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| The Prophet Jeremiah as painted by Marc Chagall |
As Hebrew prophets go, I have a warm spot
for Jeremiah. I dig Hosea and Ezekiel, too. All three of these boys had pretty
wacky ways of getting their messages across, but Jeremiah takes center stage
in the Hebrew scripture lesson for Reformation Sunday (Jeremiah 31:31-34). I
thought it might be a good idea to give a little historical background on the
old fellow.
Jeremiah comes on the scene as a prophet
around the seventh century B.C. He’s pretty mainstream when he starts out, but
later he does some wild stunts—the weirdest of which (Jeremiah 13:1-11) is
walking around in dirty underwear as a graphic demonstration of the depravity
of the people who have fallen away from God and justly deserve a family-sized
dose of shame. He’s kind of a tragic guy in that he has the dirty job of
telling people who are in power stuff they don’t want to hear. Chiefly, he has
to tell King Zedekiah that God isn’t
going to protect the chosen people—no matter how fond of them God is—from the consequences of their own
stupidity. The rulers of Judah think just because they are God’s chosen that
they won’t get their butts whooped by the Babylonians. Jeremiah counsels
negotiation with the enemy, but Zedekiah’s minions, in their arrogance, don’t
want to hear that. They chuck Jeremiah in the slammer and advise Zedekiah to
face off with Babylon. The result? The Jews get the crap kicked out of them.
Zedekiah’s kids are murdered in front of his eyes, and then Zedekiah has his
eyes poked out. The elite of Judah are carried off into exile in Babylon, and
Jeremiah lives the rest of his life in obscurity in Egypt (See 2 Kings 25).
In today’s lesson, however, we get the
kinder, gentler side of Jeremiah. Here he prophesies that God doesn’t abandon
God’s people, and that a new covenant will be made that will be different from
the old Law of Moses. The old law had a lot of “thou shalt nots” in it, and I
speculate that the people must’ve felt that if they didn’t explicitly do any of
the forbidden things then they’d be okay. Unfortunately, that’s a pretty
complacent spirituality. God doesn’t want to coerce us with a rule book. God
wants us to live the love and compassion which is implicit in the Law. God
wants the Law to come from within us.
Fast forward over two thousand years and
meet another outrageous prophet—Martin Luther. Luther is also dealing with
folks who are hung up on the rule book but are missing the point. He’s part of
a church which equates rightness with God with going to church, multiplying
prayers, paying to have masses said for dead relatives, and buying yourself a
little forgiveness through the purchase of indulgences. The church bosses keep
control and line their pockets by keeping folks in fear and ignorance, saying,
in essence, “Do what we tell you to do and pay your share or you’ll burn in
hell!”
Both Luther and Jeremiah saw societies
that needed to be shaken up. Whether the people were trapped by a societal
arrogance or by superstitious fear, they were trapped all the same. In the
appointed Gospel lesson for Reformation Sunday (John 8:31-36), Jesus exhorts
that a real, genuine, and free relationship with God comes only through continuing
in his Word. This isn’t about obeying rules, but, rather about letting the love
of Jesus live in us—believing that the Son has set us free.
Now, five hundred years after Luther and twenty-five hundred years after Jeremiah, I sometimes think we are in need of some
more shaking up. I worry that we’ve dumbed-down American Christianity to the
point that we see it as assent to doctrine, and, like the folks in Jeremiah’s
time, we assume that because we’ve signed on to the right confessions we are
exempt from any further discipleship. Or, we might be like the folks of
Luther’s day who are wrapped-up in following the rules and judge righteousness
by a litmus test of moral “purity” (usually involving same-gender relationships
and reproductive rights!). Of course, it’s not for me to claim that such people
aren’t “saved.” Who am I to stand in God’s place of judgment? But I do see a
need for a constant reformation—for a call to, as Jeremiah says, “Know the
Lord.”
I sometimes think we could use another
Jeremiah or another Luther right about now.
Why? I see the Christian Church shrinking
in America, and I have to guess it’s because complacent reliance on correct
doctrine or judgmental legalism just aren’t speaking to this generation. What
will and does speak, however, is
looking to the man on the cross, and recognizing the depth of the love that led
him to give himself up to all of that suffering. Realizing that such love is
meant for us has to touch our hearts.
That’s when we know the Lord and truly know ourselves.
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