A Weeping Middle
Schooler
These last few weeks in Jeremiah have not been easy reading, and today’s text offers little respite. So, before we dive in, allow me to begin with a more lighthearted tale.
I remember an incident when I was a middle schooler at a summer youth camp. It was “quiet time,” and everyone had spread out in the room to read their devotionals. For once, all was silent. A rare thing among a group of middle schoolers. Suddenly I felt a cough deep in my throat. Not just a solitary cough, but the kind that signals the onslaught of a violent coughing fit. I knew that suppressing the first cough was crucial; otherwise, I would be coughing up a storm. So, I kept my mouth shut and tried to swallow the cough. The last thing I wanted was to disturb the peace of the room and draw attention to myself. But the cough did not go easy. As I fidgeted in silence, tears began to creep out of the corner of my eye. Soon they were flowing freely down my face. I tried, as casually as possible, to wipe them away before anyone would notice.
I have to laugh as I remember the experience, because even though I avoided coughing, I’m pretty sure I ended up drawing just as much attention to myself through my fidgeting and my tears. I have to wonder if others had any clue about what was going on. Maybe they just thought I was an especially spiritual middle schooler who had been deeply moved by the morning devotional.
The Weeping Prophet
Jeremiah was caught weeping on so many occasions he’s become known as “the weeping prophet.” Most of the time, Old Testament prophets identify with God and speak on God’s behalf to the people. But Jeremiah regularly identifies with the people and weeps on their behalf to God. In today’s passage, Jeremiah sees the death, destruction, and despair that fall upon Judah as Babylon forces its people into exile. “For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,” Jeremiah cries (8:21). “Why has the health of my poor people not been restored?” (8:22). It’s a rhetorical question. In fact, Jeremiah already knows why his people are hurting. He knows they have abandoned God and sought security in other things, like possessions and political power. He knows that suffering is the natural and unavoidable consequence of trusting in one’s own strength. But in this passage, what matters most to Jeremiah is not whether the people deserve their suffering. (In our conventional way of judging things, they have gotten what was coming to them.) What matters most to Jeremiah is simply that they are suffering. Not only are they living in a forced physical exile away from their homeland, even worse, they are also living in a spiritual exile, feeling the full brunt of their alienation from God.
God’s Eyes, Filled
with Tears
There’s a hint in the text that Jeremiah is not the only party crying. The people ask, “Is the Lord not in Zion?” and then in parentheses Jeremiah gives whispered expression to God’s anguished response, “Why have they provoked me to anger with their images?” (8:19). We can almost hear the tears in God’s response. The people sit in exile, wondering how God could have let this happen—had God left them?—while God looks on them from afar, asking, “Why have they left me?” God suffers to see them suffer.
This scene is perhaps a helpful corrective to the judgmentalism of our world. God does not look upon Judah and say, “Told you so! You deserved this!” God weeps with them. Jeremiah weeps with them, even though he knows that they have reaped what they’ve sown. Our world can be so quick to pass judgment and then leave people behind to rot in their just desserts. But that is not the way of God. The ultimate divine work is not judgment but restoration, and its seed is sown with tears. Here we see that the primary response of God and Jeremiah to Judah’s suffering is grief.
What a revolution in perspective. When I look upon a world that is filled with anger and hate and conflict, I can easily lose track of the gospel and join the game, assigning blame and then celebrating when the wrongdoers get what’s coming to them. Today’s passage invites me to look upon the world’s rage and violence not with judgment, but with God’s eyes, with eyes filled with tears for the despair and loneliness and for the hurt that those things cause.
The Isolation of
Wealth
By itself, today’s scripture from Jeremiah does not reveal a way out of Judah’s loneliness and despair. We are left with a people in exile who feel God-forsaken, precisely because they themselves have left God. We are left with a prophet and a God who weep for the people, lamenting their hurt and their lost hearts.
This parable is filled with surprising revelations. Notice, for instance, that Jesus identifies God’s eternal embrace with other people’s homes.[1] The kingdom of God is when others welcome us into their homes. The parable also suggests that the accumulation of wealth is not a prize to seek but a matter to grieve, for it is a form of exile. It threatens to isolate us and ultimately leave us without a home. (Which is maybe not such a surprise, when we consider that among the “developed” world, our wealthy nation ranks highest in the statistics of loneliness and despair—in suicides and homicides.) I wonder if the isolation and despair of money is not a cousin of Judah’s spiritual exile. They have lived for themselves, and so now all they have is themselves. It feels like God has abandoned them. But that is only because long ago they abandoned God and their neighbor, seeking security in possessions and political power.
“What’s Mine Is Yours”
Jesus’ parable invites me to consider how I use my money. Generously, to build relationships and discover God’s eternal welcome (Luke 16:4)? Or stingily, to secure myself in what is actually a very lonely place (16:3)?
Perhaps it is a question worth pondering as we approach our stewardship Sunday. For me, the question is larger than simply, “How much money do I commit to this or to that?” The question is, “Do I ever feel disconnected from others? Do I ever feel that life is just an endless struggle, just one thing after another with no real purpose?” If I do, then perhaps what I am actually feeling is the loneliness of self-seeking, which is what Judah felt when it went into exile. Jesus’ parable points the way home for me. It is better to give than to receive. For giving draws me into relationship. Giving reconnects me to my neighbor, to my God, and to myself. Giving draws me into my “eternal home” (16:9).
Rhonda Sneed, the woman who started the Blessing Warriors homeless ministry, shares how the folks on the street whom she has befriended will sometimes approach her with a spare dollar or two and insist that she take it for gas or for her next grocery run. They may have a lot less than I do, but perhaps some of them also have more. For their self-giving draws them into closer relationship with one another. If their money is gone, that is no matter. Jesus bluntly says in his parable that there will be a time for all of us when our money is gone, and whenever that time comes, our eternal reality will become readily apparent. We will discover ourselves either very alone indeed or in the good company of others. In the case of these generous individuals, they are already in good company, even as they still struggle for a life that is worthy of their inherent dignity as children of God.
Their example illustrates the motto, “What’s mine is yours.” Is there any other saying so frequently said yet so seldom practiced? Perhaps we keep saying it, because even as we fall short, we sense its deeper truth. Perhaps it is, in fact, the way of God’s eternal kingdom. For when we live otherwise and seek to secure ourselves, what’s “mine,” we isolate ourselves. But when “mine” is actually “yours,” we find ourselves already connected, already welcome into our “eternal homes.”
Prayer
God of eternal welcome,
Who never leaves us,
Even though we sometimes leave you—
Help us to grieve with you
The isolation that results
From our pursuit of wealth and possession
…
Invite us anew
Into our eternal homes—
Which are found in the good company of others.
[1] In
fact, the word “homes” is skenas, more literally translated as “tents.”
The implication may be that our home is not a permanent brick-and-mortar
structure but rather a contingency oriented toward our neighbor. Wherever they
are, is our “eternal tent.”
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