Shel Silverstein is an American poet. He is best known for his poem “The Giving Tree.” But he has another poem which is particularly meaningful on this, the first Sunday of a New Year.
The first Sunday of a year filled with possibilities—known and unknown.
The first Sunday on which we journey from the familiar of the Old Year into the unfamiliar of the New Year.
In fact, in some ways, a New Year is captured by the title to this poem: “Where the Sidewalk Ends.”
Here’s his poem:
There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.
Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.
Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.
Silverstein paints an image of that place where the sidewalk ends. It’s a place where the hard concrete gives way to soft grass. It’s a spot where the animals play. Where a wind blows, as refreshing as peppermint. It’s a refuge from the dark streets and the black smoke. It’s a place where children love to go.
Silverstein shows that the end of the sidewalk can be a happy place. Of course, he’s not just talking about a literal place. The end of the sidewalk is a metaphor. It’s a symbol that stands for something else.
- Those places or times in life where we are in transition.
- Those moments when we are undergoing flux—the title to this series.
- Those periods in life when the known ends and the unknown begins.
- Where the familiar stops and the unfamiliar starts.
- Where the comfortable turns into something more uncomfortable.
- Where the convenient becomes more inconvenient.
And at some times for some people, the end of the sidewalk can be a very happy place. Change and transition can be energizing and renewing. The start to a New Year can be exciting. Switching schools or jobs can be exhilarating. Moving to a new neighborhood or grade can be great fun. The end of the sidewalk can be a happy place.
But the end of the sidewalk can also be a hard place. Change and transition can be challenging.
I recently read a book which described this in a literal sense. Eowyn Ivey lives in Alaska. Her debut novel is called The Snow Child. In it she writes of a couple named Mabel and Jack who move from the familiar farmlands of the northeast to the unfamiliar Alaskan wilderness. They literally went from the known to the unknown. And, naive and filled with enthusiasm, at one point Mabel says this about the move to the Alaskan wilderness:
“It would be a hard life, but it would be theirs alone. Here at the world’s edge, far from everything familiar and safe, they would build a new home in the wilderness and do it as partners.” [Mabel in The Snow Child]
Mabel dreams that this “end of the sidewalk,” this Alaskan wilderness, will be a very happy place. And it would be. But it would also turn out to be a hard place. At a later date, worn down by this wilderness is, Mabel says this:
“We never know what is going to happen, do we? Life is always throwing us this way and that. That’s where the adventure is. Not knowing where you’ll end up or how you’ll fare. It’s all a mystery, and when we say any different, we’re just lying to ourselves.” [Mabel in The Snow Child]
The end of the sidewalk, this new home in the Alaskan wilderness, becomes a hard place. So hard, in fact, that the book begins with Mabel so despondent after years of living in Alaska she attempts to end her life.
The end of the sidewalk can be a hard place. Have you found that to be true?
- Switching jobs.
- Moving to another state.
- Ending a significant relationship.
- Starting a new school.
These are all end-of-the-sidewalk moments. And they can be happy places. Or they can be hard places.
The book of Jeremiah focuses on those places. And in this series from Jeremiah, called “Flux,” we want to look at how to live with flux in a way that increases happiness and decreases hardness.
In a way, Jeremiah is one of a pair of books closely tied together in the Old Testament book. The first book in that pair is the book of Deuteronomy. In between Deuteronomy and Jeremiah lies the Promised Land, the land of Israel. The book of Deuteronomy was intended to prepare God’s people just before they entered the Promised Land. The book of Jeremiah is intended to prepare God’s people just before they exit the Promised Land.
And what a hard exit it’s going to be! God’s people are not leaving the Promised Land because they want to. They are leaving because they have to. Jeremiah describes how they’ve turned away from God, and as a result, God has allowed the nation of Babylon to take the people away from the Promised Land and into exile in Babylon. It was a tremendously difficult time of transition and change. The book of Jeremiah is intended to prepare God’s people for this change.
In a way, the book of Deuteronomy is where the sidewalk begins. The book of Jeremiah is where the sidewalk ends. An entire nation is about to enter a period of massive transition. They are leaving the familiar for the unfamiliar. The comfortable for the uncomfortable. The known for the unknown.
And, along the way, so is Jeremiah. Jeremiah is not immune from this change. He’s going to be swept up in it as well. In fact, the flux he faces is even greater than most. Because he not only has the flux faced by the nation, but the flux faced by himself as God plucks him from his hometown, from is career, from his youth and from his comfort zone to go to Jerusalem and prepare the people for this turmoil. Jeremiah’s got his own end of the sidewalk, as well as the nation’s end of the sidewalk.
And in our text for this morning, God provides Jeremiah some help. And he provides us some help for those moments when our sidewalks end:
1 The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, 2 to whom the word of the Lord came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. 3 It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month. 4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jer. 1:1-5 ESV)
As Jeremiah begins to move to the end of the sidewalk, and speak to a nation at the end of theirs, God reminds him of three crucial things. Three things we need to hear as we enter a season of transition:
First, God knows you.
God tells Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…” The word “knew” refers to an intimate relationship of love. It’s used in the Old Testament for the intimate relationship of love that a husband and wife share. God tells Jeremiah that he has an intimate relationship of love with him.
But think about that word “before”—“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” The longest back most of us can imagine is to the moment of our conception. We can imagine a moment in our past when we came into being. That place where the sidewalk of our lives began. But God points back even farther: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
Before you were conceived.
Before you were knitted together.
Before your mother or your father knew of your existence.
Before all of that God knew you. Not just knew of you. Not just knew about you. But knew you. Intimately.
Here’s what I think God is saying to Jeremiah: You may think that the sidewalk of your life began in the womb and that it may be coming to an end now. But the truth is this: there’s a sidewalk underneath that one, undergirding that one. It’s the sidewalk of my love for you. And it started way before you started and will endure long past this period of change and transition.
The same is true for you. This New Year may bring much change. It may bring an end to things. You may face the end of a sidewalk. But the ultimate ground you walk upon is not that sidewalk that started when you were formed in your mother’s womb. It’s the sidewalk that started well before that—the firm ground of God’s great love for you.
Say this out loud: “I am known by God.” That will get you through any end of the sidewalk this year.
Second, God selects you.
God tells Jeremiah “and before you were born I consecrated you.” That word “consecrated” means “to set aside.” Eugene Peterson comments:
Consecrated means set apart for God’s side. It means that the human is not a cogwheel. It means that a person is not the keyboard of a piano on which circumstances play hit-parade tunes. It means we are chosen out of the feckless stream of circumstantiality for something important that God is doing.
[Eugene Peterson, Running With Horses, 39.]
God not only knows you. But he selects you. He chooses you. And his choice says something about your value. God sees you as valuable to something important he is doing.
We might think of someone who is in the kitchen making a meal for someone in need. There are lots of food items in the pantry, but she selects a few that she’s going to use in this dish. She consecrates them. She sets them aside for this meal. There are a lot of measuring spoons and cups in the kitchen drawers, but she selects a few that she’s going to use in making this dish. She consecrates them. She sets them aside. And there are many mixing and serving dishes in the kitchen cabinets. But she selects a few that she’s going to use in making and baking this dish. She consecrates them. She sets them aside.
That’s what God has done with you. He not only knows you. But he’s set you aside for something important he’s doing in the world.
And that’s true even when things around you are changing. When transitions arise. When the concrete stops. Even when the familiar comes to an end, your usefulness to God does not. God’s still got a mission. He’s still got a cause. And he’s still selected you to help with that cause. Even in a different setting, a different home, a different state, a different marriage status, or a different health status. Just because things around you have changed, your mission or role has not.
Consider a sports team. A typical sports team plays two-types of games: home-games and away-games. Home-games are on their turf. Everything is familiar to them there. The locker they store their stuff in is familiar. The benches they sit on. The field they play on. The people in the stands. Where they eat before the game. It’s all familiar. Away-games are just the opposite. Everything has changed. Different locker. Different bench. Different field. Different people in the stands. Different places to eat. It’s all unfamiliar. But that change doesn’t change the fact that each player has been selected to play on that team. They still have a very important role to play on that team and in that game. Just because things have changed around them, their mission or role has not.
This is the same for us. Ultimately it really doesn’t matter what changes around us. All that really matters is the team we play for and the game we play together. Many things may vary around us, but what matters most is that we’ve been selected to play on God’s team in God’s game.
Say this out loud: “I am selected by God.” Remembering that will get you past the point where the sidewalk ends.
Third, God sends you.
God tells Jeremiah, “I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” The word “appoint” literally means “give.” God gives Jeremiah to the nations. Jeremiah is literally God’s gift to the nations. Though everything about his normal life is coming unhinged, in the whirlwind, Jeremiah is reminded of this: God has sent him to the nations. And Jeremiah does go on to do very important work for God in the nation of Judah. He also does work that impacts other nations as well.
Eugene Peterson points out that Jeremiah’s name can actually be translated “the Lord hurls.”[1] God is about to hurl Jeremiah into unfamiliar territory. But he’s flung as a gift from God to the people who are also in that flux. God not only selects Jeremiah, but he finally sends Jeremiah as well. Jeremiah is God’s gift to people in a new setting.
The same is true for you. Rather than looking at transition as a challenge, view it as an opportunity. Ask, “To whom is God sending me as a gift in this new school, this new neighborhood, this hospital where I’ll be for a while, or this new job or this New Year?” Rather than viewing unfamiliar territory as something to flee from, consider that God is actually hurling you into it. He’s delivering you as a gift to people in a new place.
As we enter this New Year, God is hurling you, hurling the Highland church into Cordova, Collierville, Memphis, the Mid South, Tennessee, the United States and the world so that we can be the gift others need.
A few weeks ago, in a sermon, I showed a clip of children opening disappointing Christmas presents. One boy tore the paper off a present. He lifted the lid off the box inside. And the box was empty. The boy swept his hand through the empty box and said, “Where’s the present?” Sometimes, we face transition and we ask God something similar. We look around and we ask God “Where’s the present?” We wonder where the help and assistance is that we need in order to survive this change. But it turns out that we are the present. We’re the gift God is hurling into this new setting so that we can help and assist others.
When we’re at the end of the sidewalk, rather than asking WHAT is God giving TO ME we should ask WHO is God giving ME TO? God has brought us into this topsy-turvy time and is capable of using us to bless others in the midst of it. As we move beyond the edge of that sidewalk, we should consider who God may be giving us to on the other side of it. Not asking what is God giving to me? Not asking What is God giving to the Highland church? But who is God giving me to? Who is God giving the Highland church to?
Say this out loud: “I am sent by God.”
Here’s what I want you to do this week: Identify one person to whom God has sent you. As you move into a New Year, who is one person God may be sending you to as a gift? Write that person’s name down and begin to pray for God to use you for that person’s good this year.
