Life's fundamentals
Commentary
Erik Erikson, noted American psychiatrist, has observed that there are two basic needs in all of humanity: the need to love and be loved and the need to know that one makes sense to at least one other person. One might want to add to this the need to have a sense of purpose about one's life. Jeremiah, Paul, and Jesus address these needs through the words they share with us today.
So much of life today is lived on the surface of cosmetic appearance, perceived heroism, and market value. We seldom take time to go to any depth on any matter. News comes in bites. "In depth" reporting may mean three minutes on television or two pages in a magazine. Worth is determined more by the moment's desire than by any enduring merit. It may be that we are afraid to go beneath the surface of our lives, because we suspect that there may be no substance there and all our efforts, dreams, and understandings will be proven to come up far too short for public scrutiny. Enter Jeremiah, Paul, and Jesus to teach us what is truly fundamental in life.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
"The Weeping Prophet" has much to bemoan. By the close of the seventh century B.C., the Northern Kingdom was already gone under the boot of the Assyrian hordes. The Southern Kingdom was on the threshold of extinction. She had already been deleteriously attacked by the Assyrians, although delivered by God from the same fate as the northern clans (2 Kings 18-19). Now, a little over a century later, she was about to be bludgeoned by Babylonia with no reprieve from God in sight.
Jeremiah was the prophet son of a priest. He did not follow in the steps of his father, performing the cultic rituals of the worshiping community. Rather, like one from a generation rebelling (socially) against the ways of the fathers, Jeremiah received the prophet's mantel and spoke against the older rebellious generation (spiritually), to which the sins of Manasseh testify (2 Kings 21:3-9). Now, the time for judgment had come. It was Jeremiah's sad duty to carry the word of the Lord to the people. This was his purpose in the plans of God.
It is interesting to note that his heritage was in the land of Benjamin (Jeremiah 1:1). When Rachel gave birth to Benjamin, she named him originally Benoni, "son of my suffering." Then, she died. Jacob renamed him Benjamin, "son of the right hand" (Genesis 35:18). The sound of suffering would find its voice in Jeremiah, "of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin" (1:1). He would be the right hand of God to deliver the prophetic message to a people in need of judgment and deliverance.
Like Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3-4, especially 4:10-
16), Jeremiah initially sought a way out of his assignment. He cited his inexperience and therefore his inarticulate ways. However, just as with Moses, God prevailed. Jeremiah was told, "Be not afraid" (1:8). God overcomes human excuses with his persuasive word and his promises. "I am with you to deliver you" (1:8). Jeremiah could not refuse the Lord. He became convinced that God had a design for his life from the time he was "in the womb" (1:4). Jeremiah had been genetically coded to be a "prophet to the nations" (1:5). His life's plan had been determined by the Lord and delivered to him in person, giving new definition to the phrase "from hand to mouth" (see 1:9; his prophetic successor, Ezekiel, described an even more vivid experience of receiving the word of the Lord, as he eats a scroll; Ezekiel 2:8--3:3). The gesture represents that the word Jeremiah speaks is a revelation from God that gives understanding to the historical events of conquest and exile that are captivating the attention of the people.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Perhaps the best known words about love in the Bible are from Paul's pen to the Corinthians. They certainly get their use at weddings. Paul's intention, of course, was not to deliver into our hands some glib words about love that pluck at the heartstrings during a very emotional ceremony. These words do not pluck. If anything they prick, popping like an over-inflated balloon our sentimental notions of what love really is.
Remember the context in which this chapter was written. Paul had just enumerated all the problems within the Corinthian church. They were far-ranging, from Christian suing Christian, to Christian soliciting prostitutes, to Christian one-upmanship, to Christian eating habits in public and with pagan hosts, and more issues worthy of headlines.
Paul's purpose is to "show you a still more excellent way" (1 Corinthians 12:31b). That more excellent way is the way of love. Unlike John who clearly centers his discussion of love within the context of the love of God through Jesus (1 John 3:11-
-4:21), Paul here defines the nature of love in very down-to-
earth psycho-social ways that the common person could understand. In the larger context of the entire letter, this discussion of love does relate to the body of Christ (which is made more explicitly clear in Ephesians 4-5); but, just taking the words of chapter 13 by themselves, the reader is still given much to consider as a more excellent way by which to live.
Paul enumerates many aspects of Christian life by which the world may spot the Christian: tongues, prophecy, wisdom, knowledge, faith, generosity, and martyrdom. Yet, if these marks of Christian life are themselves not marked by love, they are not sanctified ("I am nothing ... I gain nothing" 13:2, 3). It is possible to be about the right things in the wrong way. This is why Paul can also say in another letter that which does not generate from faith is sin (Romans 14:23b).
The word for love used consistently in this text is agaph. This is the word that the Bible uses for the love from God and also the Christian love that reflects the love of God in our human relationships. The latter is what Paul is describing to the Corinthians. It may have the ring of the common in it, but it is very uncommon, if not impossible to embody faithfully/perfectly. For the patience, kindness, rejoicing, bearing, and so on, that Paul describes is ultimately modeled by God through Jesus. It is this way of loving that we are to be about! This is directly expressed in Ephesians 5:1-2: "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us...." (The other words used in the New Testament to talk about love are filia and eroz. The former refers to the common bonds of love that siblings, best friends, and close colleagues have for one another. The latter refers to the sensual aspects of human relations where "chemistry," emotions, and passion express our connectedness.)
It is appropriate to identify "the higher gifts" that Paul wants us to "earnestly desire" (1 Corinthians 12:31) as faith, hope, and love. This triumvirate of Christian virtue represents the constants of Christian life. "So, faith, hope, love abide" (13:13). These three remain, like a three-legged stool, as the fundamental legs to stand on as a Christian. One or two are wobbly at best; three completes the stance! Above all things, they are to be desired, experienced, and manifested daily. Anything else in addition may be nice and even beneficial (like spiritual gifts), but these three are essential.
Luke 4:21-30
Foreshadowing is a familiar literary devise used to anticipate a development later in the story. John's in utero kick when Mary came for a visit foreshadowed his understanding that one greater than he was coming, for whom he was to prepare the way. The devil's departure after the temptation "until an opportune time" foreshadowed the scene at Nazareth when the crowd was ready to throw him off the precipice. The hometown rejection Jesus experienced foreshadowed the final rejection at Passover, when he would be turned over to the authorities for execution.
Jesus reflects on a prophet's fate in this early portion of Luke's Gospel account. He recognizes the all-too-often truth that the locals cannot see the forest for the trees. Jesus knows the history of his ancestors. Jeremiah was thrown in a cistern and left for dead. Elijah had to hide himself in a cave for fear of his life. John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod. (It is not clear in Luke just when John died, just that he had -- Luke 9:7-
9.) What would be his own fate? He got a glimpse of it when the fickle crowd turned on him. Jesus went from "being glorified by all" (4:15) to being the subject of their wrath. "And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong" (14:29). We are not privy to any conversation on this high ground; nor do we know what Jesus' inner experience was at this moment. It is possible to wonder, however, if this was seen by the devil as an opportune time to remind Jesus of his special relationship with God the Father, such that the angels were given charge to protect him. What would happen if Jesus let the crowd have their way? Then, show them by a miraculous intervention, that God was with him? They would become contrite and repent and follow him for sure, right? Or, was there something more profound in the way of rejection that lay ahead for Jesus? Something more unsettling than a small town episode? Was there another hill that called him forward into the future, where perhaps even the angels were not going to be present, where he would have to bear and endure the love of God by himself in some unspeakable way? What does go through the mind of a young prophet when confronted with such a situation on the brow of the hill on which Nazareth was built? Luke himself does not seem to know, other than to know that this was not the time for Jesus to manifest his glory and so "passing through the midst of them he went away" (4:30).
The examples Jesus cites in his earlier comments to the people in the synagogue were unnerving for them to hear. Jesus lifts up the widow of Zarephath (Sidon) and the commander Naaman (Syria) as two to whom God showed mercy. What is striking about these examples is that they are both foreigners, not a daughter or son of Israel. God will show mercy on whom God chooses to show mercy. There is no automatic dispenser of such a blessing that one can get by virtue of breeding heritage. Or, apparently, by even asking for it, especially when the condition of one's heart is not right with God, which was revealed by the crowd's quick change of attitude when their request/demand was not met to their satisfaction.
Application
We all need a sense of purpose in life. What we can learn from Jeremiah and Jesus is that purpose comes from God, according to his will. The secret of peace and joy in life is to discover and then live out that will of God. Because our true purpose comes from God, we cannot conjure it up within ourselves (self-
determination). The profound images from Scripture describe the revelatory nature of how we come to know our purpose in life; that is to say, when everything is said and done, we acknowledge that God has shown us how we are to live our lives. Isaiah has hot coals placed on his mouth. Jeremiah has the hand of God touch his mouth. Ezekiel eats a scroll given him by God. Pastors can tell stories of their mystical experience with the Call. Lay people can tell their stories of how they were not right with their careers until they went in the direction they sensed God leading them.
This purpose not only comes from God, but it also directs one to the way of the cross. God's ways are not the "easy way out." Invariably, God's way involves hardship. All the prophets can testify to this. Jesus certainly embodies this par excellence. When Paul speaks about the qualities of love, he is not speaking about emotional feel-goodness. He is describing an extreme way of living, exemplified by Jesus, that brings us beyond the horizon of human vision. Love "bears all things ... endures all things" (1 Corinthians 13:7), something we are not wont to do in our culture of bailout bankruptcies and divorce and suicides. This love will even bear and endure the judgment of God for when we fail, because this love also "believes all things, hopes all things." The faith is in God who has the right to tear down and to build up. The hope is that the destruction that comes is a prelude to the reconstruction that God envisions for us and provides for us as a gift. God will deal with our misdealing, and we will come to know that we are indeed understood to the depths of our beings. We are creatures who need discipline and correction, while at the same time creatures who cannot live without the one who does the disciplining and the correcting. We need not fear, but can take heart, for the Lord is with us. He was with his people through Jeremiah's weeping prophecy and Ezekiel's strengthening prophecy (the name Ezekiel means "God strengthens").
When we are loved in the way that Paul describes, our need to know that we make sense to at least one other person is satisfied. To be treated with patience, kindness, deference, and rejoicing is to be affirmed, that it makes sense to another human being that I am alive! Love can bear such a burden, even the validation of another's existence. Love can believe that another life is as important as the lover's. This reaches to the depth of understanding, where there is no room for indifference to the one understood, but only an accepting love.
But, lest we settle only for a human focus around ourselves in terms of purpose and love and making sense, let us magnify Jesus, who manifests his glory with patience, enduring the rejection in Nazareth as but a prelude to his final rejection upon the cross. His epiphany star will not rise in the east any longer, but will only ascend next on the cross on Golgatha, that other hill from which the world will seek to throw down the salvation of God and treat it as unnecessary. Jesus knew that the qumos of humanity was nothing compared to the orgh of God. With the wrath of God satisfied, the glory of God shines brightly through Jesus.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Unlike most of the prophets in the Old Testament, Jeremiah was called to a lifelong task for God. Others, such as Amos, had only a brief time of service. Some, such as Isaiah, preached for awhile, had a period of silence, and then resumed preaching, their ministry taking place in waves, as it were. But not Jeremiah. In 626 B.C., God singled him out and designated him a prophet for life.
Our text tells us that God planned that designation even before Jeremiah was conceived. "Before I formed you in the womb," God declares, "and before you were born I consecrated you." In other words, God had a plan in mind for the life of Judah in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., and he purposely created Jeremiah in order to carry out that plan. He "consecrated" him, that is, God set Jeremiah apart for his specific divine purpose. It makes us wonder if God had a specific plan in mind when he created you and me. I don't think the Lord forms us human beings in our mothers' wombs just willy-nilly, for no reason at all. No. The Lord God looks over all the ways of the world and forms his plans, and then he creates particular human beings like you and me to be his agents in carrying out those plans. So it was with Jeremiah. Apparently so it is also with us, even though the tasks to which we are called are not those of prophets.
Jeremiah, however, is very much like Moses when he receives God's call. He does not want the job. Just as Moses protested that he was not an eloquent speaker but slow of speech and of tongue (Exodus 4:10) -- who knows, maybe Moses was a stutterer -- so too Jeremiah protests that he does not know how to speak because he is just a youth, perhaps only eighteen years of age. The Lord God seems to have a curious way of choosing the most unlikely people for his service -- rough fishermen for disciples, a persecutor of Christians named Saul, unimportant souls like you and me. Instead, as the Apostle Paul wrote, God picks out the weak, the foolish, the lowly and makes them his instruments. And so he chooses the teenager Jeremiah.
It is simply incredible that such an inexperienced youth is made a prophet, and not only that, he is made a prophet to the nations, set over their affairs, to pluck up and break down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant. We sometimes think that God has no control over international affairs in this warring world of ours, but the scriptures know differently. The mighty Lord of history is final Ruler over all governments and human ways, and here in Jeremiah, a timid teenager is appointed to enforce that divine rule! It reminds one of Stalin's question, "How many battalions does the Pope have?" But strange, isn't it, that Stalin is gone and a Pope still sits on the throne of Peter?
The Lord God thrusts his youthful prophet Jeremiah into a Mediterranean world of clashing empires. In 626 B.C., Judah has gained independence from the great Assyrian Empire, and a davidic king named Josiah is renewing Judah's life. But the Egyptian Empire is on the march and finally brings Assyria down, killing Josiah in the process. Judah, then, is subjected to the tyrannical rule of an Egyptian vassal named Jehoiakim, who brings with him syncretism, idolatry, slave labor, and persecution of the prophets. The Babylonian Empire rises to dominance, however, and when Judah rebels against its rule, Babylonian troops sweep through Judah and Jerusalem and carry its inhabitants into a forty-year exile. Thus it is in the middle of an international scene full of powerful armies and contending thrones, marching warriors, and political intrigues that our youthful prophet Jeremiah is set by God. One wonders if such a prophet can have any effect whatsoever on his turbulent times, just as I am sure we wonder sometimes if the voice of a weakened church or the witness of us unimportant Christians can bring any influence to bear on our complicated and chaotic world. Mother Teresa remarked one time, "We cannot do great things." But then she added, "Only small things with great love."
Jeremiah is not sent into the fray of the ancient Near Eastern world's chaos without safeguards and weapons, any more than you and I are sent out into the world alone and unarmed. "Be not afraid of them," says the Lord to Jeremiah, "for I am with you to deliver you." And is that not the word that our Lord spoke to us also? "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." That is the word with which a shepherd named Moses went back to Egypt to challenge a Pharaoh (Exodus 3:12). That is the word on which Christians throughout history have staked their lives and fortunes, and are still staking them in the Third World. That is the word upon which Martin Luther King, Jr., relied, and in which every embattled Christian has found strength and security. And yes, that is the Word of God that makes Christian living possible in joy in the midst of our secular society. "I am with you." God is with us, that God in Jesus Christ whom no power could defeat, not even the power of the Roman Empire or the power of death's dark grave. God is with us in our Christian service in this shadowed world, and his are always the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.
What are the weapons with which we are furnished as we carry out our appointed tasks for God? Jeremiah is told, as a prophet like Moses, that God has put his words in Jeremiah's mouth (cf. Deuteronomy 18:18). And that is the armor with which Jeremiah can defy opponents and kings and people -- the Word of God. Do not think, good Christians, that word to be powerless or ineffective. As Luther's great hymn has phrased it, "And though this world with devils filled,/ should threaten to undo us,/ We will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us./ The prince of darkness grim,/ We tremble not for him;/ His rage we can endure,/ For lo! His doom is sure;/ One little word shall fell him." The Word of God, you see, carries with it the might of Almighty God. It does not return to him empty of result, but accomplishes that which he purposes (Isaiah 55:11), and when we live and move and have our being in that word, which became incarnate in Jesus Christ, we live in a strength that is not our own, but is that of the Lord God himself.
So the prophet Jeremiah spoke the Word of the Lord for forty years, through sufferings and threat of death and with the whole land arrayed against him. But that word did indeed pluck up nations and overthrow them and bring kings to defeat. Yet, Jeremiah also spoke a word that built and planted. And to a ruined Jerusalem and an exiled people in Babylonia, he also spoke hope and healing. Indeed, he foretold a time when God would give them a future and a hope, returning them to the land of Judah, and writing on their hearts a new covenant. And that word, too, came to pass, as we hear whenever we sit at table and our Lord Jesus tells us to drink a cup that is the new covenant in his blood.
We are not prophets, dear friends. We do not live in Jeremiah's land and times. But we too are called by our Lord Jesus to do a task for him. It may be a very humble task. It may be an important one. Perhaps each of us must discover in our own hearts what that task should be. But of two things we can be certain. The Lord God is with us and he will never forsake us. And he has given us his word in Jesus Christ our Lord, by which and for whom all things are possible.
So much of life today is lived on the surface of cosmetic appearance, perceived heroism, and market value. We seldom take time to go to any depth on any matter. News comes in bites. "In depth" reporting may mean three minutes on television or two pages in a magazine. Worth is determined more by the moment's desire than by any enduring merit. It may be that we are afraid to go beneath the surface of our lives, because we suspect that there may be no substance there and all our efforts, dreams, and understandings will be proven to come up far too short for public scrutiny. Enter Jeremiah, Paul, and Jesus to teach us what is truly fundamental in life.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
"The Weeping Prophet" has much to bemoan. By the close of the seventh century B.C., the Northern Kingdom was already gone under the boot of the Assyrian hordes. The Southern Kingdom was on the threshold of extinction. She had already been deleteriously attacked by the Assyrians, although delivered by God from the same fate as the northern clans (2 Kings 18-19). Now, a little over a century later, she was about to be bludgeoned by Babylonia with no reprieve from God in sight.
Jeremiah was the prophet son of a priest. He did not follow in the steps of his father, performing the cultic rituals of the worshiping community. Rather, like one from a generation rebelling (socially) against the ways of the fathers, Jeremiah received the prophet's mantel and spoke against the older rebellious generation (spiritually), to which the sins of Manasseh testify (2 Kings 21:3-9). Now, the time for judgment had come. It was Jeremiah's sad duty to carry the word of the Lord to the people. This was his purpose in the plans of God.
It is interesting to note that his heritage was in the land of Benjamin (Jeremiah 1:1). When Rachel gave birth to Benjamin, she named him originally Benoni, "son of my suffering." Then, she died. Jacob renamed him Benjamin, "son of the right hand" (Genesis 35:18). The sound of suffering would find its voice in Jeremiah, "of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin" (1:1). He would be the right hand of God to deliver the prophetic message to a people in need of judgment and deliverance.
Like Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3-4, especially 4:10-
16), Jeremiah initially sought a way out of his assignment. He cited his inexperience and therefore his inarticulate ways. However, just as with Moses, God prevailed. Jeremiah was told, "Be not afraid" (1:8). God overcomes human excuses with his persuasive word and his promises. "I am with you to deliver you" (1:8). Jeremiah could not refuse the Lord. He became convinced that God had a design for his life from the time he was "in the womb" (1:4). Jeremiah had been genetically coded to be a "prophet to the nations" (1:5). His life's plan had been determined by the Lord and delivered to him in person, giving new definition to the phrase "from hand to mouth" (see 1:9; his prophetic successor, Ezekiel, described an even more vivid experience of receiving the word of the Lord, as he eats a scroll; Ezekiel 2:8--3:3). The gesture represents that the word Jeremiah speaks is a revelation from God that gives understanding to the historical events of conquest and exile that are captivating the attention of the people.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Perhaps the best known words about love in the Bible are from Paul's pen to the Corinthians. They certainly get their use at weddings. Paul's intention, of course, was not to deliver into our hands some glib words about love that pluck at the heartstrings during a very emotional ceremony. These words do not pluck. If anything they prick, popping like an over-inflated balloon our sentimental notions of what love really is.
Remember the context in which this chapter was written. Paul had just enumerated all the problems within the Corinthian church. They were far-ranging, from Christian suing Christian, to Christian soliciting prostitutes, to Christian one-upmanship, to Christian eating habits in public and with pagan hosts, and more issues worthy of headlines.
Paul's purpose is to "show you a still more excellent way" (1 Corinthians 12:31b). That more excellent way is the way of love. Unlike John who clearly centers his discussion of love within the context of the love of God through Jesus (1 John 3:11-
-4:21), Paul here defines the nature of love in very down-to-
earth psycho-social ways that the common person could understand. In the larger context of the entire letter, this discussion of love does relate to the body of Christ (which is made more explicitly clear in Ephesians 4-5); but, just taking the words of chapter 13 by themselves, the reader is still given much to consider as a more excellent way by which to live.
Paul enumerates many aspects of Christian life by which the world may spot the Christian: tongues, prophecy, wisdom, knowledge, faith, generosity, and martyrdom. Yet, if these marks of Christian life are themselves not marked by love, they are not sanctified ("I am nothing ... I gain nothing" 13:2, 3). It is possible to be about the right things in the wrong way. This is why Paul can also say in another letter that which does not generate from faith is sin (Romans 14:23b).
The word for love used consistently in this text is agaph. This is the word that the Bible uses for the love from God and also the Christian love that reflects the love of God in our human relationships. The latter is what Paul is describing to the Corinthians. It may have the ring of the common in it, but it is very uncommon, if not impossible to embody faithfully/perfectly. For the patience, kindness, rejoicing, bearing, and so on, that Paul describes is ultimately modeled by God through Jesus. It is this way of loving that we are to be about! This is directly expressed in Ephesians 5:1-2: "Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us...." (The other words used in the New Testament to talk about love are filia and eroz. The former refers to the common bonds of love that siblings, best friends, and close colleagues have for one another. The latter refers to the sensual aspects of human relations where "chemistry," emotions, and passion express our connectedness.)
It is appropriate to identify "the higher gifts" that Paul wants us to "earnestly desire" (1 Corinthians 12:31) as faith, hope, and love. This triumvirate of Christian virtue represents the constants of Christian life. "So, faith, hope, love abide" (13:13). These three remain, like a three-legged stool, as the fundamental legs to stand on as a Christian. One or two are wobbly at best; three completes the stance! Above all things, they are to be desired, experienced, and manifested daily. Anything else in addition may be nice and even beneficial (like spiritual gifts), but these three are essential.
Luke 4:21-30
Foreshadowing is a familiar literary devise used to anticipate a development later in the story. John's in utero kick when Mary came for a visit foreshadowed his understanding that one greater than he was coming, for whom he was to prepare the way. The devil's departure after the temptation "until an opportune time" foreshadowed the scene at Nazareth when the crowd was ready to throw him off the precipice. The hometown rejection Jesus experienced foreshadowed the final rejection at Passover, when he would be turned over to the authorities for execution.
Jesus reflects on a prophet's fate in this early portion of Luke's Gospel account. He recognizes the all-too-often truth that the locals cannot see the forest for the trees. Jesus knows the history of his ancestors. Jeremiah was thrown in a cistern and left for dead. Elijah had to hide himself in a cave for fear of his life. John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod. (It is not clear in Luke just when John died, just that he had -- Luke 9:7-
9.) What would be his own fate? He got a glimpse of it when the fickle crowd turned on him. Jesus went from "being glorified by all" (4:15) to being the subject of their wrath. "And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong" (14:29). We are not privy to any conversation on this high ground; nor do we know what Jesus' inner experience was at this moment. It is possible to wonder, however, if this was seen by the devil as an opportune time to remind Jesus of his special relationship with God the Father, such that the angels were given charge to protect him. What would happen if Jesus let the crowd have their way? Then, show them by a miraculous intervention, that God was with him? They would become contrite and repent and follow him for sure, right? Or, was there something more profound in the way of rejection that lay ahead for Jesus? Something more unsettling than a small town episode? Was there another hill that called him forward into the future, where perhaps even the angels were not going to be present, where he would have to bear and endure the love of God by himself in some unspeakable way? What does go through the mind of a young prophet when confronted with such a situation on the brow of the hill on which Nazareth was built? Luke himself does not seem to know, other than to know that this was not the time for Jesus to manifest his glory and so "passing through the midst of them he went away" (4:30).
The examples Jesus cites in his earlier comments to the people in the synagogue were unnerving for them to hear. Jesus lifts up the widow of Zarephath (Sidon) and the commander Naaman (Syria) as two to whom God showed mercy. What is striking about these examples is that they are both foreigners, not a daughter or son of Israel. God will show mercy on whom God chooses to show mercy. There is no automatic dispenser of such a blessing that one can get by virtue of breeding heritage. Or, apparently, by even asking for it, especially when the condition of one's heart is not right with God, which was revealed by the crowd's quick change of attitude when their request/demand was not met to their satisfaction.
Application
We all need a sense of purpose in life. What we can learn from Jeremiah and Jesus is that purpose comes from God, according to his will. The secret of peace and joy in life is to discover and then live out that will of God. Because our true purpose comes from God, we cannot conjure it up within ourselves (self-
determination). The profound images from Scripture describe the revelatory nature of how we come to know our purpose in life; that is to say, when everything is said and done, we acknowledge that God has shown us how we are to live our lives. Isaiah has hot coals placed on his mouth. Jeremiah has the hand of God touch his mouth. Ezekiel eats a scroll given him by God. Pastors can tell stories of their mystical experience with the Call. Lay people can tell their stories of how they were not right with their careers until they went in the direction they sensed God leading them.
This purpose not only comes from God, but it also directs one to the way of the cross. God's ways are not the "easy way out." Invariably, God's way involves hardship. All the prophets can testify to this. Jesus certainly embodies this par excellence. When Paul speaks about the qualities of love, he is not speaking about emotional feel-goodness. He is describing an extreme way of living, exemplified by Jesus, that brings us beyond the horizon of human vision. Love "bears all things ... endures all things" (1 Corinthians 13:7), something we are not wont to do in our culture of bailout bankruptcies and divorce and suicides. This love will even bear and endure the judgment of God for when we fail, because this love also "believes all things, hopes all things." The faith is in God who has the right to tear down and to build up. The hope is that the destruction that comes is a prelude to the reconstruction that God envisions for us and provides for us as a gift. God will deal with our misdealing, and we will come to know that we are indeed understood to the depths of our beings. We are creatures who need discipline and correction, while at the same time creatures who cannot live without the one who does the disciplining and the correcting. We need not fear, but can take heart, for the Lord is with us. He was with his people through Jeremiah's weeping prophecy and Ezekiel's strengthening prophecy (the name Ezekiel means "God strengthens").
When we are loved in the way that Paul describes, our need to know that we make sense to at least one other person is satisfied. To be treated with patience, kindness, deference, and rejoicing is to be affirmed, that it makes sense to another human being that I am alive! Love can bear such a burden, even the validation of another's existence. Love can believe that another life is as important as the lover's. This reaches to the depth of understanding, where there is no room for indifference to the one understood, but only an accepting love.
But, lest we settle only for a human focus around ourselves in terms of purpose and love and making sense, let us magnify Jesus, who manifests his glory with patience, enduring the rejection in Nazareth as but a prelude to his final rejection upon the cross. His epiphany star will not rise in the east any longer, but will only ascend next on the cross on Golgatha, that other hill from which the world will seek to throw down the salvation of God and treat it as unnecessary. Jesus knew that the qumos of humanity was nothing compared to the orgh of God. With the wrath of God satisfied, the glory of God shines brightly through Jesus.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Unlike most of the prophets in the Old Testament, Jeremiah was called to a lifelong task for God. Others, such as Amos, had only a brief time of service. Some, such as Isaiah, preached for awhile, had a period of silence, and then resumed preaching, their ministry taking place in waves, as it were. But not Jeremiah. In 626 B.C., God singled him out and designated him a prophet for life.
Our text tells us that God planned that designation even before Jeremiah was conceived. "Before I formed you in the womb," God declares, "and before you were born I consecrated you." In other words, God had a plan in mind for the life of Judah in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., and he purposely created Jeremiah in order to carry out that plan. He "consecrated" him, that is, God set Jeremiah apart for his specific divine purpose. It makes us wonder if God had a specific plan in mind when he created you and me. I don't think the Lord forms us human beings in our mothers' wombs just willy-nilly, for no reason at all. No. The Lord God looks over all the ways of the world and forms his plans, and then he creates particular human beings like you and me to be his agents in carrying out those plans. So it was with Jeremiah. Apparently so it is also with us, even though the tasks to which we are called are not those of prophets.
Jeremiah, however, is very much like Moses when he receives God's call. He does not want the job. Just as Moses protested that he was not an eloquent speaker but slow of speech and of tongue (Exodus 4:10) -- who knows, maybe Moses was a stutterer -- so too Jeremiah protests that he does not know how to speak because he is just a youth, perhaps only eighteen years of age. The Lord God seems to have a curious way of choosing the most unlikely people for his service -- rough fishermen for disciples, a persecutor of Christians named Saul, unimportant souls like you and me. Instead, as the Apostle Paul wrote, God picks out the weak, the foolish, the lowly and makes them his instruments. And so he chooses the teenager Jeremiah.
It is simply incredible that such an inexperienced youth is made a prophet, and not only that, he is made a prophet to the nations, set over their affairs, to pluck up and break down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant. We sometimes think that God has no control over international affairs in this warring world of ours, but the scriptures know differently. The mighty Lord of history is final Ruler over all governments and human ways, and here in Jeremiah, a timid teenager is appointed to enforce that divine rule! It reminds one of Stalin's question, "How many battalions does the Pope have?" But strange, isn't it, that Stalin is gone and a Pope still sits on the throne of Peter?
The Lord God thrusts his youthful prophet Jeremiah into a Mediterranean world of clashing empires. In 626 B.C., Judah has gained independence from the great Assyrian Empire, and a davidic king named Josiah is renewing Judah's life. But the Egyptian Empire is on the march and finally brings Assyria down, killing Josiah in the process. Judah, then, is subjected to the tyrannical rule of an Egyptian vassal named Jehoiakim, who brings with him syncretism, idolatry, slave labor, and persecution of the prophets. The Babylonian Empire rises to dominance, however, and when Judah rebels against its rule, Babylonian troops sweep through Judah and Jerusalem and carry its inhabitants into a forty-year exile. Thus it is in the middle of an international scene full of powerful armies and contending thrones, marching warriors, and political intrigues that our youthful prophet Jeremiah is set by God. One wonders if such a prophet can have any effect whatsoever on his turbulent times, just as I am sure we wonder sometimes if the voice of a weakened church or the witness of us unimportant Christians can bring any influence to bear on our complicated and chaotic world. Mother Teresa remarked one time, "We cannot do great things." But then she added, "Only small things with great love."
Jeremiah is not sent into the fray of the ancient Near Eastern world's chaos without safeguards and weapons, any more than you and I are sent out into the world alone and unarmed. "Be not afraid of them," says the Lord to Jeremiah, "for I am with you to deliver you." And is that not the word that our Lord spoke to us also? "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." That is the word with which a shepherd named Moses went back to Egypt to challenge a Pharaoh (Exodus 3:12). That is the word on which Christians throughout history have staked their lives and fortunes, and are still staking them in the Third World. That is the word upon which Martin Luther King, Jr., relied, and in which every embattled Christian has found strength and security. And yes, that is the Word of God that makes Christian living possible in joy in the midst of our secular society. "I am with you." God is with us, that God in Jesus Christ whom no power could defeat, not even the power of the Roman Empire or the power of death's dark grave. God is with us in our Christian service in this shadowed world, and his are always the kingdom, and the power, and the glory.
What are the weapons with which we are furnished as we carry out our appointed tasks for God? Jeremiah is told, as a prophet like Moses, that God has put his words in Jeremiah's mouth (cf. Deuteronomy 18:18). And that is the armor with which Jeremiah can defy opponents and kings and people -- the Word of God. Do not think, good Christians, that word to be powerless or ineffective. As Luther's great hymn has phrased it, "And though this world with devils filled,/ should threaten to undo us,/ We will not fear, for God hath willed his truth to triumph through us./ The prince of darkness grim,/ We tremble not for him;/ His rage we can endure,/ For lo! His doom is sure;/ One little word shall fell him." The Word of God, you see, carries with it the might of Almighty God. It does not return to him empty of result, but accomplishes that which he purposes (Isaiah 55:11), and when we live and move and have our being in that word, which became incarnate in Jesus Christ, we live in a strength that is not our own, but is that of the Lord God himself.
So the prophet Jeremiah spoke the Word of the Lord for forty years, through sufferings and threat of death and with the whole land arrayed against him. But that word did indeed pluck up nations and overthrow them and bring kings to defeat. Yet, Jeremiah also spoke a word that built and planted. And to a ruined Jerusalem and an exiled people in Babylonia, he also spoke hope and healing. Indeed, he foretold a time when God would give them a future and a hope, returning them to the land of Judah, and writing on their hearts a new covenant. And that word, too, came to pass, as we hear whenever we sit at table and our Lord Jesus tells us to drink a cup that is the new covenant in his blood.
We are not prophets, dear friends. We do not live in Jeremiah's land and times. But we too are called by our Lord Jesus to do a task for him. It may be a very humble task. It may be an important one. Perhaps each of us must discover in our own hearts what that task should be. But of two things we can be certain. The Lord God is with us and he will never forsake us. And he has given us his word in Jesus Christ our Lord, by which and for whom all things are possible.
