The Prophet Jeremiah Buys a Field and Augustana Goes Solar

Posted on by jimvondracek

Last Sunday, Augustana celebrated the completion of its solar project, in worship, with special guests, and at a luncheon.  Follow this link to see the first post about the celebration service, and this link for the second post about the luncheon and information boards   

In her message, Pastor Nancy connected the seemingly unhinged action of the prophet Jeremiah, calmly buying a field while Israel and the world were going nuts, with Augustana’s work to go solar while the whole society seems to be turning back the clock towards fossil fuels and away from concern for the stewardship of creation.  

Jeremiah 32, the prophet buys a field – April 19, 2026 – Pastor Nancy Goede

How crazy is it to buy a field while all around you your city is being besieged by enemies? People are up on top of the walls of Jerusalem looking down on armies of Babylonians as they build siege ramps that will eventually allow them to enter into the city and ransack it. Meanwhile, Jeremiah and his cousin are counting out silver shekels and carefully weighing them on scales. People are nervously calculating how long they can survive on their stores of food, and speculating with their neighbors if the Babylonians will send another wave of them into exile in Babylon. Jeremiah meanwhile is signing deeds to be carefully sealed and put in earthenware jars. People are worried that the Babylonians are going to burn down their temple and their whole city, and Jeremiah is worried about a few copies of a legal document relating to a field that is already overrun with enemy soldiers and is not likely to be in Jeremiah’s hands anytime soon.

But God had told his prophet to pursue the sale of the field, so Jeremiah weighed out the silver and arranged for the deeds to be safely stowed away, in anticipation of a time when the people of Israel would return to the land and do normal things like buy and sell fields once again. Jeremiah didn’t live to see that. But he believed God when God said that the people would return one day and rebuild their lives in Judah, which they did.
 
Likewise, how crazy is it for Augustana to put solar panels on top of our building, when all around us, everyone is talking about a return to fossil fuels for the United States. All around us, people are talking about oil shortages, but they are not talking about moving more quickly as a nation to solar and wind and geothermal power. Many people are all for burning up the future, literally. Some read God’s words in the Genesis creation story about humans having dominion, and they interpret that word dominion as, use it up. It’s hard to see beyond this crisis moment and imagine a country inspired to practice good stewardship and build a common good.

But fortunately, our God is not a God of despair. Our God is a God of hope, and that hope is intentional. God doesn’t just sit back and wish that things would be different in the divine creation. God doesn’t look at our lives from afar and think, that’s too bad, too bad there’s nothing to be done. No, we believe in a God who accompanies us in the hope that we can work together to change our lives. God has a vision of what human life can be, and so God gives us gifts that we can use in service to God and others to build lives that are godly, lives that are what God envisions for us, the people of God. God’s expectation is that we will practice hope, and so we try to live in hope of new things and a better day. We believe that God wants good things for us, not punishment and despair.

Our solar project certainly drew on the gifts of many people. The panels will produce all the electricity we need, and that’s very good. But most importantly, our solar array is like Jeremiah’s field, a symbol of that for which we hope. Like the people of Jerusalem, we hope for a better everyday life for our city, a day when we might see many solar arrays and sustainable energy projects across Hyde Park and across our city. We hope for a day when our leaders hear a godly call to practice good stewardship and to protect the natural world and act for the common good and most vulnerable among us. Our panels tell others that while many in our country are running after Big Oil, we’re going in a different direction. We’re following the call of our God who hopes all good things for us in our beautiful natural world.