Searching for Truth (10th Pentecost / Proper 15C)
- Guillermo Arboleda
- Aug 17
- 6 min read
A sermon by the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, written for and delivered at All Saints' Episcopal Church, Tybee Island, GA, on Sunday, August 17, 2025, which is the 10th Sunday after Pentecost (RCL Proper 15, Year C).
Primary Bible Readings
Jeremiah 23:23-29 (NRSVue)
23 Am I a God near by, says the Lord, and not a God far off? 24 Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? says the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord. 25 I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, “I have dreamed! I have dreamed!” 26 How long? Will the hearts of the prophets ever turn back—those who prophesy lies and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart? 27 They plan to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, just as their ancestors forgot my name for Baal. 28 Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? says the Lord. 29 Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?
Luke 12:49-56 (NRSVue)
49 “I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze! 50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 52 From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 53 they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” 54 He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain,’ and so it happens. 55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,’ and it happens. 56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
Searching for Truth
By the Rev. Guillermo A. Arboleda, Program Manager for New Starts, ELCA
Today’s reading from Jeremiah gives us a window into a part of ancient Israelite society that is probably very foreign to us. This snippet from Jeremiah, chapter 23, is part of a longer section about false prophets. We remember Jeremiah and several other figures from the Old Testament as Prophets (usually with a capital “P”). We look back on their sayings and their writings as inspired with God’s truth. They were talking about their own current events, but somehow, we can still learn things about God’s character from them today.
But when Jeremiah was alive, he wasn’t always recognized as a prophet. In fact, back in those days, “prophet” was an actual job someone could have in the royal court. And Jeremiah did not have that job. He grew up as a priest in a small town far from Jerusalem, and he never wanted to be a prophet. He was not on the king’s payroll, and it showed. Because he frequently delivered bad news that nobody wanted to hear. Of all the biblical prophets, Jeremiah was probably the most unpopular during his lifetime. The Kingdom of Judah was almost always at war during Jeremiah’s lifetime. Most of the king’s prophets would preach about how God would protect them and lead them to victory. Jeremiah almost always preached the opposite. We’re going to lose because we don’t obey God. We’re living wrong, and we know it, but we act like God is going to stand with us anyway. He got arrested several times to try to shut him up and stop him from preaching his words from the Lord. Jeremiah tried to quit prophesying multiple times, but God famously wouldn’t let him. Jeremiah 20:9 says, “If I say, ‘I will not mention [God] or speak any more in [God’s] name,’ then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot [do it].”
In chapter 23, Jeremiah railed against the false royal prophets. He accused them of misleading the Israelites with false messages of comfort. He said that they preached about their own opinions or hopes (the “deceit of their own heart”) and called their messages the word of the LORD (23:26). The false prophets preached the false belief that God was for Israel alone. They acted as if God was only near to them and not “far off” (23:23). In other words, God “fills heaven and earth” and is concerned with the whole universe (23:24).
The false prophets filled people with the arrogant belief that God will defend them no matter what. Jeremiah preached that the king and the people needed to stop exploiting the poor, working on the sabbath, lying, stealing, and coveting (you know, the Ten Commandments). But the false prophets said that Jerusalem was invulnerable because God was on their side. When Judah fought back against Babylon, they were slaughtered, their city walls knocked down, their Temple in Jerusalem burned down, and their people carried off to exile and slavery in Babylon. Jeremiah held the prophets responsible for the complacency and eventual suffering of the people. The false prophets preached that God’s people were entitled to life’s comforts, when the truth is that nobody is.
I like to imagine the royal prophets functioning something like political spokespeople and commentators on cable news. And usually, during a national crisis, everybody gets behind what the country is going to do. I think of the surge in patriotism and bipartisanship after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Imagine how unpopular it would have been in those days to talk about the history of US meddling in Afghanistan and how we had created several of the enemies that planned 9/11. (That was true.) It was unpopular to oppose a war with unclear objectives that might drag. (The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan lasted decades and cost hundreds of thousands of lives.) It has become easier to reflect on these facts more soberly with nearly 24 years of hindsight. But at the time, the few public figures who spoke about that or voted against retaliatory war efforts were condemned.
So Jeremiah insists on preaching the truth, even when it’s unpopular. And throughout Jeremiah’s lifetime, God’s truth happened to be doom and gloom for the people of Judah. This doesn’t mean that God is mean-spirited or looking for reasons to punish us. But it means that God opposes arrogance and conceit. Nobody is better than anyone else just because of where they were born or which tribe or nation they belong to. The blessings of God are privileges that come with responsibility. Like the ancient Israelites, we receive a message of love, hope, forgiveness, and salvation, and we have a responsibility to love our neighbor as ourselves. God’s love is not something we keep for ourselves alone. And it does not give us license to lord over other people. It doesn’t give us license to participate in or benefit from oppression.
The lesson from Hebrews 11 reminds us that faithfulness often leads people through crazy adventures. It often leads people into painful and unpleasant circumstances. Because doing what is right is often unpopular. Like Jeremiah and the great cloud of witness, we might suffer for doing the right thing. We human beings are driven by self-interest, which leads us to harm one another. But Jesus wants us to move beyond that. God wants us to shift from me-focus to we-focus. God wants us to learn to love our neighbors as ourselves, and maintain that integrity even when it is inconvenient.
Jeremiah finished this passage by saying that God’s word is like fire that burns through lies like straw (23:28-29). This is the same kind of fire that Jesus preaches about in Luke 12:49. It’s fire that purifies, that gets rid of things that are hollow and empty. Jesus wants us to push past what is shallow toward the deeper truths of God’s boundless love for the world. In a world that is increasingly unconcerned with facts and truths, this is a very important message. It’s easier than ever to live in an echo chamber and only hear the news and stories that we like. But, we need to diligently seek the truth. And we need to interpret the world’s truth through Jesus who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). If it’s not loving, if it doesn’t honor the dignity of our neighbors or the integrity of God’s creation, it cannot be true. Jesus was crucified and died for truth, but God raised him from the dead. God promises the same for us. So, if we search for God’s truth, the truth will set us free (John 8:32). Amen.
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