Jeremiah 2:4-13 concerns the indictment of the sin of the nation, offered before 622.[1] The form is that of a poetic lament. Jeremiah directs the divine accusation/indictment against the entire people (see chapters 5 and 6 also). The people of God have a challenge in every generation to balance relevance to the inevitable change that history brings on the one hand with faithfulness to the priority of their unchanging and constant covenant with the Lord on the other. When the people of God think of themselves as autonomous in this process, the people of God will fail in their mission in the world [2] 4 Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. 5 Thus says the Lord: What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless (empty) things, and became worthless (empty) themselves? As in Ecclesiastes, “vanity,” empty, worthless. The word can refer to idols. His point, of course, is that the people of God broke covenant with the Lord. Jeremiah is portraying the Lord as a lover who does not know what has gone wrong with the relationship. Jeremiah thus continues Hosea's tendency to humanize God for a people who were more accustomed to the transcendent God of Isaiah. Speaking to this tiny enclave of Yahwism surrounded by pagan deities, and which itself those same gods infiltrated, Yahweh now defends his treatment of Israel as a wounded and jilted lover. He laments the manner in which Israel's faithlessness cheapened her and ruined her. 6 They did not say, “Where is the Lord who brought us up from the land of Egypt, who led us in the wilderness, in a land of deserts and pits, in a land of drought and deep darkness, in a land that no one passes through, where no one lives?” The journey through the pages of the history of salvation photo album continues. Israel does not remember who brought her out of Egypt. Israel does not remember who led her through the wilderness, a land so utterly desolate that no one survived save Israel. The Lord led the people of God through the wilderness. Scripture sees the 40-year “journey” of the Israelites in and through the wilderness (between Egypt and the land of God’s promise that would be occupied by Israel) as a time of preparation, harsh winnowing, and testing. Jeremiah 2 describes the wilderness as a dangerous, desolate, dark, uninhabited, uncultivated place, a place full of pits. At that time, Israel followed Yahweh’s providential leading. 7 I brought you into a plentiful land to eat its fruits and its good things. But when you entered you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination. Again, the people of God have broken covenant with the Lord. Jeremiah charges the people with a change of gods, thereby forgetting the favors the Lord gave them in the past. The Lord has providentially guided and guarded the people of Israel, Yahweh’s very own covenant people. Their response was not to embrace “the one who ‘brought them to the dance,” so to speak, but to turn from trusting and following Yahweh to go after other gods; and, in times of trouble, to turn to unstable international political alliances (in this case Egypt — 2:36), instead of relying upon Yahweh’s protective care. As one of the first of Jeremiah's poems, it reflects Yahweh's love for Israel, including reminiscences of that first love. 8 The priests did not say, “Where is the Lord?” Their historical moment was so dire that not even religious leaders pondered where the Lord was. They have lost their memory of what the Lord had done for them. Those who handle the law did not know me. Not even religious leaders knew the Lord. What a harsh accusation! As priests, they (and other leaders) were responsible for reading aloud and teaching the torah (law/instruction, for which see Deuteronomy 31:9-13). Here is a strong indication that knowledge of what a sacred text says is not enough. The point of reading a sacred text is that it become the primary means of knowing the Lord, of relating to the Lord in a personal way. The rulers (shepherds) transgressed against me. Jeremiah accuses kings and other court or national officers. The prophets prophesied by Baal (ba’al), and went after things that do not profit (or benefit). Ironically, can also mean “husband.” The baals were some of the significant gods of the land to whom Israel turned instead of, or in addition to, Yahweh. (Try “nonprofit prophets” as a good English pun.) God’s own covenant people, including their leaders, have again turned away from the very Best to pursue the inferior rest. 9 Therefore once more I accuse you, says the Lord, and I accuse your children’s children. The accusation is clear. They have broken covenant. At this point in the poem, the tone and imagery change. Yahweh now says, "I accuse!" The rhetoric adopts the "lawsuit" pattern typical of the prophets of the seventh and eighth centuries. Israel's failure to keep covenant (marriage vows, if you will) places Israel in danger of "divorce," or at the very least, vulnerable to a just punishment. Yahweh now becomes militant.[3] 10 Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look, send to Kedar, an Arabian tribe of the desert east of Palestine, and examine with care; see if there has ever been such a thing. The point is that they can look all over the world. Yahweh invites his listeners to search for anyone who can cite similar examples of such faithlessness. The infidelity to which he refers constitutes a virtual switch of gods, something unheard of. 11 Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory (weightiness or overpowering brightness of the Lord) for something that does not profit or benefit). Even pagan nations would not ever change their gods. However, Israel did! See Isaiah 1:3 where even ox and donkey know their owners, but “my people do not understand.” They have broken covenant. 12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord. Two particularly egregious sins reflect the fact that such behavior must shock even the heavens: 13 for my people have committed two evils. First, they have forsaken me, the fountain of living, fresh, running water,thereby breaking covenant with the Lord (See also 2:31, 32; 4:22; 5:26, 31; 6:14, 27 and multiple other times in the book of Jeremiah for the “my people” language.). (See Jeremiah 17:13. See also Jesus and the Holy Spirit as living water in John 4:10-14; 7:38.) They are like someone who forsakes a perfectly good cistern. Second, they have dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water. They have forsaken the cistern of living water for a self-dug and cracked cistern. Their behavior, Yahweh declares, holds no water. A cistern was a common water-storage structure, carved out of the soft limestone of Palestine. If one improperly chose the rock structure or one improperly lined the cistern, then the cistern was useless, as it could retain no water. God’s people inexplicably turned from the fresh water of their God to no water at all.
Throughout this passage, Jeremiah invokes the broken covenant metaphor. In the ancient Near East, sovereign emperors frequently made treaties with vassal nations. These covenantal treaties declared all the emperor had already done for the subservient nation and swore ongoing protection. In return the vassal nation pledged absolute loyalty to the covenant-making sovereign alone and swore to follow all the stipulations (the Lord’s laws) of the covenant. Yahweh made a covenant with Yahweh’s people, Israel. The covenant model is Deuteronomic, invoked by the writers/editors of the Deuteronomistic History (the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings), both exemplified at Mount Horeb (= Sinai) (Deuteronomy 5:2 ff.; 29:1 ff.) and renewed at Shechem (see Joshua 23:14—24:27). Jeremiah is very much in the Deuteronomistic stream of biblical tradition. See the signature Jeremiah 31:31-34 “new covenant”/covenant-renewal passage, with its classic covenantal wording, “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (be alert for this covenant language: see also Jeremiah 24:7; 30:22; 31:33; 32:38; Genesis 17:7-8; Ezekiel 36:28; 37:27; Zechariah 13:9; Revelation 21:7.
How do we, as leaders and other people of Christ’s New Covenant community, stand before God in the light of these words? Will we turn back (and invite our people to turn back with us) to our covenant-making God, in the spirit of the heart-religion of major portions of Scripture? Alternatively, will we go off in our own ways, away from the Best to pursue the inferior rest? The theme of these verses is how some abandon the Lord for something far less and fail to recognize that God is the source of life and well-being.
We are dealing with a form of self-sabotage. Failing is more common in human behavior than we might expect, given how much loss it entails. But self-sabotage happens when we do certain things that were, at best, adaptive in one context but are no longer appropriate or helpful in our present life stage. Consider this list of some behaviors that could be described as self-defeating or self-sabotage:
· Avoidance of people or situations that might cause fear, hurt, or pain. The idea is that if one avoids risk — if you do not commit to a job, person, direction or goal — you cannot fail.
· Not standing up for oneself, or an inability to ask for what one needs.
· Constantly seeking attention or approval from others.
· Aggression, bullying, and verbal, emotional or physical abuse to hide one’s own feelings of insecurity, unworthiness, and poor self-image.
· Substance abuse or other addictive behavior (overeating, gambling, overspending, risky sexual patterns, workaholic syndrome, etc.).
· Procrastination.
· Patterns of lack of punctuality.
· Picking fights with friends or partners over inconsequential matters.
· Refusing to accept responsibility for one’s own mistakes.
· Blaming others for difficulties in one’s life.
· Inability to receive constructive criticism.
Experience, some say, is the best teacher, but acts of self-sabotage suggest that we frequently do not learn from our losses and instead, go on repeating self-defeating actions in our lives. The person who always comes to work late and those who complicate their lives by postponing important obligations are effectively shooting themselves in the foot, repeatedly, and eventually, they have no foot left. Yet, self-sabotage or self-destruction has a degree of stability. Prolonging sadness can mean escaping abstractions like happiness. We think of people hitting rock bottom. That can be a surprisingly comfortable place to lay your head. Looking up from the depths of another low can seem safer than wondering when you will fall again or going through the complicated process of learning to fly.[4] However, asking ourselves what we are getting out of our self-destructive behavior helps us achieve the self-knowledge that is indispensable for further steps toward maturity. The answers we find to the question of what we are getting out of our self-harming behavior can help us ponder what resources we might have that will move us toward an increasingly meaningful and purposeful life.[5]
It amazes me how many times I have kept coming back to empty wells, desiring to find water this time, and failing to do so. It can happen in relationships all too easily. Something within us may want a relationship to be rewarding and fulfilling. We want the relationship to bring joy to us and to them. Yet, whenever we spend time with the person or group, we find the relationship empty of the nourishment we need. Some individuals and some groups in our lives are like empty wells for us. We keep expecting them to produce water, and they do not. Too many of our relationships simply do not hold water.
The same experience can be true of God as well. We keep trying other ways to lead our lives. We may wander off, giving our lives to pleasure, to power, to material wealth, and to fame. We cling to things and to people, as if anything finite can give us the satisfaction, happiness, and meaning in life we seek. God has graciously turned toward humanity, letting humanity know what God is like, and what God wants us of humanity. God has done this through Abraham and his journey, through Moses, through David, through the prophets and wisdom teachers of Israel, and finally through Jesus and the apostles. God has not made the will of God or the love of God a secret. God has graciously shown us what God intends for our individual lives and for human community. All we need to do is listen to it and live it.
I would like to expand upon three worthless messages we may receive today.
Worthless Message #1 is that we can find God anywhere. New Age books promise “religion without the hard parts.” Growing close to God sometimes involves sacrifice. Newsweek's Jerry Adler is convinced that people today want "talkative spirits and a laid-back God." He points to one best seller, Conversations With God, in which the Lord "offers advice, jokes and opinions on a wide range of subjects, but nothing in the nature of commandments." Another book, Talking to Heaven, "holds out the promise of eternal life after death without the necessity of believing in Jesus or in anything else beyond the grasp of an average dog or cat." In this book's view of the afterlife, the spirits of men, women and dogs "are happy in their realm and full of love for those still here."[6]
This message simply cannot hold water. I agree that we can experience God in the strangest of places. I think many people have an experience in which they become profoundly aware that their small, insignificant time and place in history is part of a larger reality that we only vaguely grasp. Yet, we understand those experiences in particular ways because someone taught us about God showing us what God is like in a particular time and place. The God who created the entire universe is a God who comes to us with a particular identity and in particular places. God called a particular head of a clan, Abraham, to make a journey toward a place God did not name. God called Moses to liberate a people from oppression, give them commandments, and bring them into a new land. We cannot find God everywhere. Such a god is nothing more than our projection of our values, thoughts, and desires. You see, we find God revealed in the God of Israel, and not in Baal, the god of the Canaanites. If it were true that human being could find God anywhere, then the Israelites would have been free to exchange gods at will. However, Jeremiah warned them that only the Lord was the fountain of living water. The God of Israel is the source of true abundance, and so is Jesus Christ his Son.
Worthless Message #2 is that accepting Jesus is all you need to do. I want to be quite clear. When we acknowledge the truth that we find in Jesus Christ, we turn to Christ in faith, trusting in the reliability of the revelation of God in Christ. Yet, such a response is not an isolated event in your life. Such an event is transforming. Such a truth is far from an abstraction in your life. It will transform your life. Such a response of faith is also a decision of obedience in becoming da disciples. Thus, living in this grace today means salvation is not simply about deliverance from the punishments of hell. It means healing from the effects of our separation from God, from others, and even from our best self. It means liberating us of the effects of sin. It means living in the light that Jesus has brought us through the written word. Such transformation of our lives is the goal of the Christian journey. We daily learn to turn our focus from self and toward Christ. In the relationship we develop with Christ, we find our lives transformed increasingly into what God wants our lives to become. The grace we receive will be "cheap grace" unless we complete our acceptance of Jesus with a life of discipleship. In a classic definition of cheap grace, the Lutheran pastor and World War II martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote,
"Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate"[7]
The Christian community plays a vital role in the life of discipleship because this community is nothing less than the body of Christ in the world today. It is among brothers and sisters in faith that we:
-- experience the presence of Jesus Christ, living and incarnate;
-- come together for worship, confess our sins, hear the gospel, and receive Communion;
-- accept church discipline through the gentle guidance of others;
-- learn, through the successes and failures around us, what it means to live a life of discipleship.
There is no substitute for living around other Christians. A primary way of learning to be disciples is by being in contact with others who are disciples.[8] We grow in discipleship as we strive with others to hear God's Word, feed the hungry, welcome strangers, and love one another. Acceptance of Jesus alone does not hold water. We need to complete that acceptance with the challenges of life in the Christian community.
Worthless message #3 is that the church is here to meet your needs. Of course, God made us with certain needs. The most important might be our sociality. We would not have survived into adulthood without someone nurturing and providing us. We are dependent upon our natural and human environment. The gathering of the people of God for worship, learning, witness, and service meets an important need for us as individuals and as families. It calls us out of ourselves and into that which is larger. We have a need to develop values by which to live, intimate communion of families, friendships, and doing good in this world. Thus, people should have their legitimate needs met by being part of the community. However, the church also needs to help people become aware of needs they may not know they have. The church needs to invite them to confess their sins, be reconciled to one another, listen for God's Word, and then do good work in the world. Jesus did not ask people to choose him and use him; instead, he called men and women to follow him in a ministry of service to a troubled world. Anything less than such a mission just does not hold water. The prophetic words of Jeremiah and the gospel of Jesus Christ are not worthless messages: They are living water, water that becomes "a spring of water gushing up to eternal life" (John 4:14). The calling of the Christian communities today is to provide this water to people who are thirsty for God, for discipleship and for new and purposeful life. Our mission is to turn people away from messages that do not profit, and turn them toward the Lord God of Israel, the fountain of living water, the source of true abundance.
May you have the hindsight to know where you have been,
And the foresight to know where you are going,
And the insight to know when you have gone too far.[9]
[1] The context in Jeremiah is that of a number of poetic chords, clearly set off from the quatrains of verses 2-3 and verses 14-19 that follows.
[2] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [72.3] 823-4.
[3] (For more on lawsuit speech, see Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997], 233ff.)
[4] “Kris Kidd,” Office magazine, May 31, 2017, http://officemagazine.net/kris-kidd. Retrieved January 19, 2022.
[5] Kennedy, Eugene C. “What Am I Getting Out of This Anyway?” The Pain of Being Human (Image Books, 1974), 204-206.
[6] (Jerry Adler, "Heaven's Gatekeepers," Newsweek, March 16, 1998).
[7] (The Cost of Discipleship [New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., (1937) 1963], 47).
[8] Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon (Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989], 102).
[9] —Irish blessing
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