Silent Nights
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The People We Wish We Were
Love is Not a Victory March by Marie -Esther@deviantart.com
Jeremiah 39: The City Falls
Jeremiah 39: 1-10 The Destruction of Jerusalem
James Tissot, The Flight of the Prisoners
In the ninth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, in the tenth month, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon and all his army came against Jerusalem and besieged it; 2 in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, on the ninth day of the month, a breach was made in the city. 3 When Jerusalem was taken, all the officials of the king of Babylon came and sat in the middle gate: Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, with all the rest of the officials of the king of Babylon. 4 When King Zedekiah of Judah and all the soldiers saw them, they fled, going out of the city at night by way of the king’s garden through the gate between the two walls; and they went toward the Arabah. 5 But the army of the Chaldeans pursued them, and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho; and when they had taken him, they brought him up to King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, at Riblah, in the land of Hamath; and he passed sentence on him. 6 The king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah at Riblah before his eyes; also the king of Babylon slaughtered all the nobles of Judah. 7 He put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in fetters to take him to Babylon. 8 The Chaldeans burned the king’s house and the houses of the people, and broke down the walls of Jerusalem. 9 Then Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard exiled to Babylon the rest of the people who were left in the city, those who had deserted to him, and the people who remained. 10 Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard left in the land of Judah some of the poor people who owned nothing, and gave them vineyards and fields at the same time.
The city finally falls, the event which Jeremiah has foretold but also dreaded has finally occurred. Nebuchadrezzar’s army besieges the city of Jerusalem for a year and a half. The parallel telling of this event in 2 Kings 25 also relates, what we learned in the previous chapter of Jeremiah, that food had run out and that at the time the city wall is breached the people are beginning to starve. After a year and a half under siege this part of the narrative shows this final collapse happening with little resistance. The King Zedekiah and the remnants of the army and the officials flee by night, the officials of Babylon set up court in the gate of the city, and even in their fleeing we get the impression that Zedekiah and they are quickly overtaken as they attempt to flee across the Jordan river to Arabah. The punishment of the leaders is swift as the sons of the kin and the nobles of Judah, the leaders who had continued to push for resistance to Babylon, are killed when Nebuchdrezzar passes sentence in Hamath (Syria). Zedekiah is blinded and bound, most likely to be led back through the capitol of Babylon as a spoil of war to show how the might of Babylon has humiliated the Judeans who opposed them. In contrast to the first exile where the majority of the people are left in Judea, now this time Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, is charged with organizing a massive exile of those who survived the siege as well as those who fled and surrendered to Babylon. Only the poorest are left, these meek who inherit the earth, the pastures and the vineyards that were once owned by the powerful. Perhaps these are some of the slaves who were freed only to be brought immediately back into captivity (see Jeremiah 34), or those who suffered the loss of everything in the long costly war brought onto them by their leaders. Regardless, for the majority of the Judeans heading into exile it is a bitter pill to swallow. As Psalm 137 laments:
By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps For their our captors asked us for songs, And our tormentors asked for mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How could we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand wither! Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, If I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy. Remember, O LORD, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem’s fall How they said, “Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to the foundations!” O daughter Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock! (Psalm 137)The promise of Jerusalem, the temple, the Davidic dynasty have all failed as the people are marched into a foreign land as exiles. They will have to begin to rediscover who they are as the people of God, and what it means to be the chosen people without the land, a temple or a king. But for this moment they are entering a season of lament and grief. We know from earlier in Jeremiah hope will rise again, but in the midst of the desolation of despair the people may only be able to sings songs of lament and utter prayers of vengeance.
Jeremiah 39: 11-18 Protecting Jeremiah and Ebed-melech
11 King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon gave command concerning Jeremiah through Nebuzaradan, the captain of the guard, saying, 12 “Take him, look after him well and do him no harm, but deal with him as he may ask you.” 13 So Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, Nebushazban the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, and all the chief officers of the king of Babylon sent 14 and took Jeremiah from the court of the guard. They entrusted him to Gedaliah son of Ahikam son of Shaphan to be brought home. So he stayed with his own people.
15 The word of the LORD came to Jeremiah while he was confined in the court of the guard: 16 Go and say to Ebed-melech the Ethiopian: Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to fulfill my words against this city for evil and not for good, and they shall be accomplished in your presence on that day. 17 But I will save you on that day, says the LORD, and you shall not be handed over to those whom you dread. 18 For I will surely save you, and you shall not fall by the sword; but you shall have your life as a prize of war, because you have trusted in me, says the LORD.
On the orders of King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, Jeremiah is sought out by the officials present in Jerusalem for protection. Jeremiah is freed from his confinement in the court of the guard and placed under the care of Gedaliah who is left in charge of the devastated city and land. Jeremiah is protected, and perhaps for many of his own people this only furthers their conviction that he is a traitor, yet he is sheltered and protected in the midst of the destruction and allowed to remain with the Judean people in the land. Although we only hear the promise of protection to Ebed-melech, the Ethiopian who pulled Jeremiah out of the cistern in Jeremiah 38, he also is promised his life and protection. In contrast to King Zedekiah who heard Jeremiah’s message several times and did not listen and is forced to watch his sons killed and led to Babylon in chains, now this servant of the king who is not a Judean and is a eunuch does hear and inherits his life, the same promise that Jeremiah made again to the king in Jeremiah 38. This is not a story where Jeremiah or probably Ebed-melech live happily ever after, but in the midst of the death that surrounds them they live and they endure in the midst of the destruction of the nation and city around them.
Images for the Fifth Sunday After Pentecost-Lectionary 15A
Isaiah 55: 10-13 My ways are higher than your ways, my thoughts than your thoughts
Psalm 65: 9-13 You crown the year with your bounty
Romans 8: 1-11 There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ
Matthew 13: 1-9, 18-23 Parable of the Sower
Christoph Weigel, The Sower
Vincent van Gogh, The Sower with a Setting Sun
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Landscape with the Parable of the Sower
Anonymous, the Sower
Anonymous, The Sower- Both of the previous images from http://www.artbible.net
Also James B. Janknecht’s interesting image the Four Soils
Images for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost- Lectionary 14A
ScheffZechariah 9: 9-12 Lo, your king comes to you…humble and riding on a donkey
Psalm 145: 8-14 The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger…
Romans 7: 15-25a Who will rescue me from this body of death
Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30 Come to me all you who are weary…and I will give you rest
My poem Unforced Rhythms of Grace pulls heavily on the language of the gospel text this week
The Zechariah 9 text is also used on Palm Sunday, and so to begin with a Palm Sunday image
James Tissot, The Procession in the Streets of Jerusalem (1886-1902)
More images of the procession here
For the Gospel text this week here are some of the interesting images I found
There is a very beautiful image here by Robyn Sand Anderson go to Yoke about 1/2 way down the page
Isaiah’s Love Song by Terri Derocher at http://lovelettersfromheaven.homestead.com/
Come and Rest by keb_s@deviantart.com
Carl Heinrich Bloch, Christ Consolator
Ari Scheffer, Christus Consolator (1836)
David Hetland, Come Unto Me at the First United Methodist Church, Fargo, ND
Symphony of a Life
Jeremiah 38: The Officials, The Prophet, The Eunuch and the King
Jeremiah 38: 1-13 The Persecution and Rescue of the Inconvenient Prophet
Salvatore Rosa, Jeremie Tire De La Cistern, 3rd quarter of the 17th Century
This chapter of Jeremiah does a great deal to highlight the situation at the end of the kingdom of Judah in ways that are surprising. Jeremiah’s long call for what sounds to many of his listeners like a pro-Babylonian policy, where God has sided not with God’s chosen people but with the Chaldean invaders, and he is viewed by many of the ‘officials’ as a traitor. In honesty, imagining myself from my previous time as a soldier in a very different time and army, there was a time when I probably would have looked at someone talking the way Jeremiah does as a traitor as well. Perhaps it would be the easier and more natural reaction for me as well. The officials have bought into the idea that being the covenant people, having the holy city and the temple and the Davidic king guarantees their position. Even now when the siege of Jerusalem has dried up the city’s resources and there is no food left they hold on doggedly to their own positions and ideology, even though Jeremiah’s long message rings truer every day. Their pro-Egyptian alliance and policies have failed them, and perhaps they believe in their desperation that if they can quiet Jeremiah they can quiet the very real voices of dissent that must be emerging at this point. From later in the chapter we see that there are already those who have deserted the city and have either heeded Jeremiah’s words or seen the senselessness of dying of starvation behind the walls that will soon be crumbling. Jeremiah has been once taken out of the house of Jonathan the secretary and the king has offered him some protection, but now the ‘officials’ throw him into the mud-filled cistern to die of dehydration and starvation.
King Zedekiah also occupies a role that most people do not imagine with a king. Zedekiah does not wield total control of the people, in fact many of these officials seem to be the ones able to manipulate the course of how things will go. Zedekiah the son of Josiah, the devout king who attempted to lead the people of Judah back to trusting in the LORD, now finds himself powerless against these officials. Perhaps he is weak and ineffective, or perhaps he finds himself with a position without any real power with others who are skilled at operating the mechanisms of power pulling the strings. Regardless of how Zedekiah found himself in a weak position, here he stands caught between the coming onslaught of Babylon and those in his own government who have locked Jerusalem into a struggle it cannot win.
Finally into the scene enters the unlikely hero, Ebed-melech an Ethiopian eunuch. Not Jewish, not even a person who can enter into the temple, but a person who (unlike the officials) can see that persecuting the LORD’s prophet is wicked. In a scene that is full of compassion, Ebed-melech goes to the king and tells him what is going on. With the king’s approval he goes with three others and not only removes Jeremiah from this cistern where he was sentenced to die but thinks enough to bring padding to protect the abused prophet’s armpits as they lift him out of the pit. These Judean officials are thwarted by the actions of Ebed-melech and again Jeremiah is brought to the court of the guard.
It is a world in chaos with competing agenda and ideologies. Where in the chaos of collapse there are still those grasping for the seats of power on the sinking ship. Yet the prophet continues his impassioned plea to save the city and the temple and the people, in spite of all he has endured.
Jeremiah 38:14-28 The King and The Prophet
14 King Zedekiah sent for the prophet Jeremiah and received him at the third entrance of the temple of the LORD. The king said to Jeremiah, “I have something to ask you; do not hide anything from me.” 15 Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “If I tell you, you will put me to death, will you not? And if I give you advice, you will not listen to me.” 16 So King Zedekiah swore an oath in secret to Jeremiah, “As the LORD lives, who gave us our lives, I will not put you to death or hand you over to these men who seek your life.” 17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “Thus says the LORD, the God of hosts, the God of Israel, If you will only surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then your life shall be spared, and this city shall not be burned with fire, and you and your house shall live. 18 But if you do not surrender to the officials of the king of Babylon, then this city shall be handed over to the Chaldeans, and they shall burn it with fire, and you yourself shall not escape from their hand.” 19 King Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “I am afraid of the Judeans who have deserted to the Chaldeans, for I might be handed over to them and they would abuse me.” 20 Jeremiah said, “That will not happen. Just obey the voice of the LORD in what I say to you, and it shall go well with you, and your life shall be spared. 21 But if you are determined not to surrender, this is what the LORD has shown me– 22 a vision of all the women remaining in the house of the king of Judah being led out to the officials of the king of Babylon and saying, ‘Your trusted friends have seduced you and have overcome you; Now that your feet are stuck in the mud, they desert you.’ 23 All your wives and your children shall be led out to the Chaldeans, and you yourself shall not escape from their hand, but shall be seized by the king of Babylon; and this city shall be burned with fire.” 24 Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “Do not let anyone else know of this conversation, or you will die. 25 If the officials should hear that I have spoken with you, and they should come and say to you, ‘Just tell us what you said to the king; do not conceal it from us, or we will put you to death. What did the king say to you?’ 26 then you shall say to them, ‘I was presenting my plea to the king not to send me back to the house of Jonathan to die there.'” 27 All the officials did come to Jeremiah and questioned him; and he answered them in the very words the king had commanded. So they stopped questioning him, for the conversation had not been overheard. 28 And Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard until the day that Jerusalem was taken.King Zedekiah is a tragic figure in this narrative, and I believe that Jeremiah has some compassion for him, if for no other reason than him being Josiah’s son. Jeremiah once again is summoned to meet with the king in ‘secret’ (although it is a secret that everyone knows occurs even if they don’t know the content of what is said). For those who have read George R.R. Martin’s Fire and Ice series (which the HBO series Game of Thrones gets its storyline) it is almost like in King’s Landing where there are the listeners employed by Cersei, Varus, and Littlefinger, all keeping track of everyone’s movements. King Zedekiah also seems to at least respect Jeremiah, and maybe even believes his words (though he is unable to act on them). This is the last time Jeremiah will make this plea for the King to surrender and his life and the city will be saved. We learn from the king’s words that there are already Judeans who have defected to the Babylonians, and the king is afraid that in his surrender he would fall into their hands. We also know from the official’s words earlier in the chapter when the mention the soldiers ‘who are left’ that either many of the soldiers have fallen or some of them too have defected (very likely in my opinion). Jeremiah’s words again are for naught, the king does not act on them, but he does continue to protect Jeremiah and his excuse that he tells Jeremiah to tell the ears of the already curious eyes watching is a plausible one, ‘to keep him out of the house of Jonathan’ where Jeremiah has already been once and fears to go again. The time is short, Jeremiah’s days in the court of the guard are coming to an end and with them the city of Jerusalem is approaching its end.
The Man I Tried To Be
Titian, Sisyphus (1548-1549)
Trying to make a person happy that knew unhappiness
And for a while I succeeded and the shadows lifted
From the soul of another who dwelt in the deluge of depression
But the sunshine was quickly concealed when the rains returned
And as the raining season deepened a cold north wind blew
Yet, I tried again and again to recreate the magic of summer
Holding onto sunrises and sunsets, pointing to each ray of hope
Every rainbow of promise that the storms might someday end
Yet, even on the cold and rainy days I tried to dance and sing
To celebrate the gifts of each day no matter the sky’s disposition
Yet, even the eternal optimist learns their limits in time
They too feel the heavy dankness entering into their souls
When their image is continually reflected back
In the storm filled soul of the one they love
And although I tried to be that man who could weather the storms
Some Promethean hero bringing light and heat into the dark world
Yet, no heroic or banal act ever seemed to bring the light back
And so Prometheus found himself rolling the stone of Sisyphus
Unable to roll the stone away to the point where new life might be found
Eventually, the storms left me treading water as the heavens cried
And I searched for some ark to place within it all the lives
Consumed by the floods that seemed to never end
And as painful as the ending of a world is by necessity
For me, it was only seeing the man I tried to be die
That allowed me to return to who I was before the fall
Before the flood, before realizing that I too was flesh and blood
Yet, in the aftermath of the deluge the sun returned
The climate changed and the dankness slowly retreated
It was a long journey into the new world
A journey from which I gained much but never desire again
But it was a journey from the man I tried to be
To being satisfied with the man who I am
Neil White, 2014
Images for Second and Third Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 12 and 13 year A)
Two weeks together; Week 1: June 22, 2014
Jeremiah 20: 7-13 I have become a laughingstock Psalm 69: 7-10, 16-18 It is for your sake I have borne reproach Romans 6: 1-11 Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? Matthew 10: 24-39 Whoever loves father or mother more than me…I have written on Jeremiah 20 elsewhere in my blog
Cry Of Prophet Jeremiah on the Ruins of Jerusalem by Ilya Repin 1870
Jesus Teaches His Disciples from Luther Bible
James Tissot, The First Shall Be Last, Between 1886 and 1984
Jesus in Golgatha by Theopahnes the Cretan
Love is Not a Victory March by Marie -Esther@deviantart.com
Third Sunday after Pentecost:
Jeremiah 28: 5-9 Jeremiah and the false prophet Hananiah Psalm 89 I will sing of your steadfast love, O LORD, forever Romans 6: 12-23 Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies Matthew 10: 40-42 Whoever gives even a cup of water to one of these…I have written about Jeremiah 28 also in my blog
Diakoniegemaelde Neuendettelsaus by Alexander Rahm, Author released image to public domain
Frans Francken, Werke der Barmherzigkeit (1605)
Sculpture from l’hospital de Sant Pau de Barcelona by Gargallo (1905-1911)
Andrey Mironav, Don’t You Know Who You Are (I am the Door of the Sheep) artist released image to public domain
Jan Luyken etching 21 of 40 ‘Satisfying the Thirsty’ 17th Century
Quiet Courage
We see it everyday and seldom give it a second thoughtFor the courage we are trained to see rests in the extraordinary
Acts of heroism that loudly demand us to stand up and take notice
But far more common and often more daring is the quiet courage
The daily decision to enter into the little battles to make it past our fears
A refusal to let the past failures place a limit on the futures potential
The silent struggles against illness, weakness, depression and fatigue
Courageously embracing the pain we carry with us without losing hope
Hope that someday the unseen struggle will light a better way
For us or for those who will follow in the footsteps and pathways
We leave behind us in the sedimentary soil of others’ pasts
And perhaps the sun that will light the skies of tomorrow
Will not be the short burning explosion of one time heroics
But the billions of small flames of quiet courage that are lit that day Neil White, 2014
Sign of the Rose 