To whom can I speak and give warning? Who will listen to me? Their ears are closed so they cannot hear. The word of the LORD is offensive to them; they find no pleasure in it. – Jeremiah 6:10

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 14, 2014): Jeremiah 6

On January 28, 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart only 73 seconds into its flight, killing all of the crew members onboard. The cause of the failure of the Challenger was determined to be a defective O-ring seal. The O-ring failed at liftoff, and while none of the observers knew it, as Challenger was lifting off of the ground a more deadly countdown had already started. The reality is that even if the experts at NASA had realized what was happening at the time of the O-ring failure at liftoff, there was really nothing that could be done to stop the disaster.

But that has not stopped armchair analysts from wondering ever since the days of Challenger if there was something that should have done. Specifically the question has been, were there warning signs of the disaster that we should have noticed, but didn’t? With the incredible history of the Space Program, was there a relaxation of safety procedures? And there have been those that in hindsight have pointed to several things that should have warned us that a disaster was on its way. But the accusation is that those in charge simply refused to listen to the warnings.

Of course, this is not a new phenomenon. Every time disaster strikes, someone looks back at the situation and points out the warning signs that we should have observed, but for some reason at the time were not believed to be credible. The Challenger Disaster, the Bombing of Pearl Harbor at the beginning of World War II and the tragic events of 9/11 are all entries into a journal of what some believe should have been avoidable tragedies – if only we had watched and listened for the warning signs.

But the history of avoidable tragedies is much older than even that. Jeremiah complains that the people of his day refused to listen to the warnings of the impending disaster knocking at the door of Judah – their ears were closed to the predictions of the coming disaster. Like every other disaster in history, during the days that lead up to the Judean Exile no one really believed that God would allow Judah to go into exile. But the truth is that the solid predictors of disaster, as with the Challenger Disaster, often occur too late for appropriate counter measures. We have left things too long to avoid the events that are coming - even if we are willing to listen to the warning.

That is definitely the situation with Jeremiah. During the days of Josiah, which was also the time of the beginning of Jeremiah’s reign as a prophet (Jeremiah’s prophecy began in the thirteenth year of Josiah [Jeremiah 1:2] and at the time both Jeremiah and Josiah would have been barely into their 20’s), God had already said that the disaster that was to come to Judah was already set up – and even the good king Josiah could do nothing to change the impending disaster. And if Josiah could not change it, neither could Jeremiah. But although the deadly countdown had begun for Judah – Jeremiah wanted to make sure that the people understood why the exile was coming – and also understand that if they had listened to the words of the prophets that had preceded him, even this disaster could have been avoided.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 11

 

“Yet even in those days,” declares the LORD, “I will not destroy you completely.” – Jeremiah 5:18

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 13, 2014): Jeremiah 5

William Shakespeare wrote in his comedy “The Merchant of Venice” that -

The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.

It is almost a perfect description of the character of mercy. It does not work if it is forced. Mercy is a gentle shower that falls on us. And I love the Shakespeare’s concept of mercy as being twice blessed, blessing both those on the receiving end of mercy and those on the giving end. It would seem that we are no closer to the character of God than when we extend mercy.

There is no reason that God should not have destroyed Judah.  According to Nahum, God had promised to make a full end of Nineveh (Nahum 8.) There is absolutely no reason that God should stop his hand with Judah – and yet that is precisely what Jeremiah says God will do. It is one of the most predictive passages in scripture, one nation is exterminated and the other is brought to the verge of extinction only to be extended mercy and allowed to come back to life.

True mercy is only available from God. But mercy also needs a human conduit to work through. For Judah, even though the Babylonians brought the exile, there was mercy. The people were taken away, but they were also protected by Babylon. The Babylonians educated them and allowed the Jewish people to play significant roles in their government. And in the reign of the Persians, that mercy that started with Babylon was brought to its full effect by the Persians as Judah was sent back home. But the other side of the reality is that there was no one there to extend that same kind of mercy to Nineveh and the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians simply disappeared from the pages of history.

Mercy flows, it drops like a gentle shower. First it flows from the hand of God onto our lives. But mercy is never complete until it flows out of our lives and onto the lives of those around us. And in that moment we are the ones who are truly twice blessed, because in that moment we are both the ones who have received mercy, and the ones who have given it away.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 6

Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, circumcise your hearts, you people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, or my wrath will flare up and burn like fire because of the evil you have done—burn with no one to quench it. – Jeremiah 4:4

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 12, 2014): Jeremiah 4

There is a bit of a misconception that the Hebrew Bible can be characterized by idea of the law, and that the Christian Bible can be said to be characterized by the idea of grace. The conception is that the premiere idea presented in the Hebrew Bible is that of the bringing of the sacrifice into the temple, that it is just this following of the rules that matters to God. And so the people of Israel came faithfully (sometimes) to the temple to present their sacrifices and fulfill the dictates of the Law of Moses.

But the reality is twofold. The first thing that we often miss is that in this sacrifice there is grace. The law in the Hebrew Bible is not devoid of the idea of grave – it is a means to obtain it. Israel did not do as they were supposed to do, they continually fell short of the behavior that God wished for them. It started in the Garden when Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit and has continued down through human history. What was needed was grace – and the sacrifice of the Law of Moses was just a way of obtaining that required Grace.

The other thing that we often miss is that the law was actually a response in and of itself. The end that God desired of his children was never the law, rather, it was a people who would willingly chase after what was good and right. Often we want to ask why God would have placed the forbidden tree in the Garden in the first place – but the answer is fairly easy. As God gifted us with the ability to choose, we needed to have something that we could choose that was wrong – enter the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and the forbidden fruit. The idea was that if we were to be worthy of God, we would need to be able to put behind us the thoughts and affections of things that went against God. But we failed the test, and the law entered into our experience as a way for us to find our way back to God - as a way of proving on a small basis that we were able to serve something beyond our own wants and desires.

The mark of Israel was that the males would all be circumcised on the eighth day. It marked them as a people that at least on some level wanted to chase after the things of God. To the non-Abrahamic nation, circumcision was a detestable act. But for the people of God, it was symbol of everything that they desired to be in God. But circumcision was never supposed to be the end. It was simply part of the Law of God, given through Moses, because of the way that the human race had failed. What God really wanted, and had always wanted, was that we would learn to choose well; life over death, light over darkness, God over whatever other things this world might offer. And this is what God calls the circumcision of the heart.

God is still asking us to learn to choose well – asking us to circumcise our hearts - not our bodies. But unlike the people of Jeremiah’s day, he has also given to us his Spirit to help us with the task. With his help we are able to choose, life, light and God. We really can choose well.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 5

The LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah. – Jeremiah 3:11

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 11, 2014): Jeremiah 3

Donald Rumsfeld, the former United States Secretary of Defense, once commented on the challenges of taking over such an important position. According to Rumsfeld, you start with a “visit with your predecessors from previous administrations. They know the ropes and can help you see around some corners.” Then it is simple. “Try to make original mistakes, rather than needlessly repeating theirs.” Okay, maybe it isn’t that simple. It seems that that is one of the biggest challenges that we face in life. A person once commented to me that they cannot learn from others; that they have to make their own mistakes. I hope that that is an exaggeration because I am not sure that life is long enough for us to make all of our own mistakes. And it would seem that a major key to personal success is the ability to learn from the mistakes of others. Maybe a better adage is that “mistakes are meant for learning, not repeating.”

And that is the issue at the heart of this portion of Jeremiah. The people of Israel, whether they were residents of the Northern Kingdom of Israel or the Southern Kingdom of Judah, were never outside of God’s favor, but they were also not entitled to it simply on the basis of their relationship with the patriarchs. Forgiveness had always been available for them, although there is no indication that the Northern Kingdom of Israel ever walked through that door.

But according to Jeremiah, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was more righteous than the Southern Kingdom of Judah. And the reason is that while the Northern Kingdom rebelled and paid for their rebellion by being taken into exile by the Assyrians, the Southern Kingdom had the model of the Northern Kingdom to learn from and they refused to do it. They followed the mistakes of their northern brothers, which resulted in the Southern Kingdom being carried into exile by the successors to the Assyrian Empire – the Babylonians. So, while God was not pleased with Israel’s rebellion, he was also not the least bit amused by the rebellion of the Judah when they were fully aware of the price that Israel had already paid for their acts against God.

If we take these words of Jeremiah to heart, the lesson would seem to be that God expects us to be able to learn from the mistakes of others. In fact, in the eyes of God it is a selfish and short sighted person that is not able to learn from others mistakes. We are never outside of the favor of God, but we are also not entitled to it. God’s expectation is that we will learn from the mistakes and sins of others. In the eyes of God, mistakes really are made for learning, not repeating.      

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 4

I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable. – Jeremiah 2:7

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 10, 2014): Jeremiah 2

From the ninth century until about the fifteenth century, the political climate in Europe was dominated by feudalism. The basic idea of feudalism is was that there was a group of people who owned the land. These were the lords – and they owned all of the land. And there was another group of people who had something to offer the society, but they needed land. And so these people would enter into agreements with the Lords for the land. They would exchange what they had to offer (maybe it was food from working the land, or if they were fighters they would agree to stand in the military defense of all of the lands that were under the control of the lord. And in return they would get a piece of the land that belonged to the lord. They did not own the land – the lord did. But they would be allowed to use the land because of what they could give to the lord. Feudalism was a response to the centralized governments of the king, but a king couldn’t control all of the nation. And so in feudalism he enlisted the help of the lords who enlisted the help of those that had need of the land in order to live, and through this system the nation was controlled. But as much a feudalism represented the decentralization of the government, considering the land that was involved it is remarkable at how few lords there really were.

Jeremiah is essentially describing the feudal relationship that Israel had with God. As Jeremiah describes the word that God is communicating to him, he says that God has brought the people of Israel from Egypt into this land. And yes, we know that God had promised the land to the descendants of Abraham, but Jeremiah is clear that it is still God’s land. God brings Israel into his land. He requires a service of Israel as the price of being able to use this land that the Bible says was flowing with milk and honey. But he had not given the land to them, IT WAS STILL HIS LAND. God was the Lord who owned the land and as long as Israel fulfilled their commitments to the Lord of the land, they were welcome. But as soon as they started to defile the land, they were starting to follow a path that would eventually end with them being kicked out of the land.

This is the message that Jeremiah is trying to impress on the people. This land was not theirs. It belonged to the one that they called Lord. And the possession of the land came with a responsibility. And it was a responsibility that was not being fulfilled. What was about to happen was their fault. They were given a chance to live in a fertile basin of land on the Shores of the Mediterranean Ocean, but they had not fulfilled their responsibilities - so that they could stay. The lord of the land was going to give the land to someone else use, someone who would respect the land and respect the lord of the land.

God is still giving to us the things that are his - and we are till a people with a choice. We can take care of the gift and the responsibility, or we can defile the gift, but either way the lord of land will respond. He has to.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 3

“Alas, Sovereign LORD,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.” – Jeremiah 1:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 9, 2014): Jeremiah 1

There is good news for the aging of Western Culture. Apparently we are growing up. It would seem that as the people within our culture get older, so does their view of the perfect age. In an online poll completed in 2013 (the survey was performed by Harris Interactive), people were asked what they believed was the perfect age. The results of the survey are below –

            For those aged 18-36 – Best Age = 38

            For those aged 37-48 – Best Age = 49

            For those aged 49-67 – Best Age = 55

            For those older than 68 – Best Age = 67

            Overall for Men – Best Age = 47

            Overall for Women – Best Age = 53

            Overall for everyone who took the survey – Best Age = 50

I am not sure, but something tells me that this is a change in our belief structure. We have worshipped at the altar of youth for a long time – pretending that we are younger than we really are and often suffering through depression as we get older, but maybe as our culture gets older, we are beginning to recognize the good things that come with maturity. But that attitude seems to be changing in our culture – because I think it used to be that we all wanted to be in our 20’s – and we tried to stay at that magical age of 29 for as long as we could (note – that age is totally missing from the results of the survey.)

But in the days of Jeremiah, the reverse was true. His culture worshipped at the altar of experience. The older the person was, the wiser that person was considered to be and people in that culture were more likely to listen to an older person than they would a younger one. So Jeremiah is speaking about a cultural belief.  We think that Jeremiah was about 20 years old, and his response to God is that at the age of 20, Jeremiah does not believe that he has the wisdom that is necessary to speak on behalf of God. And God’s answer to Jeremiah is that this is not about you, it is about me.

I find it interesting that Jeremiah’s excuse for not wanting to be God’s messenger, that he could not speak, was exactly the same excuse that Moses used in his argument with God at the moment that God was calling him to be his messenger. Moses was 80 years old when he used the excuse with God. So that bottom line is that it does not really matter how old you are – or how far away you might be away from the perfect age – either too young or too old. We need to forget about our preconceptions about age, both in us and in others. The only question that matters is this – what is God asking me to do? 

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 2

Note: Last week's message from VantagePoint Community Church (Edmonton) - "Real Meal" from the Series "The Upside Down Kingdom" is now available on the VantagePoint Website. You can find it here - http://www.vantagepointcc.org/the-upside-down-kingdom.html

I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us. – Habakkuk 3:16

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 8, 2014): Habakkuk 3

Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano once wrote that “Utopia lies at the horizon. When I draw nearer by two steps, it retreats two steps. If I proceed ten steps forward, it swiftly slips ten steps ahead. No matter how far I go, I can never reach it. What, then, is the purpose of utopia? It is to cause us to advance.” Utopia is like the pot of gold at the end of rainbow. As much as we try to get to the rainbow’s end – it simply recedes farther away from us. The attempt to reach Utopia – or our Shangri-La – is a fool’s errand because we will never get there. And yet, we are made to try and chase it down. Utopia only exists to cause us to move forward.

And that was exactly where Habakkuk found himself. He had made a plea to God himself that the penalty that was coming to Israel could somehow be avoided – that Israel could be delivered. And God’s response to the prophet was that, for this moment, Israel’s deliverance was just not possible. Everything was already in place for the nation’s downfall. In this moment, Habakkuk’s prayer could not be granted. It was not the answer that Habakkuk wanted to hear.

So the prophet describes exactly how he was feeling in this moment of God’s “no.” His heart pounded, his lips quivered and his legs shook; for the prophet it felt as if death itself had entered into the very core of his being. It was that moment of intense disappointment that we all experience at various points in our life – moments that, when we are in disappointment’s grip, we are unsure that we will be able to live to see the other side. It is the moments of our lives when we come questioning to God – why is it that you would allow this? Where is my Utopia?

Yet Habakkuk also comes to the conclusion that he will wait. God’s anger was only for the moment. Deliverance might not come on Habakkuk’s timetable, but it would come. The God of Israel would not allow his children to suffer forever. Habakkuk’s decision is that he will put one foot in front of the other and begin to chase down the time of God’s deliverance – and the Israel’s Utopia. And although that time of Israel’s deliverance may not come in the prophet’s lifetime, still this idea of Utopia would cause him, and his brothers and sisters to move forward. In that day, those responsible for holding his nation down would stumble and fall, and God would allow Israel once more to be restored. And the hope was that if they had been faithful to God during the times of defeat and oppression, they would remember to serve their God in the joyful time of deliverance – in that time when Utopia would finally move closer to the people of God than just a dream that existed on the horizon.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 1