Today's
Scripture Reading (March 27, 2020): Jeremiah 2
Kurt Vonnegut, in his novel "Mother
Night," argued that "we are what we pretend to be, so we must be
careful about what we pretend to be." We have all probably had a private
discussion with ourselves about who we pretend to be. Maybe it is about the way
that we want to be regarded by society at large, or even within our small group
of close friends. But Vonnegut has hit on something important. What we pretend
to be, the person that we hold ourselves to be in those quiet moments will affect
how we will act with the outside world. If, in my dreams, I am a person of vast
knowledge, then it will hard for me to admit the times when I am wrong in the
real world. If I hold myself to be important in my dreams, I will find it hard
to be humble in my real-life interactions. What I pretend to be has real-life
implications for the way that I will choose to live my life.
God tells Jeremiah to carry a
message to Jerusalem and Israel. It is important to note that Jeremiah uses the
name Israel in place of Judah, and he draws from a national memory of Israel when
he speaks to Judah. The Kingdom of Israel was defeated by the Assyrians, ceasing
to exist, about a century before the ministry of Jeremiah began. But at the
time of the original rebellion of Jeroboam, following the reign of Solomon and
which broke the nation of Israel into the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of
Judah, many who disagreed with Jeroboam's religious reforms moved south into
Judah. The result was that, while we think of Judah as containing only the
tribes of Judah and Benjamin, with some of the Levites including those who were
priests and musicians serving in the Temple, Judah likely had representation
from all the tribes of Israel. Jeremiah recognizes this fact and returns to it
in his prophecies. Judah had become the only heir to the promise of Israel.
And so he tells a story from the
memory of the nation of Israel. He harkens back to a time when Israel was
young, freshly released from their slavery in Egypt, and wandering a hostile environment
where they could neither plant nor reap. Speaking to the heirs of Israel, Jeremiah
stresses that then you knew who you were. You recognized that if God did not go
before you, then you would cease to exist right there during the desert wanderings.
Every time you picked up and moved, the priests went before you carrying the Ark
of the Covenant and the furnishings of the Tabernacle, and you followed. Every
night you prayed that God would be your protection from whatever the darkness
might hold, and every morning you thanked him for the manna that would sustain
you throughout the day.
But at some point, you grew up. You
ceased to be that nation that depended on God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You
began to dream of something else. You wanted to be the empire that drove fear
into the hearts of those around you, the way you imagined it was during the
days of David. You began to pretend that you were important, outside of the
presence of God. And that became a problem because it affected the way you
lived in the light of the real day. No longer was God part of the equation. No
longer did you feel the need to follow God and his directives, and no longer
did you see why you should thank him for the provisions that he has given to
you.
It was a national memory and one
that Jeremiah wanted the people to remember. Because the reality was that it
was during that moment in their lives, during the time that they were young,
that they were powerful. It was when they followed the Ark of the Covenant when
they moved and thanked God for the manna that sustained them, that Israel was a
mighty nation, much stronger than they were even in the days of David. What Israel
had pretended to be had weakened them, and that was the real problem against
which Isaiah felt that he needed to push.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Jeremiah
3
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