DAY 299

TURNED INWARD

Jeremiah 6, 7 & 8 and 1 Timothy 5

So let’s start at the end of our Jeremiah readings today, chapter 8. “For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded; I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me…Is there no balm in Gilead?” 8:21-22a.

Jeremiah’s heart is wounded, an amazing phrase, a phrase that he will unpack for much of the rest of chapter 9.

You might ask, “Why?” That is unless of course you have read chapters 6, 7 and the first 17 verses of chapter 8. Jeremiah is warning Jerusalem of its impending destruction. The catastrophe has not happened yet, but in the most graphic language Jeremiah is prophesying that it will. We read, “This is the city that must be punished…she keeps fresh her evil” (6:6-7). In 6:14 we read of how the priests have been telling people “peace, peace, when there is no peace”—in other words they have been lying to the people. In 6:16-17 we read how the people have disregarded the good ancient paths and ignored the trumpet (read as very loud) warnings.

In chapter 7:1-15 Jeremiah is standing at the entrance to the Temple proclaiming all that the people have done wrong and offering them God’s forgiveness if only they repent. They don’t, and so beginning in 7:16 God says to Jeremiah, “Do not pray for these people” – wow! In the balance of chapter 7 we read again how God finds it an abomination when people offer him empty ritual and then go and practice evil: this is not real faith and not real religion. How evil were they? Consider just one verse, 7:31 and the place “hinnon”. Here is what the Easton’s Bible Dictionary says about it:

“a deep, narrow ravine separating Mount Zion from the so-called "Hill of Evil Counsel." It took its name from "some ancient hero, the son of Hinnom." It is first mentioned in Joshua 15:8 . It had been the place where the idolatrous Jews burned their children alive to Moloch and Baal. A particular part of the valley was called Tophet, or the "fire-stove," where the children were burned. After the Exile, in order to show their abhorrence of the locality, the Jews made this valley the receptacle of the offal of the city, for the destruction of which a fire was, as is supposed, kept constantly burning there.” I had to “look up” offal: it the waste products of an animal, the parts that are not used.

God is abhorred: Jeremiah grieves. These prophecies are not new. These prophecies are that “run- away train” of humanity that so often ignores God. You might object. You might be saying, “But we are better.” I would like to think that, but then I go to Haiti and I see it. We are not better, we are just insulated and maybe God’s voice is somehow muffled. Maybe I am so “turned inward” that I like the people of Jeremiah’s day cannot hear God.

I know that may be an uncomfortable thing for you to read. It is uncomfortable for me to write. But here is the deal—prophets are supposed to make us uncomfortable. They are supposed to get us to take a look in the mirror and be honest.

Prophets can make a difference. Maybe not always turning the tide of a nation, but standing as a sentinel, calling to their people, calling to God’s people, calling forward to us. Jeremiah’s is a man so in step with God that he must tell people what God tells him…and yet he is not separate from his people and it pains him that they will not listen.

I am left wondering where I am not hearing God, or where I am failing to proclaim, or where I have been comfortable with my own holiness while some of the people of God go off happily sinning – not that I am a prophet, but you and I live in a world where we are so turned in on ourselves (or let me speak for myself – I am turned in on me – worrying about “what will I eat and what will I wear”) that we might not be seeing the big picture.

Jeremiah challenges me to “turn and look outward” – Allow Jeremiah to have his way with you for a moment – even if it is painful.