Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Jeremiah 20,7-13

Rev. Neli Miranda

The Revised Common Lectionary provides two tracks of lessons for the Season After Pentecost. This year, we are going to listen to track two in which we will hear the voice of the prophets in the reading of the Old Testament. Today we hear the voice of one of the most intense prophets, Jeremiah, whose prophecies were heard in the midst of a historic juncture for the people of Israel, just before the Babylonian exile (7^th and 6^th centuries BC).  His suffering, experienced during this hard time, is described in his books, and this has prompted Bible scholars to refer to him as “the weeping prophet”.

One of the books attributed to this prophet is the Book of Jeremiah, which presents many of his prophecies and several details about his private life. In fact, this book begins with the call to Jeremiah when he was very young. In chapter one, Jeremiah testifies how God called him by saying, “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.” Jeremiah also says how he resisted the call, “Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.’  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” (1,5-7). Jeremiah was called in the midst of a critical time. He was living in a world that saw major shifts in political power during his lifetime. No wonder he tried to avoid God’s call!

 

Jeremiah did not proclaim good news, rather he was told to denounce social corruption and to announce the impending judgment of the people of Judah. They had deviated far from God and broken the covenant; they had forsaken God by worshipping idols; they even had burned their own children as an offering to Baal (Canaanite deity). Also, in the face of foreign invasions, the rulers had trusted their alliance with Egypt instead of trusting God. Jeremiah then announced the consequences of turning away from God and trusting in military power: they would suffer foreign invasion and exile to Babylon.

 

Today we read one of Jeremiah’s most profound lamentations. He is going through a crisis, and he is full of despair. In the preceding chapter, God had commanded this prophet to buy an earthenware jug and gather some elders and some of the senior priests. Then, he was told to break the jug in their sight and say, “Thus says the Lord of hosts: So will I break this people and this city as one breaks a potter’s vessel, so that it can never be mended...” (19,11).  Can you imagine yourself going to some of our current leaders, Congress or Senate and telling them they will be judged by God because of their evil deeds?

 

Pashhur, one of the priests, struck the prophet Jeremiah and put him in the stocks because of his prophesies. (20,1). When Jeremiah was released from that torture, he still dared to prophesy, “…you, Pashhur, and all who live in your house, shall go into captivity, and to Babylon you shall go; there you shall die, and there you shall be buried, you and all your friends…” (20,6). Nothing and no one stopped Jeremiah!

 

After this intense moment, Jeremiah finds himself caught. He finds himself between God who called him from his mother’s womb and the leaders of the people who ignore his prophecies, who persecute and torture him and says, “O Lord, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak, I must cry out; I must shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long” (20,7-8). He is in the middle of an insistent God and a resistant people.   He is going through a critical moment as a person and as a prophet. Hasn’t this happened to all of us at some time in our lives?

 

Despite his fight with contradictions, Jeremiah knows he cannot evade God’s word that burn inside him, “If I say, “I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in,  and I cannot” (20,9). He seems to be complaining to God and contemplating giving up his mission; however, despite his crisis he continued his prophetic mission for some forty years.   Have you come to feel that fire of God that burn inside you?

 

In Today's Gospel we learn that Jesus experienced Jeremiah’s contradiction when he says: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matthew 10,34).

Jeremiah’s feelings are not strange to our ears as Jesus’ disciples, who have been called to be prophets of God in the world. Today, we are Jeremiah, the ones who call people to turn to God and practice justice. We are the ones called to speak out about social, economic, and ecological justice. We are the ones who tell people that by trespassing against their neighbors and nature, they trespass against God and dig their own grave. This is what Jeremiah was telling the people of Judah in the Old Testament.

Many of us, as prophets, have experienced negative responses to our call for social, economic, and ecological justice. Many have been persecuted, mistreated, imprisoned, and murdered. Yet, God's word is like a burning fire within us, and like Jeremiah we cannot be silent or contain God’s message. We cannot remain silent among a world that perpetrates violence against the poor and weak, that sacrifices children, that destroys nature, our common house. We cannot remain silent among a world that heads for destruction on its own!

Be Jeremiah!

Amen.