14 I will give the priests their fill of fatness,
and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty, says the LORD.
Jeremiah 31:7-14 has the theme of the homecoming and future faithfulness of Israel.[1] This passage becomes an amazing statement of the grace of God. God will restore Israel even when the people did not deserve it. The text is part of the Book of Consolation in Chapters 30-33. So eloquent and uplifting are the prophet's words in this section that they transform the whole tenor of the book. The "consolations" create a sweet center that makes all the rest of Jeremiah's words, no matter how gloomy, slightly honeyed. For despite all the damnations, destructions and disobedience, there is yet hope. During the worst of times, the book gives the exiled Israelites a glistening glimpse of God's promise for a new beginning. Much of Jeremiah looks toward the doom of judgment and exile upon Judah. Despite that, the book is not a cheery read. The English language has even adopted the term "jeremiad" to describe any excessively woeful, wrathful, bad-news-bearing message or messenger. The book is a prophecy of doom and gloom. The prophet Jeremiah had good reason, for the signs of the election of Israel, the Davidic king, and the presence of the Temple, he foresaw as going away. These chapters stand out as distinctive in its offer of consolation. We now have a word to mournful captives.
7The Lord invites the people to sing and raise shouts for Jacob, which is the chief of the nations. Is this prideful term? Maybe. However, could such a notion arise out of awareness of its special responsibility as a chosen nation? They are to proclaim and give praise. The content of this proclamation is to ask the Lord to save the people of the Lord, who are the remnant of Israel. 8The Lord is going to bring the people from the land of the north, a reference to the route exiles would have to take from Babylon. The Lord will gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, including the blind, lame, and pregnant. 9They shall come weeping, but the Lord will lead them back with consolations. The Lord will let them walk by brooks of water and in a straight path. The reason is that the Lord has become a father to Israel/Ephraim, a reference to the northern kingdom. Such a statement is a prefiguration of the Incarnation of the Son of God in Jesus Christ. The basic filial relationship suggested between the Son and the Father finds intimation in the extension of the notion of son to the covenant people, such as we find here about the exodus tradition.[2] The Lord refers to them as the firstborn of the Lord. The role of the firstborn is one of great privilege. The greatest miracle of all is that the Lord will become a father to Israel again and Israel will become like the privileged first born. The father blessed the firstborn and received twice as much property as an inheritance as did the younger sons. Among the sons of Jacob, Reuben was firstborn. Ephraim was far down the list as one of Joseph's sons, and not actually Joseph's firstborn son. When Jacob went to bless the sons of Joseph, he crossed his hands so that the blessing fell to the younger Ephraim and not to the firstborn Manasseh (Genesis 48:14). All of this goes to remind us that Ephraim's blessing, and status as a firstborn son, was not something he was by birth entitled to! It was a gift of God. As in II Isaiah 40:3-5, 41:18-20, 42:16, 43:1-7, 44:3-4, 48:20-21, and 49:9-13, where the Lord is gathering the people from throughout the earth is leading them on a new Exodus. All this noise and exultation is part of a grand procession the prophet envisions. Diaspora Israel engages in a procession of triumph that reverses the path taken by the Babylonian destroyers. The march back toward Zion acts to reverse the fate of Israel, undoing the conqueror’s momentary triumph, like the vision of Isaiah 40. The passage speaks of restoration at the hands of a loving and forgiving God. God shall forgive and bring them home. Even the Northern Kingdom (Ephraim), which had already received the judgment of exile 136 years before Judah, will return home. Of course, this does not happen. The passage shifts to stressing the future faithfulness of Zion. Nothing can thwart the intentions of the Lord, not even the disobedience of the people or the disasters that have come upon them. 10The prophet invites the nations to hear the word of the Lord, and declare to coastlands. The one who scattered Israel will gather Israel, and will shepherd them. The style here is like that of II Isaiah. The passage envisions the returning of the people as lost sheep that the Good Shepherd has carefully rounded up and returned to safety. This passage speaks of a total restoration of the people. God will restore their reputation among the nations, and God will be their "shepherd" once again. In this case, "shepherd" also carries the connotation of "ruler" or "leader." In other words, God will once again rule Israel as in days of old. No longer will they have to trust human "shepherds" who often plunder the flock for their own self-aggrandizement. God will be the true shepherd of the flock and will rule Israel as their only true and rightful king. 11The Lord has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed[3] Jacob from hands too strong for them, and therefore, they could not liberate themselves. The Lord is the one who buys them back. 12Further, they shall sing in Zion, and be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, as their lives become like a watered garden. The focus is on the new abundance in the agricultural life of the restored land. The time of scarcity and poverty is over, an emphasis we find in III Isaiah 60:5 and 58:11. At that point, 13young women shall rejoice in the dance, young and old men shall be merry. The Lord will turn their mourning into joy. The Lord will comfort them, giving them gladness for sorrow. Envisioning restoration of their worship life, 14the Lord will give the priests fullness, and the people of the Lord shall receive satisfaction with the bounty the Lord gives them. This passage presents the Lord as the shepherd gathering his scattered flock. Instead of a journey through a tamed and well-watered wilderness, this passage focuses on the new abundance in the agricultural life of the restored land. The time of scarcity and poverty is clearly over. Grain and flock animals flourish, wine and oil flow, and a party atmosphere prevail. God will enrich and restore cultic life as well as common life. The priests, too, will have abundance. The people shall return to find their land restored to prosperity, their priests returned to right relationship both with God and with the people, and the sorrow of exile turned to joy.
Let us think for a moment about home. The exiles in Babylon, I am sure, wanted to go home. The Persians, who defeated the Babylonians, allowed them to go home. Of course, some stayed in Babylon, but many went on the difficult and dangerous journey home. Yet, they did not return to any home they or the ancestors ever knew. Israel still lived under Persian rule. It must have felt like moving from once being a prosperous homeowner, to now being a renter of your former house. Things had changed. The constant in their life as the people of God was not the place. The constant was God. They could return to the physical land, of course, but most important to God was that they return “home” to a faithful relationship with God. The relocation of their physical address was not near as important as relocating their spiritual friendship with God.
Most of us want to see some movement in our lives. We keep pushing forward. We may already have some things on our calendars to which we look forward.
Let me pause for just a moment. My time in Indiana as a United Methodist pastor was full of moving. I had a student appointment in southern Indiana near Madison. I went to a small town outside New Albany, “the sunny side of Louisville,” as they say down there. Each time I moved, one of the things on my mind was that we might have to move again. It was an opportunity to throw out stuff, making sure the stuff we had was what we needed. Of course, books were so hard to let go, but I have been doing that as well. I invited a young clergy colleague to look through my books. He took a bunch of them! What a joy to share them. Now, we have moved to Clearwater with even more letting go of stuff.
God is a mover. In the Bible, God is constantly calling the people of God to move into unfamiliar territory. Often, of course, it was quite literal movement from one place to another.
Recall Joseph's statement to his brothers: "So it was not you who sent me here, but God" (Genesis 45:8).
- Abraham moved from Mesopotamia to Canaan on God's promise of a family and a home.
- Jacob moved to Egypt in a time of famine.
- Moses moved the Hebrews out of Egyptian slavery and back to Canaan.
- Ruth moved from Moab to Judah.
- Perhaps the most traumatic move of all: The Jews were taken from their homeland and deported to Babylon to live in exile, which is the link with our passage this morning.
- Joseph moved his family (Mary and Jesus) to Egypt for a couple years.
- The apostle Paul was always on the go.
None of these moves were easy -- no help in packing or unpacking. They had no moving truck and professional movers to help them. They had to make do with ox carts, camels, and donkeys. They had to reduce life to what they could carry on their backs.
However, despite the difficult relocation, God, the Mover, provided the people of God with a package that rivals anything you might find on a relocation offer sheet today, because God is in the relocation business. We are creatures of time. We keep moving through life. The “relocation” we need might be space or physical, but far more importantly, it will be spiritual. The beauty of it is that God is an expert at this! God is an expert at relocating people spiritually.
God the Mover takes care of our stuff. God may not handle our stuff the way we want. In fact, we may lose some of our baggage. Yet, if God is the Mover, and God loses our baggage, then it is best that it stays lost. We should leave some baggage behind. Packing light is an art few of us master.
When I was in Plainfield as an associate pastor, I had a year when I went through the process of reducing my stuff. In fact, it led to a sermon around this time of the year around the theme of what to throw away and what to keep. That year, the stack of things to throw away was large. One of the items was a popcorn popper. That may not seem like much, but it had many memories. A bunch of single guys on the third floor of the administration building at Asbury had a popper. When someone started the corn, it was amazing how people just drifted down the hallway. It was fun time for building friendships and laughter. I inherited that popper. I had kept it around, by then, for ten years. It was old. We bought a new popper. It was time for the old popper to go. At least, I thought so at the time. Even during the Christmas of 2016, as my oldest son reflected on the past, asked me, again, what happened to that popper. I guess we need to be careful what we throw away.
God the Mover offers to accompany you on the journey. The big example of this is when Moses led the Hebrew people out of Egypt. God went with them. A cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night indicated the presence of God. The Exodus is a template for how God relocates people. God makes the move with God's people. It is just how God rolls. It is Standard Operating Procedure. God asks us to go -- God goes with us.
"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you, for I am the LORD your God (Isaiah 43:3); "And remember, I am with you always, until the end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).
Many Christians in America wrestle with an image of how Christianity needs to relate to the increasing secularity of this culture. One image is that of the exile. Any image is only partially useful, especially if it helps the people of God to reflect upon their mission. If we think of the church in a secular culture as exile, Christianity is more like a remnant within the culture. The Jewish exile arose because of a forced geographic move. This exile occurs as a culture the church helped create has turned its back on the church. It has become increasingly hostile to the values and teachings of the church. It does so through its primary institutions, despite likely brief respite it might receive because of political changes. In exile, the church needs to learn to rely far more upon God than upon the culture for help in the journey. The secular culture would like the church to assimilate. Many in the church would like to do so as well. It will take courage to resist assimilation. Secular culture will naturally become increasingly intolerant of those who differ. Like the exiles, we may need to acknowledge that we have been blind to the vision God has for us in a new missionary situation, acknowledge our attempts to do things our way, and realize our need for new birth and the guiding hand of the shepherd.
If we want to be better disciples, we must begin by relocating ourselves closer to God in believing, growing, and going forth to witness to the love and grace of God. For some of us, the physical address might change. More than that, we need to know that God is with us in the journey. When we allow God to be the one who moves us, we properly relocate ourselves spiritually. We come home – with God.
[1] Scholars question the authenticity of these "consolation texts" in Jeremiah's scroll. The similarity between these messages and the words of comfort offered by Isaiah in 49:8-23 or 51:17-20, some say, suggests a common author. It reflects an adaptation to the exile along the lines of II Isaiah. An editor may have expanded the text to meet the situation of the exiles. Many scholars treat this portion of the Book of Consolation as an exilic addition to Jeremiah. I will treat it as such.
[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 317.
[3] (a term common in II Isaiah but not in the rest of Jeremiah)
If nothing can thwart the will of God, not even peoples disobedience, what does that say about universal salvation.? I liked the thoughts on moving.
ReplyDeleteThat is a maybe. I think some passages lend themselves to that possibility
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