and grace.
            And here, in this church, you have something beautiful to offer.

What if we became a place where burdens are gently shared,
            not silently carried alone?

What if we became a place where people who have failed or fallen
            find restoration, not rejection?

What if we became a people so deeply rooted in the Spirit
            that the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience,
                        kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control
            just kept growing among us?

That’s what it means to be a new creation.
            Not perfect, but Spirit-shaped.
            Not flashy, but faithful.

And yes, this kind of community will cost us something.
            It may mean carrying someone else’s grief when we’re already tired.
            It may mean stepping into uncomfortable conversations.
            It may mean giving generously when resources are thin.

But Paul reminds us:
            “let us not become tired of doing good;
            for if we do not give up, the time will come when we will reap the harvest

Which brings us to the Table.

Here, in bread and wine,
            we encounter the One who bore our burdens.

The One who sowed his life into the soil of our broken world.
            The One who, through the cross, has brought about a new creation.

Here we see the shape of the gospel
            —not in outward appearances, but in brokenness and blessing shared.

Communion is not a reward for the righteous.
            It is sustenance for the journey.
            It is food for the weary, grace for the burdened, hope for the discouraged.

So as we come to this table today, let us come:

• Not boasting in ourselves, but in Christ crucified.
• Not as individuals, but as a community—gathered in grace.
• Not to escape the world, but to be renewed for our calling in the world.

Here we are reminded: We are one body.
            We belong to each other. We are being made new.

Let us sow to the Spirit.
            Let us bear one another’s burdens.
            Let us live as signs of the new creation.

In the name of the Christ who gathers us,
            restores us, and sends us.
Amen.