No one is like you, LORD; you are great, and your name is mighty in power. – Jeremiah 10:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 28, 2017): Jeremiah 10

Mercurius was born in Rome in the year 470 C.E. He chose a life in the church and quickly rose to the office of priest at the Basilica di San Clemente, a minor Basilica that had been dedicated to Pope Clement I and located in Rome. We know very little about the life or the ministry of Mercurius except that on January 2, 533 C.E. Mercurius rose to become the Bishop of Rome, a title that is more commonly known by another name – the Pope or Holy Father of the Roman Catholic Church. But Mercurius’ rise to the office of Pope presented him with an uncomfortable problem – his name. Mercurius, the name that his parents had given him at birth honored the god Mercury. Mercurius felt that the name was inappropriate for the Bishop of Rome to bear. And so Mercurius did what has become commonplace in modern times, but had never been done before the time Mercurius – he was the first Pope to change his name. The name that he chose was Pope John II. It is likely that the name was chosen in honor of Pope John I who had unjustly died in prison of neglect six and a half years earlier. After all, John I deserved to be remembered and to be remembered as an honest Pope. And to die in the service of the church was probably something with which Mercurius was okay.

Jeremiah reminds the people of Judah two things as the nation continues to walk away from God. The first is that the name of God deserved to be remembered – and the second is that there is power in that name. In the years that were to come, the people were going to have to know that – and learn to trust in the power of the name of God.

The name of God has been carefully guarded throughout history. Oh, there have been many descriptive names that he has been called– Elohim (God of Power), Jehovah-Shalom (God of Peace) or El-Shaddai (God of the Mountains or God Almighty) to name but a few. More commonly he was Adonai (Lord), or God, or Allah (which when stripped of it Islamic connection just means ‘God’) But the name of God – Yahweh (YHWH) – is seldom used. It is just too sacred – and too powerful. Jewish law required that a sheet of paper that had that name written on it must be preserved - forever. Warnings are often placed at the top of computer pages that contain the name not to print the page, or be willing to safeguard that page for the rest of your life.

In our time, the word God is often just thrown around carelessly. It is a practice that would cause our ancestors to shake in fear. The name of God is still a name of power that needs to be honored because it belongs to the Creator of the Universe. That power is something that we should maybe consider before we throw the name of power around loosely. We need to remember who it is that we are calling when we say his name – and remember the power and the promise that is contained in that name, as well as the respect that the name has garnered throughout the generations.  

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Habakkuk 1

“The days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh – Jeremiah 9:25

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 27, 2017): Jeremiah 9

A few year back a good friend of mine struggled with a parishioner who wanted him to preach the entire Bible. That is good advice for any Biblical speaker, but what made this battle so unusual was that this person wanted to hear more about a God of hate and less about this God of love that the pastor seemed to be promoting. The problem was that my friend did not believe in the allegations that were being made against the God that he preached. His God was a God of love. And I have to admit that I agreed with him.

One of the early heresies of the church divided the personality of God. In the Christian Bible God was primarily thought to be a God of love. The definition of God is love, a being who is concerned with the inner condition of the heart. But in the Hebrew Bible, God seemed to be a God whose desires centered on the outward keeping of the law (this idea is actually refuted several times within the Hebrew Bible, but often we don’t seem to be listening.) God is maybe not a God of hate exactly, but a God who often seems to be far from love.

The early church took strides to stamp out such teaching. God was God – he has never changed. He is the same today as he has always been. The problem – the division of God – is really a perception thing on our part. In the Hebrew Bible, God is sometimes who we expect him to be. In the oldest books of the Bible, God is often seen as more violent – but that was just who we understood and perceived that God needed to be in a culture that was also very violent. As time went along, our perception of God changes as God speaks to his prophets and reveals to them his essential nature.

For the Christian, the ultimate revelation of God is found in Jesus Christ. Jesus told his followers exactly who God was. He called him Father. He explained that the law was just a means of revelation – that God wasn’t concerned with just the actions of your life – he was concerned with intentions, the reasons and the thoughts that lived behind our actions.

Jeremiah (from the Hebrew Bible) maybe surprisingly picks up on this theme of Jesus. God’s punishment comes on all of those that are only circumcised in the flesh – in other words, God is displeased when all we do is keep the law. His intention has always been that we would be a people who are changed on the inside. The beauty of Christian message is that Jesus came to help us change internally. He wants to assist us to live out our lives in a way that flows naturally from the core of our being. Am I there yet? No. It is journey – one that we are all on, and one that brings pleasure to the God who we say we want to serve.

Or as Jeremiah wants to say – we need to become a people that have experienced a circumcision of the heart. It is the only circumcision that really matters.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 10

They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. “Peace, peace,” they say, when there is no peace. – Jeremiah 8:11

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 26, 2017): Jeremiah 8

On March 16, 1935, Adolph Hitler ignored the Treaty of Versailles and ordered Germany to begin the process of rearming the nation. In hindsight, this was one of the primary signals of the battle that was to come. But the reality at the time was that there were those outside of Germany that believed that the Treaty of Versailles was too harsh on the German people. The Treaty of Versailles was the treaty that Germany had agreed to in their surrender at the end of the First War to End all Wars (World War I). But some people had already begun to ask the question – when do we allow Germany to return to business as usual. Hitler seemed to know this, and he was sure in the early days of Germany’s rearmament that the world would not react as Germany began the process of remilitarizing. 

On March 7, 1936, Germany moved troops into the Rhineland – a demilitarized zone specified in the Treaty of Versailles. The act raised a few eyebrows, but no one reacted overtly to the move. At about the same time Hitler revealed to British historian Arthur Toynbee that Germany needed to make some limited expansionist moves to secure the future of the Greater German nation. At the time, Hitler said that he hoped that Britain would understand the need for such action for Germany to secure its borders.

On March 12, 1938, Austria fell to the German Empire, their territory annexed into Germany. It was a non-violent action, and the world continued to stand by and watch. In September of that year, Germany turned its eyes on Czechoslovakia. The Czechs had formal ties with France and the USSR, but Hitler was convinced that they would not move against him. And again, he was right. Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, and a delegation from France signed “The Munich Agreement” which gave a portion of Czechoslovakia to Germany. The Accord specified that if the Czechs did not agree with the move, the resulting war would be considered to be their fault, and therefore France and Britain would not intervene. Maybe the most telling comment about “The Munich Agreement” was that it was signed for the sake of obtaining “peace in our time.” But as events were about to reveal, peace was not an available option. Hitler was about to push the other European powers beyond the breaking point.

The events leading up to World War II seem to echo the events that Jeremiah was watching in his day. For Jeremiah, it was not Germany that was advancing, but rather Babylon. And according to Jeremiah, no one in Israel seemed to be taking the threat seriously. They were proclaiming peace and treating the incursions of Babylon as if they were insignificant. For Jeremiah, it was not just Babylon that was moving. He saw God on the move as well. And it was precisely that because God was on the move that the Babylonian Empire needed to be treated seriously.

God has never asked us to look through the world with “rose colored glasses.” In our search for peace, we need to understand the forces in this world that prevent peace from happening. And then we need to commit ourselves to the removal of those things – especially when the opposition to the peace is occurring inside of us.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 9