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Text: Jeremiah 24 ● As I considered the writings of Jeremiah again this week and watched the current events unfolding before us in the financial markets, I couldn’t help but notice some tendencies inherent in humanity… -- this ‘puzzling’ capacity which allows us to look squarely into truth (reality) and choose to believe something else [given the context, sometimes we call it ‘faith’ and sometimes it’s just ‘stupidity’]. -- eventually, our stubbornness results in ‘delusion’…delusion so pervasive that we can no longer recognize the severity of our situation and we become deaf to the warnings. -- then, having experienced the inevitable consequences of our decisions, we project ourselves as the ‘victims’, crying out for help, with no sense of personal responsibility and no real determination to adopt a new way of life. ● Why? Because even staring into the face of the consequences of our own self-destructive choices, we are really not convinced that the issue is the system itself (our beliefs), but simply our failure to properly execute the plan. So, rather than abandon our current system (belief) we choose to simply modify our plan. ● It’s an interesting dynamic: we choose the familiar, the predictable, the manageable over brokenness every time because we are convinced that given time and the right resources, we can ‘turn this thing around’. ● Even a cursory consideration of the story will reveal some basic aspects interwoven throughout: 1) historically, God has been incredibly consistent and patient; 2) humanity has habitually ‘ignored God’ and, at times, almost defiantly rejected God; 3) God longs for a change of heart so that humanity might realize a better future, but he will not violate their freedom… even the freedom to self-destruct! ● Jeremiah had persistently warned them that their identity as God’s people did not insulate them from his judgment (determinations) given their rebellious tendencies and failure to live as his people. But, his appeal was to a people not yet convinced that the picture was quite as dismal as Jeremiah would have painted it; a people whose sensibilities had become so ‘dull’ that they were oblivious to their condition and the certain consequences they would face. ● Jeremiah proved right and the nation and city of Jerusalem was devastated by the Babylonians. They would eventually level the Temple and obliterate the nation. In a couple of military campaigns, Israel finds themselves in “exile”. ►Exile is where you end up when you have ignored all the warning signs. ● Signs of unfaithfulness have always included… … we could identify the more blatant forms such as corruption, sexual immorality, various forms of abuse, … more subtle forms such as the amassing of wealth, notoriety and power in order to establish ‘security’ (peace); but, with it, often, the exploitation of or disregard for those with less opportunity, (we call it ‘success’!) … shallow expressions of religion which allow us to ‘form our own god’ (our own version of God); mostly seeing God as existing to cater to my chosenness (no shortage of that teaching), … unfaithfulness expressing itself in growing cynicism about God’s righteous character which leads to indifference and ‘sloppy-living’ (“So much for that reaping what you sow, thing!”) ● I’ll remind you that in such contexts, one of two things is inevitable: either a people’s uniqueness becomes even more glaring (in which we would say they ‘shine as lights’ or they are like ‘oaks of righteousness’), or, a people’s identity is so absorbed into the prevailing culture that instead of ‘identifying with’ the culture (in such a way as to be incarnational and restorative), they are ‘identified by’ the culture and become virtually undetectable. ● Historically, when the ‘latter’ would occur (chose to live in a ‘different story’), God would bring into prominence prophets, people who would be entrusted with reminding the people of “their story”--- the uniqueness of their God; who they were and their sense of mission. ● But, contrary to our understanding of the prophets, exile was not inevitable; it was not some irreversible decree initiated by God and forwarded through the prophets. It was really more of an “if—then” proposition. Because, amidst the backdrop of injustice and rebellion was the wonder of repentance ; that things did not have to continue on as they had been. ● But, if we believe that God is offering us a ‘better way to live’, then we can actually experience a ‘rescue’ (exodus) of sorts, which sets us free from bondage to our own self-destructive choices and the self-determined life. But, it will only have the power to save us if we believe it. To “believe”, in the Hebrew story, was more than a matter of giving mental assent to a ‘laundry-list’ of truths about God. Belief always demanded obedience as the recognizable response to truth. ● Jeremiah 24, God gives Jeremiah a vision… (read) ‘good fig’/ ‘bad fig’--- why are the exiles the good figs and the ones who remained in Judah the bad figs? The ‘bad figs’ are the ones who still have a King, still have the Temple, still have the religious observances to fall back on--- all the trappings of God’s favor. They were the ones who trusted their ‘system’.
● (2) ideas saved the
prophets from a sense of total despair: 1) a messianic vision [which suggests
that man’s attempts at restoring the world, independent of God, are destined to
fail], 2) humanity’s capacity for repentance. |
