Jeremiah 4.3 Think About It

When the people get duped, it is not only the fault of their leaders. It is also the fault iof the people.

Communication is a reciprocal responsibility. If I tell you something, it is important that I speak clearly and present information responsibly. However, it is also the hearers responsibilty to understand and responsibly evaluate.

This is especially true of propoganda. Everyday, we are inundated with messages from leaders - political leaders, social leaders, and religious leaders. We need to understand what they are communicating both explicitly and implicitly. It is our responsibility to think critically in evaluating what they are saying or trying to say.

The people of Judah failed at this. Sure, the political leaders failed to communicate the correct information. Their society's leaders had disengaged the nation from its ethical moorings. And the religious leaders completely blew it in. But the people - the hearers - were in part responsible to evaluate the messages they were recieving.

Jeremiah is clear. There are no innocents. They chose not to hear the message of the prophets of God, and instead closed their ears. However, when the false prophets preached, they were willing listeners.

Jeremiah indicts everybody - "from the least to the greatest." Children and parents, young and old, leaders and listeners, everybody is culpable. Jeremiah accuses them all of buying into what Brueggemann calls an unprincipled economic system - the economics of greed.

Have I ever considered myself a culpable participant in my society's economics? If I am part of a society's indictment, am I also a part of the judgement? The citizens of Judah certainly were.   

Jeremiah 4.2 Mutiny

The rain made things colder and even more miserable than they already were. It fell from the gray sky into the brown of the mud and soup that the Lieutenant's map said was a road. The rain was getting the Lieutenant's map wetter and less legible, but he stared at it nonetheless. No matter, his hands were shaking so much he couldn't have read a perfectly dry map.

We looked at the trembling young lieutenant. Then, we looked at eachother. His hands weren't shaking from the cold.

As we stood at the fork in the mud, voices could be heard amidst the wind and the rain. The enemy was somewhere out there in the forest.

"We can't stay here, Lieutenant" I ventured.

Sarge glared at me and growled, "Nobody asked your opinion."

The lieutenant started to put away his map. "We'll k-k-keep heading south."

I couldn't believe it. We had been cut off for over three days. First, we lost touch with the rest of the battalion and then we got completely lost. Then foolowed a pathetic repetition of errors. Every place we bumbled into, there were enemies. Shooting ensued, one or two men would be left behind as we ran for our lives. Then, we would do it all over again.

"Before we head off," the Lieutenant ordered, "let's give the radio a shot."

"The radio doesn't work, sir" Sarge offered.

"Well," the lieutenant responded, "maybe we are in range now." 

"Sir, the radio was plugged full of holes in that last scrap we got into. It's useless."

The lieutenant was completely overmatched. It was his first command and he had bungled every part of it. Men were dead or captured because of decisions that he had made. Only half of us were left.

"Sir," I pleaded, "if we keep heading south, we're screwed for sure. There's a whole enemy division out there. We've seen them and heard them."

"We are heading south," the Lieutenant chortled. "I realized we got a little lost, but by now the major and the rest of the battalion must have made it to the rendezvous point."

"Are you crazy?" I blurted out. "Do you really think the major wants you to march through an entire enemy division? What the hell is the point? You're going to get us all killed!"

"That's enough!" Sarge suddenly roared. He stepped between me and the lieutenant. "You will do as you are told. Get your ass moving! That goes for the rest of you. Move out!"

I stood firm. I was tired of marching in the exact wrong direction. I had enough of following a leader who was clueless. I had been pleading for days that we had strayed too far west. We needed to head east. He was leading us in the wrong direction and now was the time to make a stand against this maddening waste.

Sarge moved menacingly toward me. I looked to my squad mates. They looked back at me, uncertain. They all knew I was right. This bumbling idiot was going to lead us right to our graves.

"C'mon, guys. We're heading the wrong way! This - "

I didn't even see Sarge swing. One moment I was on my feet, then I was on the ground with a bleeding lip. Sarge threw in a kick to the ribs, for good measure.

I lay on the ground for few moments. After a while I lifted my head. My vision was momentarily blurred. When it cleared, I saw the men had turned their backs to me and were walking in line. They were headed south. Mine was a mutiny of one.

I rolled over on to my back and lay in the mud for a while. I touched my busted lip and wiped the rain off my face.

Slowly, I got my legs back under me. I picked up my rifle and my pack. The company was out of sight by this time, somewhere south in the darkening forest. I hurried to catch them. I rounded a bend, and saw them no more than 100 yds ahead just a  hidden machine gun nest opened up. Half the men fell in seconds, the rest dove for cover. The woods exploded as into motion as several hundred enemy soldiers poured out to complete the ambush.

My first extinct was to run toward the massacre, but then I stopped. There was nothing I could do. They were all dead or dying.

Horror paralyzed me. They were fools following a fool, but they were still countrymen and friends. And now they were gone. Even as I saw enemy soldiers pointing and gesturing toward me, I stood motionless. The enemy soldiers ran toward me, screaming. Even I understood their language, I wouldn't comprehended anything. My ears were filled with a strange ringing. It drown everything else out.

I dumbly looked down at the rifle in my right hand. I dropped it to the mud below. It was useless. It was all useless.   

Jeremiah 4.1 Stay Calm, Ignore the Prophet

They had preached "peace, peace" when there was no peace. They had said "it could never happen here," and when it did happen, the kings, the priests and even the prophets were stunned.

Jeremiah wasn't.

Jeremiah may have been taken aback, horrified, and even saddened by the sight of destruction, but it was no surprise. He had seen it coming, and he had warned everybody that would listen, and he warned those who wouldn't listen. That very fact had made him an outcast, an exile within his own land.

He sounded crazy, no doubt. The people had been told by everyone else that there was no danger, no threat. The kings had said it. The priests had said it. Even other prophets were celebrating peace and safety.

Usually, if you're the only person who sees something, you're crazy.

Have you ever felt like the crazy person? Nobody else sees the problem. Nobody else sees the issue. You stand up and tell the people to open their eyes. "Shhh! Sit down, be quiet." You go to the leadership and warn them of the dangers, you show them where they had taken the wrong path. They smile and nod and thank you and surreptitiously roll their eyes.

The irony is, of course, that Jeremiah was an island of sanity in an ocean of madness. Leadership was exactly what those in charge should not have been given. They had no idea where they had been, where they were, or what lay on the path ahead.

Have you ever been, Jeremiah? The lone mope at a party? Have you ever sat in worship or fellowship and thought, "What the hell are we doing here?"

One of the lessons in Jeremiah is that your concerns, feelings, paranoias, shames, fears, frustrations, visions, and prophecies are exactly what are needed. The reason that everyone else seems delusional is because they have in fact deluded themselves.

One of the feelings you may have received  from your tradition is "Stay calm, ignore the muttering prophet." Then, everybody turns and looks at you, the supposed lunatic rabble-rouser. Then, is your chance. Now is your chance! Barring a psychotic break, you have a chance to lend voice to the voiceless, to speak the essential dissent. That is the very moment that you should climb Golgotha and give your community a beautiful gift: your voice - your beautiful (probably crazy) unique voice.

Those who do, be blessed and blessed.

Jeremiah 3.3 Political Intermission

This is probably something that I should have covered in introduction, but I am bogged down by it now.

Politics.

I'm stumped about how to interpret and apply Jeremiah's politics. Jeremiah's prophecy is full of practical politics. Should today's readers practice such spiritual realpolitik?

The big issue at the time was with whom Judah should ally itself. The dominant powers were Egypt to the south and Assyria/Babylon to the east. At the beginning of Jeremiah's time, Assyria was a waning regional power and was eventually overtaken by Nebuchadnezzar-era Babylon.

Jeremiah pulls no punches. He pointed east. He pleads with Judah's leaders to forget about Egypt and ally with Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar is portrayed as an instrument of God's power and judgement.

Parenthetically: I am aware this political element of Jeremiah's prophecy may be a classic example of playing the results. Later redactors may have used the eventual Babylonian domination as a means of saying "see, you picked the wrong horse." So, what? It is all too meta for our mediations herein. The text does not give the reader the leeway to bring history into play, though it is important to remember the overwhelming influence of history on the bearers (and editors) of the text.

Theologists, preachers, and prophets don't seem to pick sides these days. There is a very wise effort to NOT pick a side - to NOT become a lackey for some political person or position. But, Jeremiah did. It is a significant element of his preaching.

To Jeremiah, God, though transcendent, is also imminently involved in the affairs of the world. HE appoints kings and emperors and he clearly chooses sides in political divides.

Several complications have probably led to my confusion. These complications are rooted in the significant differences between a modern reader like myself, and an ancient hearer like those who first heard and retold the prophecy.

1. LAND - geopolitics involved the land of Promise. LAND = PROMISE The very dirt of the nation was a theological issue. GOd's promise was the land. So, marauding invaders, or a land laid bare and emptied meant something theologically. Either God had broken his promise or the people had. Any divine revelation would have to explain that.

2. SOCIOLOGY - modern (especially Western) readers see firm divisions between the theological, political, and religious. No such divisions existed for the ancients. We may recoil from such mixing of faith and politics, but the ancients knew nothing of it. Side note: I know many Christians who see the grace of God every time they are able to locate a lost set of keys, so maybe the theological/political divide is not so rigid.

3. REALPOLITIK - clearly part of Jeremiah's motivation was the welfare of the people. Part of the judgement stemmed from the fact that the Judean kings failed to care for their subjects amidst all their scheming and plotting. Bruggemann pointed this application out:

if we carry the Jeremiah oracle toward our common civic life, the mandate that may arise from God is an invitation to a deep breath and a fresh generosity, and a move beyond petty and deep resentment toward embrace of the other.

4. EXILE - This, perhaps, is most significant. Jeremiah (and later redactors) is in part concerned with what to do without typical societal institutions. In exile, all that was is no longer. The priest class is barely recognizable, and there is no temple anyway. The monarchy is gone. The faith of the nation looks forward to a new restoration, but what to do in the meantime? The word of God would have to explain what had occurred as well as revealing a path forward that would maintain the Covenant.

Certainly, political preaching is a dangerous path in our day and age. Political preachers tend to be dismissed as partisans and, thus, lose their authoritative voice. If you sound just like the political hacks on TV, why would I care what you have to say about more transcendent matters?

Yet, I also think about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the other great civil rights reformers. Most were people of faith. Most were Christians, but there were Jewish reformers and Muslim as well. For most of the civil rights movement, their faith prompted political action. They clearly chose a side. History has also proven that they chose God's side.

Stepping into the political arena is different now than it was for Jeremiah, but there is still a place for it. For Jeremiah, it was part of the job. For current preachers, it is not like that, and a political stance is likely a difficult stance. A basic rule remains the same, however:

Make damned sure you're right.

Jeremiah 3.2 Abandoned

I tapped on the door of the wretched flat she called home. There was no need, it creaked open to my touch. The floorboards creaked as I walked into the apartment. Filth everywhere, the stench unbearable.

I found her, half naked, lying on the floor.

The vomit was still on her split lips. Bruises covered her face. Her long hair, once lovely, now was matted and sheared at odd angles.

I bent down, made sure she was breathing, then walked to the nearest window. A blanket served as a curtain. No not a blanket, a quilt. I pulled it down. Cardboard and tape covered a hole in the top section of glass. The bottom section let in the sunlight. The light illuminated the quilt in my arms. Cigarette burns and stains had discolored it, but I still recognized it.

Her mother had given this quilt to her. It was her fifteenth birthday. Her mother had worked for almost six months on it. It was beautiful and every piece of fabric had a meaning, a story. It was a work of love and grace. But, it was meaningless to the fifteen year old girl. She had sneered at it, complained about not getting more than just "some stupid blanket."

Her voice cracked and strained came from behind me. "What the hell are you doing here?"

I turned and handed her the quilt.  "You're cold."

She ripped the quilt away from my outstretched hand, tossed it aside, glaring at me.She returned her hand to her eyes, shielding them from the light.

"Did you bring me any money?"

"No, I didn't."

"Then you can leave."

I looked at her. I could barely remember the brilliant and beautiful child that she had been. "There won't be any more money until you get some help."

"How dare you walk in here and start judging me!" She was screaming now, spittle flew wildly from her lips. I could see where teeth were missing. Her bloodshot eyes were wild and furious.

"The door was open," I offered.

"Well, close it on the way out," she started grasping around at empty cigarette boxes.

I picked my way through the garbage and closed the door as I left.

img src - DeviantArt

Jeremiah 3.1 Indictment

That is why I will take you to court
and charge even your descendants,
declares the Lord

Jeremiah's prophecy is, at its core, concerned about the spiritual tragedy of Judah's forsaking of its history and its God. This forsaking spreads like a cancer throughout every part of society.

Jeremiah criticizes the fall of the moral fabric of the nation. He chided the priests wayward leadership. Jeremiah's critique is also intensely political. He does not shy away from bashing the political decisions of the monarchy. 

But, he does all of this with vibrant and intense poetry. At times, the Message is a tragic opera - laced with drama and metaphor.  It is important to understand what Jeremiah is so intensely lamenting.

Amnesia
Jeremiah accuses the nation of amnesia. Don't you know where you came from? Don't you know what I brought you from? Don't you remember what happened to the Northern Kingdom? How could you pursue this direction?

The nation's political path was leading them into bed with the Egyptians, but this was contrary to the course of history. God led them out of Egypt - not into Egypt.

For hundreds of years, God had cultivated the nation. He had worked to develop the nation into a beacon of hope and truth. Like the Promised Land - the nation had gone from wild and untamed to domesticated and productive. Now, they were undoing all that and returning to the useless Wild.

Prostitution
In strong language, the Prophet accuses the nation of laying down under any tree, with whomever comes along. Everyone, that is, except for the one who loves them the most.

On every high hill and under every lush tree,
you have acted like a prostitute

How can you say,
“I’m not dirty;
I haven’t gone after Baals.”
Look what you have done in the valley;
consider what you have done there.
You are like a frenzied young camel,
racing around,
a wild donkey in the wilderness,
lustfully sniffing the wind.
Who can restrain such passion?
Those who desire her need not give up;
with little effort they will find her in heat

Misplaced Loyalty
The Prophet accuses the priests, especially, of investing in "broken wells." God, himself is a spring of living water, but they had no interest in that. When the nation veered in the wrong direction, the priests went along with it. They never tried to correct things. Intstead, they led the people to the broken, empty wells. There was no water. There was no way to quench the people's thirst.

Jeremiah 2.2 - The Watching Tree

The Prophet recited the cantations, prayed the prayers. He raised his hands and bowed his face to the ground. Slowly, eventually, his lips stopped moving, his breathing slowed and the outside world faded. Prostrate. Listening.

What do you see?

It was the voice - the small whisper, the breeze.

What do you see?

The Prophet's eyes closed.

There was a knoll, it was set against the backdrop of clear blue sky. The knoll was bare of any vegetation save for a lone tree branch - from an almond tree, pink in full bloom, just sitting on the ground.   

What do you see?

"I see a branch, from an almond tree."

A branch from the Watching Tree.

Suddenly, the branch burst into flame and a black pot appeared over the fire - steaming and bubbling.

What do you see?

The water from the boiling pot was falling over one side - violently steaming and sizzling in fire and heat.

What do you see?

The boiling caldron started to tip and the water poured toward the prophet.

What do you see?

"A pot that is boiling and tipping," the Prophet mumbled.

The pot pours from the North.  

 The prophet saw the pot tip over completely and the boiling destruction cosumed everything in its path. It melted and drowned anything in its path, except for the prophet. The Prophet stood un harmed in the midst of the catastrophe. He was unharmed and completely alone.

Jeremiah 2.1 The Calling

The Prophet's Message begins with a recitation of his lineage and then he recounts his calling. We learn that he came from a priestly family. But, was he a priest?

It is tough to tell. Many Biblical characters played the dual role of prophet and priest (Samuel, Ezra, etc.). The book of Jeremiah is filled with priestly inferences and Temple ritual allusions. But, Jeremiah was consistently at odds with the Priest class. They persecuted him, threw him down a well, and on several occasions tried to kill him.

If Jeremiah was a priest, he clearly must have practiced outside of priestly institutions and expectations.

He was an exile, long before he departed for Egypt.

Jeremiah was drafted to a calling different from the Priesthood - called to the work of a Prophet. God touched his lips and thereby inserted His message into the prophet's voice and life.

What must that have tasted like - those first moments of the Calling? The taste must have been somewhat bitter. The message was certainly difficult for any of the Prophet's listeners to hear. The Message was of judgement and destruction, of the razing of kingdoms.

But there was also something else laced throughout the Message. Hope. In the midst of all the heartache and doom, the Message promises rescue and resurrection. Like sky filled with clouds, the Sun is present but invisible.

The destruction was inevitable. The Judgement had been declared. But, God promises to be present with the Prophet and his people throughout. In the end, something different would arise - the culmination of God's eternal plan. The Message promises that God is not only in command, but he is also present through the suffering.

I'm writing this on Easter Sunday 2015. Perhaps you, like me, woke up and had no place to recall or celebrate the Resurrection. Or, perhaps you come from a different tradition and there is no remembrance of the Passover this year. Despite this, I wonder if it is times like these that God reaches down and implants a Message - a Message of resurrection. I wonder if people can still be effective ministers, even in exile.  

Jeremiah 1.3 - Historical Context

Jeremiah's prophecy is another chapter in the story of of a faithful god shepherding his wayward people.

Israel, the Northern Kingdom, had long since fallen and now Judah found itself stuck between giant political and military powers. To the Southwest, was the Kingdom of Egypt. To the East was the Assyrian Empire, and then Babylon.

Jeremiah's time spanned from the hopeful reforms of King Josiah and through the corrupt mess of his successors, to the eventual destruction and final exile.

In the final days of the Kingdom of Judah, the Judean kings were reduced to groveling for the favor of one empire or another. This stood in stark contrast to the heroic Josiah - the fearless king who stood against both Eastern and Western powers. Josiah was fierce about standing for independence, even to his own detriment.

Josiah's passion for political independence was like his passion for religious Independence. Instead of compromising with the pagan pantheon, Josiah fought for the Old Ways. Not his successors, however. Both politically and religiously, they sought to emulate their neighbors. Chasing idols and strange religious practices, the kings drew the ire of Jeremiah, who promised destruction.

The kings were double dealing. They were double dealing the powers of the world and the power of Heaven. The end of Judah was inevitable.

Jeremiah 1.2 Introduction

Are you an exile?
Have you left your faith?
Perhaps, your faith has left you?

Everything your faith once was, it is no longer. At times, you have been convinced that your faith didn't exist at all.

Perhaps it was a slow cooling, or maybe it was like a rug being pulled out from beneath you, but somehow faith completely changed for you.

Some people just can't take the hypocrisy or are horrified by the behavior of believers. So, they leave. Others are chased away, banished, or ignored. Either way, they are exiles.

All the old battles are meaningless now. Things that once evoked great passion are now just more noise in the background of life. It is almost a relief not to pick one side or the other.

And yet, there is still something missing. It is hard to put a finger on what that something actually is.

A community?
An identity?

The old prayers still come to mind, unbidden. Ancient texts bubble to the surface in conversation. Songs from childhood are hummed or whistled. Cosmological questions from children bring forth startlingly honest answers.

Are you an exile? A faith refugee?
Good.

For, it is in exile that faith is changed, remade, and ultimately...
 resurrected.

Jeremiah 1.1 The Story

The Prophet lived long enough to see his warnings become reality. He was able to wander the now empty streets,  to experience life in a leveled city, and to observe the ruined temple. The old man kicked at the dirt of a vacant Holy City and remember another time.

"We must go," a soldier growled, "Now."

The Prophet stared at the soldier. "The Lord told us to stay right here - in the Holy Land."

"Well," the soldier spat, "the Commander says we're all going South, so that's where we are going. Now, move it!"

The Prophet remembered a time when he was young, but old enough to know that things were not as they should have been. He had watched his father and grandfather perform the rituals and functions, but there were few who bothered to practice the faith or adhere to the Law. He remembered watching the nation turn its back on the old ways, and embrace the new.

As he became a man himself, he saw the people vacillate in their beliefs - following one cult and then another. In doing this, they were only following the example of a series of feckless kings. One day the King would be welcoming the Eastern Empire and insulting the Southern Kings, the next day it would be the opposite. The Holy City became filled with wild foreign influences and debauchery.

He remembered the Valley. The King would lead the people there in some the most hideous rituals imaginable. They had strayed so far that good was considered evil and evil, good.

He tried to tell them. He decried the faithless culture, the corrupt monarchs, and the people who had forgotten the Way. He reminded them of the need for the Law and the Sabbath. He pled with the city and the nation. He begged them to turn things around. But, nobody was listening. From kings to peasants, he was mocked and ridiculed by a stubbornly forgetful nation. He was imprisoned, castigated and even thrown down a well. But, nothing would shut him up.

The soldier leveled his spear.

The Prophet stared at the soldier.

The Scribe jumped between the soldier and the Prophet. "Nabi, please, let us be going."

The prophet allowed the Scribe to lead him to the long line of people gathered on the Southern road. They, like him, were pitiful to look upon. Dressed in rags and carrying what they could. A lost and broken people.

When the King had finally decided to listen, it was too late. The Emperor's army was upon them. Their doom had arrived.

Though unsurprised by the arrival of the Judgement, the violence of it was still a shock.

The blood...
The fire...
The bodies...
The chains...

They had all left. The city and nation was empty. But, some had tried to return. They had come out of hiding and some had even returned from Babylon. They tried to make it work. But, the corruption was still poisoning the people. Now, the governor had been assassinated. The Empire would soon hear of it. The scheming, plotting Commanders had ordered everybody south - the City would be abandoned.

Walking with the ramshackle procession, he looked at his feet and the ground beneath. The Promised Land would finally have its Sabbath, its rest.

He looked over his shoulder to the ruins of the temple.

He glanced at his faithful Scribe.

They were now exiles. An exiled people with an exiled faith.

The Prophet knew that nothing would ever be the same. But, he also knew that this pathetic shuffling lot, who were looking for refuge in a foreign land, would actually find rescue. The rescue would not come from an Southern King, nor would it be found in the Emperor to the East. They would find a new future in the faith of their grandfathers and grandmothers.

Though mourning the past, their future would bring an incredible miracle. The sovereign God of Heaven, their ancestors, the God of the Law, he had directed this. But, it would not last forever. He would not forget his people.

Nothing could dissuade him. This was an act of judgement and the Lord of Hosts was still in command. And if the Lord of Hosts was in command, then he would be there with them - a god in exile.

"Now we shall see what awaits us," the Scribe said encouragingly.

The Prophet looked at the road ahead, beyond the sad shuffling refugees. "Exile, Baruch. Exile  awaits."

The Prophet smiled as he walked away from the Holy City.