Gone Astray -- Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 12 C (Jeremiah 2)

Jeremiah2:4-13 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
What wrong did your ancestors find in me
    that they went far from me,
and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?
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?”
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.
    Those who handle the law did not know me;
the rulers transgressed against me;
    the prophets prophesied by Baal
    and went after things that do not profit.
Therefore once more I accuse you,
says the Lord,
    and I accuse your children’s children.
10 Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look,
    send to Kedar and examine with care;
    see if there has ever been such a thing.
11 Has a nation changed its gods,
    even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory
    for something that does not profit.
12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this,
    be shocked, be utterly desolate,
says the Lord,
13 for my people have committed two evils:
    they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
    and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
    that can hold no water.


If we define sin in terms of straying from the ways of God, then the prophetic literature in the Hebrew Bible is concerned with sin. Of course, in this case, sin is defined corporately and not individually. If you spend any time with prophets such as Jeremiah, you will hear a great deal about Israel’s (here I am thinking of both the northern and southern kingdoms though by Jeremiah’s time the northern kingdom is long gone) tendency to abandon the covenant relationship God had established with these people when God redeemed the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt and led them into the Promised Land. While God is faithful to the covenant relationship, Israel seems unable to fulfill its side of the covenant. So, why is it that Israel continually fails to meet its responsibilities to the covenant? Did God set the bar too high, or do they seem unwilling to even try? Could it be that the offers made by other deities are just too good to pass up? It might seem like that is the answer, but according to Jeremiah, the promises made by these other gods fall far short of expectations.

In Jeremiah 2, the word of the Lord comes to the people. This word from God asks a pertinent question: “What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?” This question is posed in a way that suggests that God has been wounded by Israel’s tendency to wander away from the relationship. God asks plaintively: What did I do wrong that your ancestors chose not to be faithful? Why did they pursue worthless things? Why seek baubles when you can have the real thing? That question continues to speak to us. Why do we choose lesser things?  

There is a second related question that gets asked twice in this passage. God asks why no one bothers to ask, “Where is the Lord?” The people don’t ask, but neither do the priests. It’s not that God was absent, but the people led by the priests simply ignored the God of Israel as they pursued other gods, including Baal. Do they think they’ll get a better deal from these other deities? After all, who brought the people out of Egypt? Who led the people through the wilderness? Who brought the people to a place with good farmland so they could “enjoy its fruit and its bounty”? Why did they not ask where is the Lord? Why weren’t they looking? Indeed, the Lord asks why the “guardians of the Teaching ignored me” (Tanakh). Why do we so often fail to heed the words of God?

The Word we hear in Jeremiah 2 comes in the form of an indictment. God is taking Israel to court. The prophet asks, on behalf of God, why do the people exchange their God—Yahweh—for what are in essence no gods? Indeed, Jeremiah shares the word of God: “But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit.” Why would you do this? Why would you exchange God’s glory for the dross of false religion? Yet, how often do we choose that which is contrary to the essence of faith?

As I pondered Jeremiah’s words about Israel’s tendency to ignore the ways of God—their failure to ask: “where is God?” —I thought of the American tendency to embrace forms of civil religion that contradict our faith. I think of the defenses made of slavery in the antebellum American south. The Bible was quoted, but in a way that contradicted the ways of God. I think of the current situation in my country, where a portion of the Christian community has linked itself to a political figure who has demonstrated no understanding of the teachings of Jesus, whose morals are far from that of the faith, and seems to believe that he is chosen of God because he promises to protect them from their perceived enemies. They seem intent on pursuing political power at all costs. Of course, this is a tendency that many fall victim to. As it is often said: politics makes for strange bedfellows. In other words, they have given themselves over to foreign gods, rather than giving themselves over to the God who brought them out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.

What causes confusion here, at least as Jeremiah presents the indictment, is why the people of God are doing what no other people would do. That is exchanging their God for other gods. Why do they abandon God who has demonstrated faithfulness? In doing this, they have forsaken the “fount of living waters.” Remember that in ancient Israel, water was scarce so you wanted to make sure you had plenty of water. The also dug out cisterns for themselves, but these cisterns were cracked and couldn’t hold any water. Why do this?  Why won’t they give their allegiance to the one who has proven to be faithful?  There is something of a parallel here to the question of Joshua to the people of Israel. The question posed by Joshua to the people concerned who they would serve. The answer that God desired to here was simply this “I and my household will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:14-15 Tanakh).  Will that be our answer?

Picture Attribution: Duccio, di Buoninsegna, d. 1319. Prophet Jeremiah, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=46451 [retrieved August 25, 2019]. Original source: www.yorckproject.de.


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