Adverbs and Adjectives

Text: Lamentations 1:1-6, 3:19-26
Theme: “Adverbs and Adjectives”
The Twenty-Seventh Sunday In Ordinary Time
The Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost
October 3, 2010
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
The Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

Earlier this week, I read the story of a pastor who gave a children’s talk and asked the kids a question. He said: “If the color red was good and the color green was bad, what color would you be?” A little girl raised her hand timidly and said “I’d be streaky!” I’d venture to say that you and I are streaky too! Some days we “trend”, as they say, toward red; other days we trend toward green, but, by and large, we’re pretty streaky!

Words like “good” and “bad” and “streaky” are words that describe. See if you can spot the word that describes in this sentence: “At my ordination, the FPC choir sang beautifully.” Of course, it’s beautifully. Here’s another: “At my ordination, the person being ordained was perspiring profusely.” Did you catch the descriptive term?

On one of the walls of Mama’s Daughter’s Diner in Dallas, Texas, guests will read a short prayer that goes like this:

Dear Lord, so far today, I’ve done alright. I haven’t gossiped, haven’t lost my temper, haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or overindulgent. I’m really glad about that, but in a few minutes, Lord, I’m gonna get out of bed and from then on, I’m probably gonna need a lot more help! Amen.

Now, alongside the humor, did you catch the descriptors? You heard words like alright and glad. And, of course, you heard greedy and grumpy and nasty and selfish and overindulgent. There you have a whole bunch of descriptive terms. A good descriptive term is vivid if not evocative. They paint pictures in the mind of the reader or the hearers.

Words, in short, are tools. Electricians have their wire; plumbers have their pipe; carpenters have their hammer and nails. We ministers have words. Words are the tools we work with. And words mean things. We use them to write. We use them to communicate. We use them to describe reality as we see it. The best use of words is when the words are God’s words, and they are given to us to proclaim.

Some of the words we use, as we learned in English class, are called adjectives; adjectives are words that describe. The same is true of adverbs. Take the sentence, “We made a quick trip to Gainesville.” “Quick” is the adjective that describes the trip. Use the same sentence and insert an adverb instead. It would go like this, “We made the trip to Gainesville quickly.”

Moments ago, you heard me read a selection from the book of Lamentations in the Old Testament portion of the Bible. For you wordsmiths out there, the core of the title Lamentations is the word lament. According to the folks at www.dictionary.com, the word lament means to express sorrow or regret. Read the book of Lamentations cover to cover on your new Kindle from Barnes and Noble, and you’ll see that Lamentations is chalk full of sorrow and regret. It isn’t exactly light or entertaining literature. The people of God, at the time living as refugees in a foreign land, were remembering the good old days. They ginned up some nostalgia, but they mostly mourned the loss of the good old days. They regretted what caused them to lose the good old days. Even today and even in churches, folks mourn and regret the loss of the good old days. You hear it when they speak of a more “simple” time that once was but is no longer. They remember the baseball, the hot dogs, and the apple pie. They remember when the most provocative thing on TV was when the “Do Not Disturb” sign was hung out of the hotel room door. But those days are gone, kaput. Now we are living ninety to nothing -- having forgotten how to slow down and only to wonder why our lives are passing us by so quickly. Farewell to the good old days. But, as Billy Joel sang in that song, “The good old days weren’t always good, and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.”

“How lonely sits the city that once was full of people,” says our text. Did you spot the adverb, the word with the “ly” at the end? Lonely is the word; it describes the city. Does it describe Denton? Does it describe you? Someone spoke once about being lonely in New York City. There are millions of people in and around in the big apple, but you can still be lonely apparently.

“She,” meaning the city of Jerusalem, “weeps bitterly in the night,” says our reading. The adverb is bitterly. It describes the tears. When was the last time you cried? Did you cry joyfully, or did it trend more toward bitterly? The people of God are not immune to tears.

“Her friends have dealt treacherously with her,” says our reading. I’m sure you spotted the big adverb there. It is one thing when your enemies deal with you treacherously, but it’s another when your friends do. Have you ever known someone you thought was your friend but wasn’t? Is there a person you know who was friendly with you and you discover later that they had an ulterior motive? If yes, then it’s reasonable to lament.

By the way, the author of the Old Testament book of Lamentations is, most likely, Jeremiah the prophet. He remembers how Jerusalem, the capital city, once was. But now he describes how he actually sees it at the time of the writing. The word he uses is “desolate.” Last summer, I looked out on the city of Albuquerque from the top of Mount Sandia. The view was incredible and breath-taking and stunning. Jeremiah did not see something rightly described as incredible, breathtaking, or stunning. He saw only desolation. Take a drive from Amarillo to Denton and you’ll go through a string of small towns. In most if not all of those towns, you will find businesses that are no longer businesses. They are only deteriorating buildings. They are desolate.

A number of months ago, Diana and I went to see a movie called “The Book of Eli.” Without giving the story away if you haven’t seen it, I can tell you this: the author and producers sought to portray what a post-nuclear war, post-apocalyptic America would actually look like. There was no vegetation, no growth; there were no vivid colors. There were only shades of faint beige and brown and gray and black. It was all barren trees, dead leaves, sand, and smoldering ash. The landscape, in a word, was desolate.

That’s how Jeremiah saw things; things were desolate. As you look around your life, what word would you pick to describe what you see? What would the adjectives or adverbs be? There’s something to think about this week.

After using loads of adjectives, adverbs, and descriptive phrases to describe what he saw, Jeremiah then gets personal. He looks inward. What does the desolation do to him personally? He says: “The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me.” In short, he’s hurting – and badly. He is a jumble of exhaustingly negative emotions.

His reality was one of desolation, affliction, and homelessness. Those are the facts “on the ground,” as they say. But what he describes now is not what he sees but rather the thoughts that spring from his soul as a result of what he sees. His thoughts are coming forth “continually”, he says. He said the thoughts were like “wormwood and gall.” What does that mean? Wormwood is a plant, actually. It yields bitter, aromatic oil. We have mint leaves out back. Roll a leaf between your fingers, take a whiff, and you smile. Do that with a wormwood leaf and you’d go “yuck”! Gall has to do with being vexed or irritated. For example: someone says, “That person just galls me.” There you have it. When you’re galled, if finds you saying that that person or situation just irritates the dickens out of you, the living daylights out of you – or something like that. The thoughts of the author were, therefore, continual (meaning non-stop), bitter, and irritating. It is not a very pleasant combination.

It almost sounds as though he’s depressed. Now how can a prophet of God or a minister of God be depressed? With the Lord there’s “fullness of joy”, the Bible says. Therefore, how could prophets, ministers, or faithful people of God ever be depressed? That’s not normal. Well, I’m here to say that normal is only a setting on your washer. I’ve been depressed; it’s not that hard. More than that, I’ve suffered from depression. Sometimes you don’t even know you’re depressed. But I can tell you this: the depressing thoughts are continual; when depressed, you think the depression will never end. And the depressing thoughts are bitter and irritating as well – like wormwood and gall.

Dear friends in Christ, when your reality, your situation in life, is or seems to be desolate; when your thoughts are bitter and vexing and irritating and irksome and ongoing, then, for starters, remember Jeremiah!

Yes, indeed! If your situation is desolate, remember Jeremiah! If your life – or even your home – feels foreclosed upon, remember Jeremiah! When friends deal treacherously with you, remember Jeremiah! When you look or even search for meaning and purpose in your life and you can’t seem to find it after umpteen tries, remember Jeremiah! When the trials and temptations of youth coming calling, remember Jeremiah! When the uncertainties and limits of advancing age pay their regular visits, remember Jeremiah! When life hands you a lemon but you don’t have any sugar to make lemonade, remember Jeremiah! When you say or even cry out “What in the world is this world coming to?” Remember Jeremiah!

You see, when you remember Jeremiah you remember to put another thought in your mind which gives hope. The externals of your life, what you see, might be awful. The internals of your life, what you think and feel, may be devastatingly disturbing. But you can put another thought in your mind that gives you hope.

Here’s Jeremiah’s thought, and I invite you to make it your own. Jeremiah says: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Speaking of adjectives and adverbs, you can’t get much more descriptive than that! The Lord’s love is steadfast; it won’t budge. In a world of fits and starts, the love of the Lord never ceases. We may put fences around our houses and homes and heads and hearts, but you can’t put fences around God’s mercy. It never ends. The mercies of God are not yesterday’s news, for they are new every morning. His faithfulness is not average, above average, or good. His faithfulness is great. Great is the appropriate adjective.

And when it’s all said and done, what’s going to be my portion in life? Am I going to be counted in when it counts? Am I going to get my cut? Will I really, truly, genuinely, honestly have a portion of the never-ending joy I hear about? Yes, and it’s not going to be your externals (what you see) or your internals (what you think or feel). Jeremiah’s portion, your portion, my portion, our portion is the Lord! And therefore, we have hope. You’re in. You got it. Believe it. It’s yours!

This Lord – who is our portion and who is our hope – is the same Lord who suffered death on a cross to pay for the desolation of our sins; it is the same Lord who was raised from dead so that the last word is life! It is the same Lord who is among us now in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup. It is the same Lord who has guided Susanne Wegner in her life and called her to serve as elder. It is the same Lord who may be calling some of you today – to a greater, richer, and deeper involvement with Christ and His church. We welcome you, and you are welcome to become a part of us today.

If the color red stands for God’s love and faithfulness and mercy, if the color green stands for desolation, I don’t want to be streaky. I want to join with you and celebrate the power of red!

Amen.