Tag Archives: Jeremiah

The Prophet’s Agony: Jeremiah 4: 19-31

Job by Leon Bonnat (1880)

Jeremiah 4: 19-31
¹⁹ My anguish, my anguish! I writhe in pain!
Oh, the walls of my heart! My heart is beating wildly;
I cannot keep silent; for I hear the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.
²⁰ Disaster overtakes disaster, the whole land is laid waste.
Suddenly my tents are destroyed, my curtains in a moment.
²¹ How long must I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?
²² “For my people are foolish, they do not know me;
they are stupid children, they have no understanding.
They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good.”
²³ I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light.
²⁴ I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro.
²⁵ I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled.
²⁶ I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert,
and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger.
²⁷ For thus says the LORD: The whole land shall be a desolation;
yet I will not make a full end.
²⁸ Because of this the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above grow black;
for I have spoken, I have purposed; I have not relented nor will I turn back.
²⁹ At the noise of horseman and archer every town takes to flight;
they enter thickets; they climb among rocks;
all the towns are forsaken, and no one lives in them.
³⁰ And you, O desolate one, what do you mean that you dress in crimson,
that you deck yourself with ornaments of gold,
that you enlarge your eyes with paint?
In vain you beautify yourself.
Your lovers despise you; they seek your life.
³¹ For I heard a cry as of a woman in labor,
anguish as of one bringing forth her first child,
the cry of daughter Zion gasping for breath, stretching out her hands,
“Woe is me! I am fainting before killers!”

In entering the prophet’s poetry we come to experience some small part of the agony of his profession. His whole life, even his very health becomes consumed by the foreboding fear of what is to come. He sees the disaster which he feels he has no power to stop, and yet he takes the fear and names it, places it into words. Perhaps he hopes that by painting reality through the dystopic lenses that perhaps someone might hear and turn, that perhaps the uttering of this potential reality might alter the reality that comes, otherwise he is looking at the end of the world as he has known it.

The Bible has an audacious belief that the human conduct matters for the well being of creation, in fact the whole notion of shalom and justice are not merely human concepts in Hebrew thought, they effect everything and Israel and Judah’s failure to live this vision is poisoning the earth. From the beginning of the Genesis story Adam and adamah (the Hebrew word for soil/earth) are tied together and in Genesis 3 the earth bears the price of the man’s disobedience:

And to the man he said,”Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘you shall not eat of it,’cursed is the ground because of you; Genesis 3: 17

This is a poetic and theological description of reality that Jeremiah is living out of. It is also behind Paul’s imagery in Romans 8:18-25 where creation will be set free by the children of God being revealed and beginning to live out of their identity and into God’s shalom.

The final image of the poem at this point shows the distance between the poets reality and the peoples with the offensive imagery of a foolish prostitute. When invading armies come and the capture a city the soldiers do not pay, they take what they want-and yet here is Judah represented as a prostitute who is decking herself out in her finest jewels expecting payment, but what Judah will find is rape. As I have said in earlier posts it is an offensive image, and yet it is the image of the poetry which is trying to rouse the people from their slumber.

The Poetry of Death and Destruction: Jeremiah 4: 11-18

The Siren Call: Jeremiah 4: 5-10

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F4 Wedge Type Tornado, nearly a mile wide that hit Binger, Oklahoma

Jeremiah 4: 5-10

⁵ Declare in Judah, and proclaim in Jerusalem, and say:
Blow the trumpet through the land; shout aloud and say,
“Gather together, and let us go into the fortified cities!”
⁶ Raise a standard toward Zion, flee for safety, do not delay,
for I am bringing evil from the north, and a great destruction.
⁷ A lion has gone up from its thicket, a destroyer of nations has set out;
he has gone out from his place to make your land a waste;
your cities will be ruins without inhabitant.
⁸ Because of this put on sackcloth, lament and wail:
“The fierce anger of the LORD has not turned away from us.”

⁹ On that day, says the LORD, courage shall fail the king and the officials; the priests shall be appalled and the prophets astounded. ¹⁰ Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD, how utterly you have deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘It shall be well with you,’ even while the sword is at the throat!”

When I lived in Oklahoma, tornado sirens were a way of life. When spring came you knew that if the siren was blaring its dissonant tones that you needed to check the TV to see where the storm might be and how dangerous the storm was. Some storms were storms that you could weather in place, going to the safe room in your house. But some storms, if you were in their path you didn’t want to stay in place and wait out, you needed to flee to designated areas that were better able to withstand the winds. And yet sometimes even fleeing to a strong place is not enough, as was the case of the F5 tornado that struck Oklahoma City in 1999 destroying or badly damaging over 8,000 homes.

Jeremiah has the unfortunate role of being the siren, alerting the people to a disaster they do not expect nor do they want to see. War is approaching, an unspecified invading army is coming to lay waste to the land. Destroying cities, burning crops, killing and enslaving and the Lord has withdrawn the protection they have relied upon in the past. The prophet goes even farther, to place the Lord behind the movement of the predicted enemy. The Lord has made a choice, a dreadful choice, a choice against his former people. It is a choice the prophet has allowed us to see the Lord agonizing over, and yet the pieces are in motion, the storm is in motion and yet the prophet continues to hope for a turn. The prophet desires for the people to put on sackcloth, to lament and wail, and perhaps the Lord will turn once more.

The very people who should be keeping the people in the relationship with God, the king-priest-prophet have become the very people who have dulled the people to the siren’s call. There is a Davidic king and the temple which the people have begun to place their trust in, yet the prophets are always pointing to God’s vision of justice and shalom (harmony/peace) and the ways that the people have betrayed this vision.

Jeremiah makes a bold statement, in essence placing the blame at God’s feet, for the people have heard and received the message that it is well (most likely from the king and his officials, the priests and the prophets) while terror approaches. One of the roles of the prophet is to stand between the people and God, challenging both. The prophet will love both God and the people and weep with and for both of them, and in standing between the two his heart and body will be broken. Yet Jeremiah, among the prophets, seems to stand alone-for the other prophets of his time seem to be singing in unison with the kings and priests. Jeremiah speaks dangerous words, but they are the words of the faithful willing to enter into the struggle with God, to challenge God, to even go so far as calling God a traitor while still remaining in the relationship. As Moses in the Exodus, Jeremiah intercedes for the people he loves and yet even Jeremiah will have his limits as we will find.

God the Wounded Lover: Jeremiah 4: 1-4

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The Prophet Jeremiah by Michelangelo

Jeremiah 4: 1-4

If you return, O Israel, says the LORD,
if you return to me,
if you remove your abominations from my presence,
and do not waver,
² and if you swear, “As the LORD lives!”
in truth, in justice, and in uprightness,
then nations shall be blessed by him,
and by him they shall boast.
³ For thus says the LORD to the people of Judah
and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem:
Break up your fallow ground,
and do not sow among thorns.
⁴ Circumcise yourselves to the LORD,
remove the foreskin of your hearts,
O people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem,
or else my wrath will go forth like fire,
and burn with no one to quench it,
because of the evil of your doings.

One of the gifts of having been through a divorce that I did not want or seek, that I did everything in my power to prevent is being able to resonate with the emotions of the God portrayed in Jeremiah. A God who is wrestling with a feeling of absolute betrayal, and yet still has deep feelings for the beloved one. The desire is there to start again, to do everything within their power to rebuild the relationship. Everything, that is, except force the other party to remain within the relationship with them. Yet if the relationship is to be reconciled it requires faithfulness and it requires the ending of the affairs that created the separation in the first place.

I am writing this during the season of lent (often there is a significant lag between when I write something and when I publish it as is here apparent), preparing for Holy week, and one of the traditional services for Good Friday includes a long series of solemn reproaches that I think capture some of the emotion of this part of Jeremiah:

O my people, O my church, what have I done to you?
How have I offended you? Answer me.
I led you out of slavery into freedom,
And delivered you through the waters of rebirth,
But you have prepared a cross for your Savior….
O my people, O my church, what more could I have done for you?
Answer me.
I struck down your enemies, but you struck my head with a reed;
I gave you peace, but you draw the sword in my name,
And you have prepared a cross for your Savior
(Evangelical Lutheran Worship Leaders Edition, 639ff)

Even against the wisdom of Torah (the law) God still yearns for the relationship with his covenant people, and if it can be resumed it will have to be in a new type of relationship. God is not like King Ahasuerus in Esther who is bound by royal decrees and laws, no God is more like Joseph in Matthew’s gospel, portraying a different kind of righteousness. A legalistic understanding of righteousness or a punitive understanding would say here is the rule, the law that was broken and here is the punishment that this infraction dictates. Every action has a consequence, every offence has a punishment and reconciliation rests in the hands of the one who offended. But I use the example of Joseph, because he was a righteous man as Matthew tells the story, but rather than look for justice when he learns of Mary’s pregnancy he looks for mercy. In Jeremiah and in the New Testament we find a God for whom relationships are more important than rules, who desires and works for the return of the departed even while they are still turned away. Who desires nothing more than to resume the relationship as it was meant to be.

Perhaps God is naïve in the nature of relationships among humans, perhaps God is an idealistic fool—or perhaps God loves and that love is greater than the wound that the brokenness has caused.

The God Who Wouldn’t Give Up: Jeremiah 3

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Orthodox Icon of the Prophet Jeremiah

Jeremiah 3

If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and becomes another man’s wife,
will he return to her? Would not such a land be greatly polluted?
You have played the whore with many lovers; and would you return to me?
says the LORD.
² Look up to the bare heights, and see!
Where have you not been lain with?
By the waysides you have sat waiting for lovers, like a nomad in the wilderness.
You have polluted the land with your whoring and wickedness.
³ Therefore the showers have been withheld, and the spring rain has not come;
yet you have the forehead of a whore, you refuse to be ashamed.
⁴ Have you not just now called to me, “My Father, you are the friend of my youth–
⁵ will he be angry forever, will he be indignant to the end?”
This is how you have spoken, but you have done all the evil that you could.

⁶ The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and played the whore there? ⁷ And I thought, “After she has done all this she will return to me”; but she did not return, and her false sister Judah saw it. ⁸ She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce; yet her false sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. ⁹ Because she took her whoredom so lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. ¹⁰ Yet for all this her false sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but only in pretense, says the LORD.

¹¹ Then the LORD said to me: Faithless Israel has shown herself less guilty than false Judah. ¹² Go, and proclaim these words toward the north, and say:
Return, faithless Israel, says the LORD. I will not look on you in anger,
for I am merciful, says the LORD; I will not be angry forever.
¹³ Only acknowledge your guilt, that you have rebelled against the LORD your God,
and scattered your favors among strangers under every green tree,
and have not obeyed my voice, says the LORD.
¹⁴ Return, O faithless children, says the LORD, for I am your master;
I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

¹⁵ I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. ¹⁶ And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says the LORD, they shall no longer say, “The ark of the covenant of the LORD.” It shall not come to mind, or be remembered, or missed; nor shall another one be made. ¹⁷ At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the LORD, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the LORD in Jerusalem, and they shall no longer stubbornly follow their own evil will. ¹⁸ In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your ancestors for a heritage.

¹⁹ I thought how I would set you among my children,
and give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful heritage of all the nations.
And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me.
²⁰ Instead, as a faithless wife leaves her husband,
so you have been faithless to me, O house of Israel, says the LORD.
²¹ A voice on the bare heights is heard, the plaintive weeping of Israel’s children,
because they have perverted their way, they have forgotten the LORD their God:
²² Return, O faithless children, I will heal your faithlessness.
“Here we come to you; for you are the LORD our God.
²³ Truly the hills are a delusion, the orgies on the mountains.
Truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.

²⁴ “But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our ancestors had labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. ²⁵ Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us; for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our ancestors, from our youth even to this day; and we have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.”

Jeremiah and the other prophets open us to the story of a God who loves, which may be a bit naïve about relationships, but refuses to give up. Unlike earthly kings portrayed in the bible who are bound by the law they have written(think for example of King Darius in Daniel 6 [the story of Daniel and the lions’ den] or King Xerses in the book of Esther) God’s love for God’s people will not be undone by their disobedience. In a direct allusion to Deuteronomy 24: 1-4 where the law states such a wife may not return (granted this is not a fair world-women could not divorce husbands but husbands could divorce wives) and this sets up the argument to come, God is not going to be bound by this. God desires the return of both Israel (the northern kingdom) and Judah (the southern kingdom). And yet God is working through God’s own woundedness by the brokenness of the relationship. God is the vulnerable one, God loved and was hurt by it and yet rather than give up God is willing to risk humiliation and defilement to continue to be in relationship. Much as the prophet Hosea and his adulterous wife, God is acting as the Father/husband who has not given up on the relationship and is taking the first step of reconciliation and restoration.

Judah and Israel have to want to come home though, God is allowing the consequences of their actions to run its course and is withholding God’s support for them. Much as a loved one doing the difficult wait for an addict to hit rock bottom, God waits. God wants desperately for Israel and Judah to come home and yet they cannot come home as they are. As Brueggeman states “the poet tears at the heart of God, who yearns, but who will not be mocked, trivialized or used.” (Brueggemann 1998, 45) Even in the midst of the fickleness of Judah we find the firmness of God’s resolve to establish a new relationship. It will have to be something new, even after reconciliation there will need to be changes but the opportunity for that new relationship is left wide open by the wounded but loving God. Much as in Ezekiel 34 where God will replace the shepherds who have abused the sheep, God promises in verse 15 new leaders:

¹⁵ I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding

And there will be a chance for an even greater level of closeness.

God is seeking a new beginning, willing to set aside the brokenness of the past not to go back to the old but to begin something new. There must be a change on Israel’s part and on Judah’s part, and that may not be any easier than giving up an addiction, but the space has been made available for a return. And somehow God while not determining the actions of Judah or Israel as a puppeteer creates the space through love where a return is possible. To remember Martin Luther’s words in the Heidelberg Disputation:

“The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it.” (Luther 1989, 32)

Judah and Israel’s actions may not make them seem very loveable and yet God refuses to see them through that lens, but rather through the lens of love that makes a new future possible.

Rhetorical Overkill: Jeremiah 2: 20-37

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Apophysis-Betrayal (1footonthedawn at deviantart.com)

Jeremiah 2: 20-37
20 For long ago you broke your yoke
and burst your bonds, and you said, “I will not serve!”
On every high hill and under every green tree
you sprawled and played the whore.
21 Yet I planted you as a choice vine, from the purest stock.
How then did you turn degenerate and become a wild vine?
22 Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap,
the stain of your guilt is still before me,
says the Lord GOD.
23 How can you say, “I am not defiled, I have not gone after the Baals”?
Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done—
a restive young camel interlacing her tracks,
24 a wild ass at home in the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind!
Who can restrain her lust?
None who seek her need weary themselves; in her month they will find her.
25 Keep your feet from going unshod and your throat from thirst.
But you said, “It is hopeless, for I have loved strangers,
and after them I will go.”
26 As a thief is shamed when caught, so the house of Israel shall be shamed—
they, their kings, their officials, their priests, and their prophets,
27 who say to a tree, “You are my father,” and to a stone, “You gave me birth.”
For they have turned their backs to me, and not their faces.
But in the time of their trouble they say,
“Come and save us!”
28 But where are your gods that you made for yourself?
Let them come, if they can save you, in your time of trouble;
for you have as many gods as you have towns, O Judah.
29 Why do you complain against me?
You have all rebelled against me, says the LORD.
30 In vain I have struck down your children; they accepted no correction.
Your own sword devoured your prophets like a ravening lion.
31 And you, O generation, behold the word of the LORD!
Have I been a wilderness to Israel, or a land of thick darkness?
Why then do my people say, “We are free, we will come to you no more”?
32 Can a girl forget her ornaments, or a bride her attire?
Yet my people have forgotten me, days without number.
33 How well you direct your course to seek lovers!
So that even to wicked women you have taught your ways.
34 Also on your skirts is found the lifeblood of the innocent poor,
though you did not catch them breaking in.
Yet in spite of all these things
35 you say, “I am innocent; surely his anger has turned from me.”
Now I am bringing you to judgment for saying, “I have not sinned.”
36 How lightly you gad about, changing your ways!
You shall be put to shame by Egypt as you were put to shame by Assyria.
37 From there also you will come away with your hands on your head;
for the LORD has rejected those in whom you trust, and you will not prosper through them.

One of the things you will see if you spend much time with the prophets is what I and others have called rhetorical overkill. Not only is the person unfaithful, but they are having sex under every green tree, they are like a wild ass in heat, etc….that is the language and it is what it is. You can try to explain it away, you can say it is a metaphor, you might find it offensive, it might work differently in different cultures, but it is using figurative language to express the depth of pain of the betrayed by the betrayer. In this case God is the betrayed one and out of the language of God’s pain comes this set of metaphors shifting from sexual to agricultural and back to sexual to cultic and legal and back to sexual. This is the language of a person in pain trying to make sense of how their view of a person could be so different from the reality. What is the offense that caused this level of pain and disillusionment? Two are lifted up in this section: idolatry and injustice.
Idolatry may constitute a whole range of things from people at this time going out and doing practices which honor other gods, conducting worship of other nations gods, conducting practices which are not approved by God or they may not be worshipping God correctly (away from the temple in Jerusalem or it may be worship without justice). Somehow there has been a distortion of the vision that God had for God’s people. Injustice is lifted up when the prophet says : 34 Also on your skirts is found the lifeblood of the innocent poor, though you did not catch them breaking in. Justice in the ancient world, even more than in the modern world, often depended upon one’s social standing, wealth and power more than any modern understanding of guilt or innocence, and yet this was not the society that the Lord envisioned.
The vine and vineyard image is one that recurs several times throughout scriptures because the vine was one of the most important and common agricultural images. In Isaiah 5, Isaiah morns of a vineyard that the vineyard’s owner did everything for and yet it does not produce, in Mark 12: 1-10 and parallels the image is once again brought up with a vineyard and unfaithful tenants and here in Jeremiah it is a choice vine which goes wild. People would have understood the agricultural imagery because this was an agrarian society.
One additional thing to consider is that we have a theological interpretation of reality going on, which we should expect from the prophets. This is not the world of power politics which the kings and princes are dealing with, they are trying to appease Assyria and Egypt, the powers that could conceivably invade and conquer Judah and they are attempting to maintain security through political alliances, military power and economic policy. Judah is a very desirable piece of property because it is at the trade crossroads between Assyria, Babylon, Persian and the far East and Egypt and Northern Africa and as N.T. Wright notes over the course of its history of 4,000 years on average every 40 years another army will march in or through it. (Wright 1992, 3) The prophets, kings and people are all looking at different strategies of survival and security. Security becomes the most important thing, more important than justice, more important than God, more important than freedom.
Security is perhaps the greatest idol that many in America face. We want to ensure that we have enough for ourselves at the exclusion of a societal concern for others and this runs headlong in contrast with the prophet’s and by extension God’s vision of shalom and justice. While many would read these words and be immediately drawn to condemn personal immorality as a method of societal corruption the prophet reverses this societal corruption, the loss of justice and trust in God’s way, is pointed to using a rhetorically inflated image of personal immorality where the woman in this image represents Judah.

The Wounded God: Jeremiah 2: 1-19

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Apophysis-Betrayal (1footonthedawn at deviantart.com)

Jeremiah 2: 1-19

The word of the LORD came to me, saying: 2 Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the LORD:
I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown.
3 Israel was holy to the LORD,
the first fruits of his harvest.
All who ate of it were held guilty;
disaster came upon them,
says the LORD.
4 Hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. 5 Thus says the LORD:
What wrong did your ancestors find in me
that they went far from me,
and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?
6 They did not say, “Where is the LORD
who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
who led us in the wilderness,
in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness,
in a land that no one passes through,
where no one lives?”
7 I brought you into a plentiful land
to eat its fruits and its good things.
But when you entered you defiled my land,
and made my heritage an abomination.
8 The priests did not say, “Where is the LORD?”
Those who handle the law did not know me;
the rulers transgressed against me;
the prophets prophesied by Baal,
and went after things that do not profit.
9 Therefore once more I accuse you,
says the LORD,
and I accuse your children’s children.
10 Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look,
send to Kedar and examine with care;
see if there has ever been such a thing.
11 Has a nation changed its gods,
even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory
for something that does not profit.
12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this,
be shocked, be utterly desolate,
says the LORD,
13 for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
that can hold no water.
14 Is Israel a slave? Is he a homeborn servant?
Why then has he become plunder?
15 The lions have roared against him,
they have roared loudly.
They have made his land a waste;
his cities are in ruins, without inhabitant.
16 Moreover, the people of Memphis and Tahpanhes
have broken the crown of your head.
17 Have you not brought this upon yourself
by forsaking the LORD your God,
while he led you in the way?
18 What then do you gain by going to Egypt,
to drink the waters of the Nile?
Or what do you gain by going to Assyria,
to drink the waters of the Euphrates?
19 Your wickedness will punish you,
and your apostasies will convict you.
Know and see that it is evil and bitter
for you to forsake the LORD your God;
the fear of me is not in you,
says the Lord GOD of hosts.

Can it hurt to be God? For many people their image of God is shaped more by stoicism and philosophy than the picture of God we find in the Bible. This is not a new thing, it was a consequence of the church entering into the Greek speaking and thinking world right at the very beginning of its life where in Greek thought (where stoicism comes from) the ideal person (and thus God) is not swayed by emotions, but is instead logical and rational. God being the unmoved mover who created the world would not be motivated by pleasure, joy or even love and conversely would not get angry, hurt, wounded, or really feel much of anything. Ultimately this is the picture of an apathetic God (apathy is the opposite of pathos, the ability to suffer, a-pathos) but it in no way reflects the God we encounter anywhere in scriptures. I remember Duane Larson, who was president at Wartburg Theological Seminary while I was there, stating, “We have a pathetic God”, we have a God who can feel, who does suffer and so yes, it can hurt to be God. An openness to the pain of rejection and loss are the risks of love.
Now I also approach this from the perspective of having gone through a divorce, and so I hear very clearly in the midst of this the language of a heartbroken God trying to make sense of a relationship that is broken. “What did I do wrong? I gave you everything you asked for…I did this, I did that, look around, what makes you think this an acceptable way to treat your partner…” There is a romanticizing of the past, “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness…” Really, is this the same people who remember this journey in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy…at least the way that memory is recorded they are hardly paragons of faithfulness and trust. It is like the person who exhibits all types of relational issues during dating and early in a marriage and then when the relationship is broken the other partner looks back and overlooks all those red flags and initially remembers that time better than what it was. God in effect says, “I provided for you, I protected you, I gave you the place you always wanted, what more could I give?” To quote Jeremiah “What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me?” (vs. 5). The priests, interpreters of the law and the prophets, those who are charged with honoring and pointing to this relationship have turned away as well. The honeymoon is over and the relationship is broken, distorted and in serious jeopardy. God is still reaching out, but Judah and Jerusalem are not.
God tells them go to the east (Kedar) and the west (Cyprus) and you won’t find others doing this, even when their partners aren’t able to give the things that God has given. They don’t change their gods, but Israel has. They have also looked to the powers of the day: Assyria and Egypt-they look at the power in the North and the power in the South and through playing politics they try to ensure their survival. In one sense it is a very rational move, to negotiate with the superpowers of the day who Judah finds itself geographically caught between. But they have put their trust in the way things are rather than the God who has made new things occur in the past.
Adam C. Welch makes the following suggestion:
There was no cause (for other nations) to forsake such gods, because It involved so little to follow them. …The iron core was that Israel could only have Yahweh of His own terms…Yahwism was no colorless faith which was simply the expression of the people’s pride in itself and its destiny. It laid a curb on men, it had a yoke and bonds. The bonds were those of love, but love’s bonds are the most enduring and the most exacting.
Israel’s central command from Deuteronomy 6:5 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might”perhaps is the most difficult commandment to keep. (Breuggemann 1998, 36)

God’s vision of shalom (harmony and peace) and justice were much different from the world around the people of Judah, and so even though I can easily see myself in the shoes of the people who Jeremiah is addressing, I can also understand the brokenhearted God who longs for this people to return, to come home, to live in the covenant and blessing he desires for them. The road of reconciliation ahead, if it is to happen will be a difficult one, and it will require hard words to get past the devastated feelings. It will take the relationship, as it is, dying if there is to be a chance for rebirth. We will not get there quickly, there is hard work that is required by both partners, but God’s woundedness has left the door open.

The Calling: Jeremiah 1

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Jeremiah by James Tissot

Jeremiah 1

   The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, 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 King Josiah son of Amon of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. ³ It came also in the days of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah son of Josiah 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.”
⁶    Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” ⁷ But the LORD said to me,
“Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’;
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you.
⁸ Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.”
⁹ Then the LORD put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the LORD said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.
¹⁰ See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.”
     ¹¹ The word of the LORD came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” And I said, “I see a branch of an almond tree.” ¹² Then the LORD said to me, “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to perform it.” ¹³ The word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, “What do you see?” And I said, “I see a boiling pot, tilted away from the north.”
    ¹⁴ Then the LORD said to me: Out of the north disaster shall break out on all the inhabitants of the land.¹⁵ For now I am calling all the tribes of the kingdoms of the north, says the LORD; and they shall come and all of them shall set their thrones at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem, against all its surrounding walls and against all the cities of Judah. ¹⁶ And I will utter my judgments against them, for all their wickedness in forsaking me; they have made offerings to other gods, and worshiped the works of their own hands. ¹⁷ But you, gird up your loins; stand up and tell them everything that I command you. Do not break down before them, or I will break you before them. ¹⁸ And I for my part have made you today a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall, against the whole land– against the kings of Judah, its princes, its priests, and the people of the land. ¹⁹ They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says the LORD, to deliver you.

Why would anyone want to be a prophet? I know, I’ve heard the young rebels I know who want to ‘speak truth to power’ but the reality is that the prophet is not an easy role. To use Richard Lischer’s words, “The prophet’s voice is usually about an octave too high for the rest of society.” (Lischer 2005, 23) And while there may be moments of anger for the prophet they are caught between God and a people and often they feel abused by both sides. They are the messengers of God at a time when it is all to common to shoot the messenger, they are the bearers of the news that nobody wants to hear. They love their people dearly even when they are abused by them, and while there may be moments of anger, that is not their dominant emotion. Following Lischer again: “…the emotion most characteristic of the prophet is not anger but sorrow. He tells the truth but rarely in bitterness of spirit and never with contempt for the Other. His truth-telling is pervaded by a sense of tragedy.” (Lischer 2005, 161) As we journey with Jeremiah we will experience that tragedy, the sorrow, the frustration and the honest emotions he feels as he is caught between God and the people of God.

Let us begin with his calling: Jeremiah starts out as a priest, one of the literate elite in the time leading up to crisis. He will serve for a prophet as a long time, and will suffer much and it is not a life he chose, but rather a life that was chosen for him:

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.”

God is the actor, Jeremiah is acted upon. God makes the choice, God has made Jeremiah who he is for this role, to be a mouthpiece. Jeremiah doesn’t ask for this, doesn’t want this and like every other prophet I can think of tries to talk God out of this: I don’t know how to speak, for I am only a boy. Like Moses who didn’t know how to speak, and he is not the type of youth who thinks he knows it all but rather is all too aware of his unworthiness and weaknesses-and yet he is chosen and he begins the road that is laid out before him.

Back in the 1980s one of my favorite bands was a heavy metal group, Queensrÿche, and one of their songs The Road to Madness is perhaps helpful at this point:

Most of this is memory now
I’ve gone too far to turn back now
I’m not quite what I thought I was but
Then again I’m maybe more
The blood-words promised, I’ve spoken
Releasing the names from the circle
Maybe I can leave here now and, o
Transcend the boundaries

For now I’m standing here
I’m awaiting this grand transition
The future is but past forgotten
On the road to madness

Times measure rusts as it crawls
I see its face in the looking glass – stop
This screaming laughter hides, the pain of its reality
Black, the door was locked I opened
And now I’ve paid that price ten-fold over
Knowledge – was it worth such torment, oh
To see the far side of shadow

And still I’m standing here
I’m awaiting this grand transition
I’m a fool in search of wisdom
And I’m on the road to madness
Yes, I’m on the road to madness

I’m awaiting endlessly
Pounding rhythms echo me
Won’t you take me somewhere far beyond the void

And still I’m standing here
I’m awaiting this grand transition
Maybe one day, oh I’ll meet you, and we’ll
Walk the roads to madness
Yes, we’re on the road to madness

Oh, I think they’ve come to take me
I hear the voice, but there’s no-one to see
I can’t scream, too late it’s time

As with this song, the actual meaning of the words may not be as important as what they convey-the sense of having and seeing things in a way that everyone else sees them opens the one seeing to a whole new world of pain, it is almost like Plato’s famous story in the Republic of the Cave where the person who has seen the world in a new way and returns home only to be apprehended and killed by those who are still in darkness. Being God’s mouthpiece is going to come at a high personal price for Jeremiah.

God has chosen, the prophet will pluck up and pull down, destroy and overthrow, build and plant. The prophet will bear the news that nobody wants to hear and he doesn’t have the choice to throw up his hands and give up. In the words of the song, the door that is locked is opened (and not by the prophet but from the other side, from God) and the prophet will pay the price ten fold over. Who the prophet is, why he was chosen is based on who God formed him to be—God has chosen his instrument for a difficult task and will continue to be with Jeremiah, but Jeremiah never has the ability to give up for it is either withstand priests and princes or be crushed by God?
But who is this God who puts prophets in such a difficult circumstance? Why make the chosen ones suffer so? And yet it is the way of the elect. A person is set aside not for their own benefit but for the benefit of others. The way we naturally want to think of election is that it is what makes a person separate and perhaps able to look down their righteous noses at others, election makes me or us special…but in scripture election, setting apart is always for the sake of the other. Israel is set apart to be a blessing to the nations (the world), the prophets are set apart to be a witness to either the covenant people or those outside the covenant. They are a part of what God is doing and the world, and it is not always easy. The suffer and grieve for those who will not or can not hear, they bear the weight of seeing all that is wrong even when they may not be able to fix it. They may indeed be close to the road to madness, and yet they are there not for their own sake, not for some secret knowledge…they are there because ultimately God loves God’s people (and by extension the world) so much that God will not let go and so God allows those who are drawn closest to suffer on their behalf so that they might see, know and return.

The world of Jeremiah, like our world is not as it should be. Most people accommodate and make their way as best they can with little reference to God or any other source of meaning outside what benefits themselves. The prophets, like Jeremiah, are drawn into the relationship with God and into God’s desire to re-establish the relationship and the idea of shalom (God’s peace or harmony in the world). They are drawn to the dream and they see the nightmare that most of the rest of us have grown accustomed to. It is like us watching a dystopic movie, like The Hunger Games for example, where reality is so dark and yet when we are honest we can see parts of our own society mirrored in that experience. In a very real sense, when everyone else sees things as running along OK the prophet will see through a dystopic lense of all the things that are really wrong and it is only in the midst of crisis that the prophetic hope of what a utopia might look like emerges and gives light and hope for the hard work of building that society of shalom and reconciliation. We are journeying towards the light, but we have a long way to go before the dawn and the road ahead will get darker on the prophet’s road.

A Brief Forward to the Prophet Jeremiah

Long Live the Queen: Esther 2:12-18

Esther 2: 12-18

¹² The turn came for each girl to go in to King Ahasuerus, after being twelve months under the regulations for the women, since this was the regular period of their cosmetic treatment, six months with oil of myrrh and six months with perfumes and cosmetics for women. ¹³ When the girl went in to the king she was given whatever she asked for to take with her from the harem to the king’s palace. ¹⁴ In the evening she went in; then in the morning she came back to the second harem in custody of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch, who was in charge of the concubines; she did not go in to the king again, unless the king delighted in her and she was summoned by name.

¹⁵ When the turn came for Esther daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had adopted her as his own daughter, to go in to the king, she asked for nothing except what Hegai the king’s eunuch, who had charge of the women, advised. Now Esther was admired by all who saw her. ¹⁶ When Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus in his royal palace in the tenth month, which is the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign, ¹⁷ the king loved Esther more than all the other women; of all the virgins she won his favor and devotion, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. ¹⁸ Then the king gave a great banquet to all his officials and ministers– “Esther’s banquet.” He also granted a holiday to the provinces, and gave gifts with royal liberality.

So we come to the ‘rose ceremony’ after the date where the king gets to choose the person who he has fallen for, what the woman thinks about the matter doesn’t matter. After a year of treatments, and we really don’t know exactly what all these treatments would entail and whether they would also include training to be more sexually proficient, but this is a story of excess and after a year of preparation, at least in Esther’s case, the girl is brought to the palace to spend the night with the king and then shipped off to be with the rest of the concubines to be summoned at the king’s will. The young girl is to try to win the heart of the king or be consigned to the house of the concubines never to be summoned again. Unlike the Bachelor, these girls are not sent home that they may find someone else who will love them, nope they are the kings women, and they have no say in this.

Esther plays the game well and the king loves her. She is his new queen and the throws a banquet, proclaims a holiday and there was much rejoicing. Again this is a story of excess and this is the celebration of the completion of the search for the new queen. Esther the powerless orphan and the Jew is now Queen Esther, bride of King Ahasuerus the ruler of the world (or at least the biggest empire of the day).

One final note, Esther apparently isn’t a devoutly practicing Jew. There is no mention of her requiring a special diet, like Daniel. Nobody realized that she is Jewish, it never seems to be a consideration. She assimilates to the culture of the people who she is in exile with. As the prophet Jeremiah states:

⁴ Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵ Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. ⁶ Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. ⁷ But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. Jeremiah 29: 4-7

There is no condemnation of this assimilation, Esther does what she has to do (just as Mordecai does) to survive. Yet, somehow through these two powerless ones God will work to make a place for his people in the midst of Babylon.

Sign of the Rose

Searchings: Sacred and Secular