Bible Text: Joel 2 and Luke | Preacher: Rev. Jenn Geddes | Nearly every Saturday you will find me among the various booths of fresh produce and baked goods at the Farmer’s Market. Throughout April to most of October the market is held at the exhibition grounds and one of my favourite practices is picking up a salad roll or muffin and walking down the simple path to the Tsolum River where we sit on a log or rocks and enjoy a little picnic. It has been particularly enjoyable the last couple of months because we’ve been able to watch the salmon jump and swim up the river. However, I also recognize that these Saturday morning rituals would not have been as enjoyable or possible just 20 years earlier. You see, the Tsolum River was a river that once saw over 100,000 salmon return but only 10 returned in 1984. Not long after that, the river was declared biologically dead. This decline was due to copper leeching into the watershed from a mine near Mount Washington that had only been in operation for 3 years in the 1960s. By the late 1990s citizens in the area decided that something needed to change, they needed to at least try to restore this once abundant river. So, they established the Tsolum River Restoration Society, they covered the old mine site, restored the river bed and waited. It took over ten years since the society had begun their work but in 2009 the river saw over 44, 000 salmon. In 2017 the totals were up to 84,000. I don’t have the numbers for this year yet- but there is hope that this growth continues. It is these good news stories that give us hope and encourage us to think that restoration is possible, that we do have the power to change, maybe even reverse damage that has been done. Restoration,renewal, reform and revival are the themes found throughout the short prophetic book of Joel. In fact, as I read through Joel in preparation for this morning my mind immediately thought of the Tsolum and I thought of conversations I have had with many of you regarding hope. Where do we find hope in a seemingly hopeless situation? How do we foster hope when we hear nothing but brokenness in our world? How do we encourage restoration when all we hear about is devastation? Is renewal, reform or revitalization even possible in this day and age? This is what makes Joel’s book so important because this prophet proclaims hope to a people who desperately need it.
While it is clear that our passage this morning contains hope it is important for us to look at the entire book to understand why Joel would proclaim it. The book of Joel might only be 3 chapters long but it is a whirlwind of emotions. We know that the book was written during the post-exilic period when Judah was a sub-province of the Persian Empire. People have returned to their homeland after the Babylonian exile, have rebuilt the temple and are re-establishing themselves as God’s people. So certainly words of revival and renewal should be part of his language. And you would think that the book would be filled with rejoicing. But instead we discover that the people are in the midst of enduring a long plague of locust which has led to famine and drought. The hope they had with regards to returning to a prosperous life in their former land is gone.
Joel’s first few verses lament how the locust have eaten everything. I might be a regular at the farmer’s market but I can only imagine what the effects of a swarm of locust can have on crops, not just for one season but for several. This plague has lasted years. After exile, the Israelites are experiencing a whole new kind of devastation. Joel says that the grain is gone, the wine has dried up, and the oil has failed, even all the trees are dried up. The land has been declared dead.
Joel reminds the people that this devastation is not a fluke. The people are in this situation due to poor food security, unsustainable farming practices and most importantly, a disregard for God. As a result, Joel calls the people repent. He tells them to fast, not hard to due during a famine, and calls the people to prayer. And they do. They present offerings, blow trumpets, gather together in the sanctuary to weep and pray. They do something about their situation which helps bring restoration to not only the land but their lives. Thus far we have talked about the devastation of the land, be it the Tsolum or Judah but it strikes me that Joel’s words might speak more deeply to us if we also think about spiritual famine or drought. Allegorically we are not all that different from the Israelites. The Israelites returned to Judah and were living in relative comfort, confident that they were God’s chosen people and that God had restore them to their homeland. We are living in relative comfort, confident that God has blessed us with an abundance of things. But there is warning in comfort because the moment we are too comfortable we become complacent. We may not be experiencing a literal plague of locust but we are distracted by so much- it might even feel like our busy schedules, or our material wealth, or the 24hr-7 day a week news reels are swarming us. I think we are living our own figurative plague of locust. Joel tells the Israelites to repent- to reroute their behaviour so that it re-focuses on God and through their actions God will restore their lives and land. If we are experiencing a spiritual drought then we too should reroute our focus, perhaps as a church or perhaps as a society, perhaps both.
Perhaps in this way our Gospel passage is also handy. When we are comfortable we don’t see the need for mercy. I would argue that the way in which the Pharisee congratulates himself is perhaps distressingly familiar to us as modern readers. I know I have a tendency to be a bit self-righteous at times, I think we all do. In fact, if we are not careful we end up judging the Pharisee too quickly, thanking God that we are not like him! When in fact we need to hear the words of the tax collector who simply relies on God’s forgiveness to start anew. It is the tax collectors words that should be familiar to us. This past year the Presbyterian Church in Canada marked the 25th anniversary of the confession to God and Indigenous peoples regarding our role within the residential school system. We must cry out, “God, have mercy!” At this year’s General Assembly the moderator’s letter of repentance to the LGBTQ community was read and we cried out, “God, have mercy!” When we truly cry out for mercy then that restoration, renewal and reform can take place.
This leads into our celebration of Reformation Sunday. I tend not to spend too much time focusing on this anniversary because I am aware of the violence, pain, and brokenness that it caused. However, it is also the reformation that allowed us to think critically about Scripture. As reformed people we must remember to constantly look at where we need to re-form.
This is the good news that we hear in our passage from Joel this morning. Joel makes it clear that God promises abundance once we have repented or rerouted and cried out mercy. Joel says that there will be a time when we are restored, when the land is filled with abundance, when the vats of wine and oil will overflow! But note that for Joel this promise is still on its way. Joel describes hope within the shadow of suffering. Through Jesus Christ we have that hope- however, that does not negate our need to cry out for mercy.
God’s mercy provides us with hope and in this hope we find abundance and this is not just for our lives but for our land. However, we must cry out for that mercy- like those citizens who sought to clean up the Tsolum, they took charge, had hope, and went out beginning that restoration. Perhaps we feel as though we are being swarmed by the demands of a 21st century life. Cry out to God, do something about it, and abundance will come. Amen