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

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 21, 2014): 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 that Mercurius was okay with.

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 the 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 – Elohim (God of Power), Jehovah-Shalom (God of Peace) or El-Shaddai (God of the Mountains or God Almighty) to name but a few. 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.

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. It 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 and the respect that the name has garnered throughout the generations.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 14

I will make Jerusalem a heap of ruins, a haunt of jackals; and I will lay waste the towns of Judah so no one can live there. – Jeremiah 9:11

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 20, 2014): Jeremiah 9

Yann Martel’s novel, and later the movie by Ang Lee, ‘The Life of Pi,” presented the viewer with an interesting decision in the final scene. Which of the stories presented was the real story? Did Pi really end up on a lifeboat with the animals – including a man-eating Tiger, or was it the human variety of animal that caused the pain and death on the boat. Was Pi threatened by the tiger, or was he really the tiger in the boat? Was it the spotted hyena that caused the death of the other animals (other than the tiger) on the boat, or was it the cook in the human story.

But the truth is that the question is not really all that important (although movie goers tended to lean toward the human version while readers of the book accepted the animal version of the story.) The reality of the story is that if it was the hyena that was responsible for the death of the injured zebra and the orangutan on the boat before being dispatched himself by a tiger named Richard Parker, then the hyena was only doing as nature demanded. And Pi’s attempt to befriend Richard Parker later in the story was an attempt to accomplish what nature would seem to prohibit. But if the human version was true, and it was the cook that killed the sailor and Pi’s own mother before being killed by Pi, then the cook was acting more like an animal than a human, and the probability is that Pi was now left waging an inner war with his own guilt over killing of the cook. But Martel’s basic point would seem to be that both stories are essentially the same story.

Jeremiah looks forward to the future of Jerusalem with an amazing prophecy. The day was coming when only animals will inhabit Israel’s Holy City – and when all of the towns of Judah would be laid to waste. The prophecy is yet another predictive statement pointing toward the Babylonian Exile. And it would come true. The time would come when the towns would be deserted. It would seem that while some the people of Judah would be taken into exile in Babylon (among those finding their way to Babylon would have been prophets of Israel like Daniel and Ezekiel.) But a significant number of the remaining people seemed to have run away from Babylon and their Judean homeland into Egypt (and among this number was Jeremiah himself, along with his secretary Baruch.) The result is that there were very few people left in Judah. Jerusalem itself lay in ruins – and the few people left in the Judah were scattered over the country side.

But there might be another part of the prophecy. Jeremiah’s imagery might be more than just a picture of what happens when a city is left vacant. Like “The Life of Pi” stories, the reality is that Jerusalem in the days leading up to the exile was already being inhabited by animals. And Jeremiah’s message seemed to be that if the people of Judah were insist on acting like animals, then God was going to allow the city to be inhabited by real ones. In the end, there would be very little change – either way Jerusalem was being inhabited by animals – it is just a different kind of animal that inhabited Jerusalem before the exile than would inhabit the city after.

Tomorrow’s Scriptures 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 19, 2014): 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 major signals of the battle that was to come. But the reality at the time was that there were those outside of Germany that really believed that the Treaty of Versailles was too tough 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 in order 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 in order 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 own 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 Scriptures Reading: Jeremiah 9

Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? – Jeremiah 7:9-10

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 18, 2014): Jeremiah 7

A few years ago Craig Groeschel (Pastor of LifeChurch) wrote a book that he called “Christian Atheists.” The book was an examination of the Christian Church in Western Culture. The tag line of the book was “Believing in God but living as if he doesn’t exist.” The uncomfortable idea was that many people within the Western Christian Church led two very distinct lives. At church, and sometimes even at home, they lived as Christians. But for the rest of the time these people lived in the world as if God did not exist – and for most, they never even considered that the Christian life could be lived in any other way. It is a betrayal of the faith that the early church could not have imagined. One of the arguments of the early church was whether or not it was possible be a Christian and deny Christ under threat of death. Many Christians believed that the answer to that question was no – and they died a martyr’s death for their faith. But to deny Christ as just a part of daily life would have been simply unthinkable.

And yet that is often exactly what we do. We go to church, sing the songs and pray the prayers. We take part in the divine liturgies of the historical church that have been carefully designed to draw us into the presence of God. And yet, when we leave the church we often leave all of that belief behind – until the time comes for us to put on our “Sunday-go-to- meeting-clothes” once more, and return to the sanctuary to repeat the liturgies that we had left behind the week before. We desire to be people of two worlds – within the church we recognize that our belief in Christ saves us. And because we are saved, we think we can then leave God’s sanctuary and move into world and behave as the world demands.

It is apparently not a new phenomenon. Jeremiah looked at his own culture, 600 years before the birth of Christ, and saw his people doing the exact same thing. They gathered in the temple on the holy days and brought their sacrifices; they gathered weekly in their synagogues to hear the Word of God and participate in their liturgies – and then they left these holy places behind and went on with their daily lives as if God did not exist. It did not seem strange to them to worship at the Altar of God and then move out into the world to worship at the altar of Ba’al. But it was not just the worship of foreign gods that was at issue. The people walked out of the temple and believed that they could actively go against the directives of their God – and still be safe.

And Jeremiah wants them to examine that belief. The reality is that to follow that kind of pattern was to only partially believe in God. But the God of Israel is Jealous God – and he demands not just part of us – but all of us.

We grow in faith, sometimes our behavior does not quite measure up. We are like a child who needs to learn what it is to live the faith. But belief is never a gradient. Either we do – or we don’t. And the reality is that if we belief fully, sin – although still sometimes a part of our lives – is never a welcomed part. And when we fall short, we experience a greater pain than we would have if our belief was either partial or non-existent. And it is that pain over the sin in our lives, and in our world, that is the proof of our faith – proof of our full belief in Christ.    

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 8

Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from their evil ways. Then I will relent and not inflict on them the disaster I was planning because of the evil they have done. – Jeremiah 26:3

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 17, 2014): Jeremiah 26

Isaac Asimov postulated in his “Foundation” series that the future could be mathematically discovered. While the individual future actions of a single person might be forever enshrouded in mystery, Asimov believed the future of large groups could be plotted fairly accurately. That was, unless there was an anomalous person that stood outside of the process and had the power to change the future. For Asimov, the future was more analogous to the movement of a river – you may not be able to predict the exact movement of each drop of water, but you can know with remarkable accuracy the path that the river is going to take.

One of the open questions in theology is this – how much is God moved by our actions? It is a question that impinges on so many other issues. Does God know everything about the future? Does God ever change his mind? How much do our prayers influence God? And if there is an area of theology in which I stand with the minority, this is probably the issue. I believe that God is a very passionate and responsive God. Every story in the Bible seems to carry a promise for those who dare to follow him – and a warning for those who don’t. I believe that prayer is effective. I know that prayer often changes me; that it has a very real effect on my priorities, but I also believe that sometimes my prayers change God. And sometimes God even changes his mind. Does that mean that maybe God doesn’t know the future? I suspect that Asimov’s thoughts might be appropriate. But in the case of God, I think it is possible that he not only knows the path of the river, but he also knows all of the possible paths for each drop of water, but maybe not the precise one that the drop will eventually take.

And that seems to be the direction that this passage takes. God indicates to Josiah that his mind is made up. In spite of the good things that the King had done, God was going to send Judah into exile. But the likelihood is that this communication between God and Jeremiah took place at an earlier time – at a time when God genuinely was not sure what was going to happen next. The likelihood is that Judah’s exile was on its way. That is definitely the way that the river was flowing. But maybe there was a chance that the nation would respond to Jeremiah’s words. Maybe Jeremiah could be one of the special ones that could change the course of a raging river. And maybe Judah would turn from her ways and return to the ways of God. And if they would do that, than God says that he would turn from the course of action that he had decided to take with the nation.

For me, passages like this one just indicate the depth of the passion of God. He is moved by our actions, and he is even willing to change his mind. And there is nothing wrong with that. It in no way limits God. It does stand as a testimony of how much God cares for us – and the influence that we have with the one who created us.   

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 7

Many shepherds will ruin my vineyard and trample down my field; they will turn my pleasant field into a desolate wasteland. – Jeremiah 12:10

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 16, 2014): Jeremiah 12

Ken Blanchard, the author of “The One Minute Manager” has said that “too many leaders act as if the sheep … their people … are there for the benefit of the shepherd, not that the shepherd has responsibility for the sheep.” In other words, too many leaders are too interested in the ways that they can be served, when they should be concentrating on how they can serve. It is a trap that too many leaders fall into. Actually, it is probably better to call these people bosses rather than leaders – a boss is more concerned about simply being at the top, but a leader is going somewhere.

Jeremiah’s words would seem to be contain a double meaning. The truth was that the nation had already experienced its share of bosses that only wanted to take from the nation. Kings like Manasseh and Amon had only wanted to take from the nation throughout their reigns – although Manasseh did have a change of heart late in his reign. And it had experienced too few actual leaders that wanted to give back (Josiah and Hezekiah would have been two of the few.) And now the nation was going to go into exile. And so the second meaning of Jeremiah’s words was not a reminder of the past, but a warning for the future. For the next few generations there would be a series of kingdoms that would want to do nothing but take. These shepherds would not care about the pasture – they would simply take what it was that they needed from it – and God’s vineyard, this place that had once flowed with milk and honey would be turned into a desolate wasteland. And none of this was what God wanted. But it had to happen because the people refused to follow God – they refused the leadership of the good shepherd.

Care for our world is part of what it means to be a good shepherd and a good leader. It means that sometimes we will have to make hard choices, but those choices are always for the benefit of the sheep. And a Christian Shepherd – or leader – will also serve. Like a good shepherd, it is not what we can take from the sheep that is important. It is what we can give. We recognize that we have a responsibility for this world in which we live – and the sheep that surround us.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 26

I had been like a gentle lamb led to the slaughter; I did not realize that they had plotted against me, saying, “Let us destroy the tree and its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name be remembered no more.” – Jeremiah 11:19

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 15, 2014): Jeremiah 11

Sometime after 49 B.C.E., Gaius Julius Caesar developed a new constitution for the Roman Empire. His purpose was to strengthen his Kingdom. He had watched the effect that a weak government had on the nation and he wanted to set up a system of government that would allow the Empire to grow and remain healthy and strong. Caesar had three goals in mind as he set up the constitution for Rome. The first was to suppress any armed resistance out in the provinces, basically resistance in those areas of the empire that existed at a distance from Rome. The aim of the first goal was to ensure that order could be established and maintained within the borders of the Empire. The second goal was that he wanted to create a strong central government. This government would be able to instill a central purpose into the empire, rather than allowing the empire to chase after smaller and more insignificant goals. And finally, he wanted to knit together the entire empire into a single cohesive unit. The Roman Empire was to be a single entity, rather than collection of smaller nations and provinces all chasing after their own desires, run by a central political body – the Senate. To a certain extent, the U.S.S.R during the 20^th century, and maybe to bit of a lesser degree the United States, were models of the type of Government that Caesar had wanted to establish. But he also had a problem. Caesar quickly realized that there was no way that he could establish the kind of empire that he had imagined unless he was unquestionably the leader of the nation. So, in order to accomplish the goals set out in the new Constitution, Caesar had himself declared dictator for life.   

While the reasons behind the appointment of Caesar as Dictator for Life was for the strength of the Empire, much of the Senate, including even some of his supporters, began to question the future of the Empire with Julius Caesar at the helm. And so they began to plot against their leader until on March 15 (the Ides of March) in the year 44 B.C.E. Gaius Julius Caesar – historically one of the great political figures of history – was assassinated. And there is every evidence that Julius Caesar was surprised by the move against him.

Jeremiah was never a dictator of Israel. In fact, he never held political power in the nation. But he did have an influence and that was part of the problem. Those that held political power were displeased by Jeremiah’s message, and so there was a plot developed against the prophet intending to take his life. We know very little about this incident, except that the plot was hatched by the people of his own hometown. It is quite possible that some of the people involved in the plot against Jeremiah would have once counted themselves among Jeremiah’s friends. And there is no doubt that even though the plot failed, Jeremiah was hurt by the attempt.

And maybe the most important thing to know about Jeremiah is this – like Julius Caesar, all Jeremiah wanted to do was to strengthen the nation. He wanted good to happen to his country and his friends, but he understood that good often only happened when hard problems are confronted and when hard decisions are made.

Most of us want to change something about ourselves or about the situation we find ourselves in. But we can never assume that change is easy. It isn’t. And confronting the demons, even in just our own lives, is going to upset some of the people around us. They are going to try to convince us that the change we are making is unnecessary. But we remember the people that are willing to sacrifice for good; the ones that stand up against the crowd and say that we are going to follow this path no matter what others might say or do. It is the stance of a hero – and the world definitely needs more heroes.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 12