Lesson 4: Jeremiah
When I started this series exploring what Old Testament prophets have to say about the present political situation, I was afraid that I might force the issue. It turns out there’s no danger of that as the current administration does something every week that the prophet I’m studying directly attacks.
For instance, this week I have been hearing from pastors who are experiencing pressure to keep politics out of their sermons. At the same time, I’m finding just about every one of Jeremiah‘s prophecies has political implications. Every day the news has been filled with reports of the government forcing the firing of Jimmy Kimmel and threatening to do the same with anyone who opposes it. At the same time, I’m reading about Jeremiah constantly being silenced for speaking God’s Word. He is banned from the temple, placed in the stocks, thrown into a well, beaten, imprisoned, and carried away to Egypt for speaking truth to power.
In fact, he’s often called the weeping prophet because he whines about the suffering he endures. Some of that results from his confrontational approach. Although he pretty much proclaimed the same message as Amos, Hosea, and Micah, he is more in-your-face about it.
He stands in the temple gate shouting that those who have come to worship are wasting their time. God has abandoned this once- holy place because they have abandoned him.
He stands at the city gate telling people carrying goods through it that they are breaking the Sabbath and will pay for it.
He stands in the royal palace instructing the people not to resist the Babylonians while the king is trying to raise an army to fight them. To make it worse he claims God is fighting on the side of the enemy.
He writes letters to those who have been deported telling them to give up hope of returning home. They should build houses, plant gardens , marry off their children, because God will not end their exile for 70 years. He then illustrates this by buying a field.
He uses props that rub the people’s sins in their faces: breaking an earthen jar to show that God will break their nation into small pieces, wearing a yoke to demonstrate the people should submit to the control of the Babylonians.
Besides all this however, he primarily suffers for opposing the political and religious authorities. The official priests and prophets whom Jeremiah attacked for bowing down to government demands are unsulky the ones tagged for going after him. When he claims God fights against them the political powers add their clout.
There’s no question in his min d that the Babylonian Captivity is God’s judgment for not taking care of aliens, widows, orphans, and other innocents. You can read this as God personally participating in history or you can read it as an observation that God‘s ways lead to the good life. Failure to live by them results in dark consequences, such as war.
One reason Jeremiah finds the courage to endure the suffering is the promise that his message leads to a new covenant in which people will live by the law. Love will prevail because the law will be written m on everyone’s hearts.
Reading Jeremiah reminds us we are to speak up and act when political powers oppose God‘s will. He too found that might mean other religious groups disagree with us. Jeremiah especially shows us we might have to suffer if they move to silence us. Our hope too is that God promises our efforts will not be in vain.
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