Faith

No one is safe – Saturday,  16th Week in ordinary time – Jeremiah 7:1-11

Chapter 7 to chapter 20 of the prophet Jeremiah takes place during the reign of King Jehoiakim (609-598) who reigned for eleven-years. Just 12 years after the death of King Jehoiakim the people of Judah will be taken into exile.

After the death of Josiah in 609 BC, his son Jehoahaz rules for three months before he is taken prisoner by Pharaoh Nico who defeated his father, Josiah in battle. Pharoah Nico now places his brother on the throne and changes his name to Jehoiakim. While his father, Josiah, brought about great reforms in the religious life of Judah, these reforms seem to have been dependent on his own personal actions and beliefs and did not seem to have penetrated the people’s spirit who continued with their idolatrous worship. The passage of today reflects the religious and moral state of Judah during the first five years of Jehoiakim’s eleven-year rule.

This message from Jeremiah can be dated to the year 609-608, immediately after Josiah’s death and during the political upheaval in Judah. Judah at this stage was a vassal of Egypt; its king is placed on the throne at the whim and fancy of the Pharaoh of Egypt and its people have gone back to idol worship. Yet there seems to be an apparent boast from the people, a false hope that has become part of their belief system; nothing could harm them as long as they had the temple (verse 4).

While they practiced little of the faith and professed no love for God, they had made the temple their ‘lucky charm,’ a talisman that they hung proudly around their necks as a nation. For Judah, if God is in his temple, then they were all safe. How wrong they were! In an ironic fashion, the promise of divine presence that was so important for Israel was turned on its head.

Where did this belief system of the temple’s permanent protection come from? Psalm 48 has the idea that God’s presence in the temple of Jerusalem is like a kind of protective shield over Jerusalem that makes her invincible (cf. also the temple liturgies in Psalms 15 and 24). Hence, Jeremiah warns against an uncritical claiming of the promise of God’s presence for one’s own sake. God is not a security blanket, nor can God be used like an amulet or magic wand to ward off danger. We can imagine how one or many of the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day might have twisted the Scriptures to “prove” that the temple could never be conquered as many false prophets and priests do today.

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Crack(ed) Pot – Thursday,16th week in ordinary time – Jeremiah 2:1-3,7-8,12-13

No one likes to be the bearer of bad news. Yet, bearing bad news is an integral part of the prophetic task. Chapters 2-6 form part of that ‘bad news,’ a period during the reign of King Josiah but a period before the great liturgical reforms that he set in motion as a consequence of finding the ‘Book of the Law’ while the temple was being restored.

About a hundred years have passed since the northern kingdom of Israel has fallen to the Assyrians. After that point of time, the southern kingdom of Judah with its capital in Jerusalem came to be called Israel, a name formerly used exclusively for the ten tribes that formed at one time the nation in the north. So in this text God refers to Judah and Jerusalem as representing all of Israel.

The text opens with God placing the charge against his people; a people he has loved and who once showed him great devotion in their youth. In doing so God is referring to Israel as young bride that fell in love with Him when they were brought out of the land of Egypt 800 years ago. But 800 years now seems to be for Israel a long time of fidelity and their flirtatious eyes have now fallen on the other nations. God is miffed that his people who followed him so willingly into the wilderness, a people that chose holiness above all, chose an adulterous relationship with other nations.

Using a compelling genre, that of lawsuit, as also seen in Micah 6, God brings charges against the ancestors of the people and then against the religious leaders and prophets for their idolatry and the lack of leadership to condemn it. He holds back no punches and asks, “what wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me” The end result is that they went after worthless (Hebel=Hebrew) things and became worthless or nothing themselves.

The tricky thing about ‘idolatry’, and I use this in its broadest sense, is that often, when we’re doing it, it doesn’t seem like we’re worshipping a false god. It seems like we’re worshipping a true god. Or it seems like we are pursuing good ends, ordained by our understanding of what a true god is. It think we are pursuing something necessary for our survival, and if we believe that our ‘true god’ desires our survival, then surely the thing we pursue is not idolatrous. Even if it feels empty and dry. Even if it really is draining us of life and soul.

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No room for personal creativity in this job profile – Wednesday, 16th Week in ordinary time – Jeremiah 1:1, 4-10

We begin our study of the prophet Jeremiah who ministered for 40 years from the reign of King Josiah through the reigns of King Jehoiakim and till the end of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah under whom the people of Judah went into exile under the Babylonians.

In the year 622/621 the Book of the Law was found during the restoration of the temple. As a consequence, King Josiah led a religious reform in Judah (2 Chronicles 34:3). It is in this time that God called Jeremiah to minister to his people. Jeremiah hailed from a priestly family and lived in Anathoth, which was a small village about three miles from Jerusalem. It was in the land of Benjamin but given over as a priestly city (Joshua 21:18). God called these two giants; King Josiah and the prophet Jeremiah to serve Him and His people at the same time.

But in 609 BC this glorious period ended with King Josiah’s death in battle at the hand of Pharaoh Neco (2 Kings 23;29). He was succeeded by his son, Jehoahaz, who reigned only three months before being deposed by Pharaoh Neco. Neco then made Josiah’s son, Eliakim, king and changed his name to Jehoiakim (2 Kings 23:31-34). The reform of King Josiah was quickly eclipsed by a universal return to idolatry. At this stage Judah was a vassal of Egypt. Jeremiah denounced the idolatry and displayed tremendous faithfulness and courage in the face of great discouragement, opposition and small results.

Then the Babylonians defeated the Egyptians at Carchemish in 605 and King Jehoichim was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin who was exiled by the Babylonians never to return. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon replaced him with his uncle, King Zedekiah. Zedekiah had two choices, to be a vassal of Babylon or side with Babylon’s enemy, Egypt. He chose the latter who again besieged Jerusalem in 588 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar was forced to lift the siege temporarily to meet a threat from Egypt, giving the people of Jerusalem false hope that they would be saved. However, Nebuchadnezzar returned after dealing with the Egyptians, laid siege to Jerusalem once more, and in 587 B.C. breached the walls, destroyed the city, killed many of the residents, and took the rest into exile in Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar had King Zedekiah’s sons killed before his eyes were gorged out

With this historical background in mind we are introduced to the call of Jeremiah. God tells Jeremiah that he shared an intimacy with Jeremiah before he was already formed in the womb. The word ‘knew’ in Hebrew is ‘yada’ and signifies an intimacy similar to that of a married couple. It was here in the womb that God ‘consecrated’ Jeremiah. The word consecrated translates as ‘qadas’ and indicates that something or someone is set apart; like the sabbath is ‘qadas’ or set apart from other days. Jeremiah was already consecrated for God’s work. Finally God ‘appointed’ him to be a prophet (nabi). Once again the Hebrew translation of the word ‘appointed’ gives us an insight into God’s actions. Jeremiah was ‘nathan’ or ‘given’ or ‘put into place’ by God’s will to be a prophet not just to Judah but to all the nations.

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No fishing – Tuesday, 16th Week in ordinary time – Micah 7:14-15, 18-20

In the final recorded words of the prophet Micah we read his prayer to the Lord. In it, Micah asks the Lord to be the Shepherd of His people and care for them.

The Babylonian invasion was no longer a threat, it was imminent and the people who allowed themselves to be swayed by bad shepherd’s now had more than just a fractured relationship with God. There was a time when God’s people enjoyed a close relationship with Him. The prophet prays that God’s people will be brought back to the place they belong and the relationship which was in tatters will be restored. Micah was praying past the circumstances for a closer relationship with the shepherd and hoped it would result in great wonders in their life

Micah whose name means “who is like God” now uses his very name in verse 18 to extol God and to glorify him. He asks, “who is like our God”? The simple and most accurate answer is…No one! Micah glorifies God for his great forgiveness. He has pardoned sin and will pass over the transgressions of the remnant that will emerge from exile. Micah saw that God’s forgiveness was so great, that it can’t even be compared to what often passes for forgiveness among men.

Why does God have such great mercy and forgiveness to His people? The reasons are in Him, not in His people. It is simply because He delights in mercy. So, one is bound to ask that If God delights in mercy, then why are some men lost? God opens His hand of mercy to all who will receive it, but those who will not receive His mercy can blame only themselves.

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The definition of discipleship – Monday, 16th Week in ordinary time – Micah 6:1-4,6-8

We are in the eighth century B.C. when Assyria, located in Mesopotamia, was the reigning superpower. It was during The reign of King Jotham from Judah in the southern kingdom that the northern kingdom and the kingdom of Syria allied themselves against Assyria, a move that would ultimately spell the downfall of Israel in the north.

King Jotham was succeeded by this father Ahaz in 730 B.C. and he reigned over Judah for 16 years (2 Kings 16:2). He is portrayed as one of Judah’s worst kings (2 Kings 16:3-4). Ahaz made an alliance with Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria. As a result, he and the nation of Judah became a vassal of Assyria. Ahaz was succeed by his son Hezekiah in about 715 B.C., and reigned until about 687 B.C. While a much better king than his father, Hezekiah led a coalition in a failed attempt to rebel against Assyria. Surprisingly, Assyria did not destroy him, but it did force him to pay tribute. The prophet Micah carried on his work in this turbulent period and speaks now to a people who are estranged from their God.

Using the language of a law court Yahweh (speaking through the prophet) orders the people of Judah to rise and present their case. The people are the plaintiff and Yahweh is the defendant or the “accused.” But it is to the mountains and the hills, standing from time immemorial, that this case is to be pleaded before; they are also to serve as both, witnesses and the jury. It is creation, which has been witness to God’s work, that will determine who has broken the covenant relationship that has existed for centuries between Yahweh and Israel. The Lord makes it known that he is prepared to defend himself against whatever accusations the people of Judah might make.

Yet there is no bitterness in this lawsuit for the people are “his people”. On the contrary, it seems that Yahweh is confused as to why the people he has loved beyond measure have never responded in love? “What have I done to you?” asks Yahweh.

Then as if to make what is known, he once again presents a list of divine actions by which God protected his people. His first exhibit is a part of their history with which they are all familiar, the Exodus. Yahweh brought them up out of Egypt and redeemed (padah) them from slavery. This word, padah, has to do with deliverance. Yahweh delivered Israel from a land of bondage and led them to the Promised Land. If that was not enough, he gave them leaders like Moses, Aaron and Miriam” (v. 4b) who became exhibits two. He then blessed them through the foreign priest Balaam and brought them into the promised land.

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