Second Sunday after Pentecost, June 22, 2014, Proper 7

Jeremiah 20:7-13 O LORD, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, "Violence and destruction!" For the word of the LORD has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, "I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name," then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. For I hear many whispering: "Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!" All my close friends are watching for me to stumble. "Perhaps he can be enticed, and we can prevail against him, and take our revenge on him." 

        But the LORD is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. O LORD of hosts, you test the righteous, you see the heart and the mind; let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause. Sing to the LORD; praise the LORD! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.

Reflections: Our homilist for the day, Fr. Johnson made the unusual move of focusing the sermon on this striking Old Testament reading. Now, I love the prophets, but most of all I love Jeremiah. I admire his passion (“passion” meant both as strong feeling and suffering). But most of all I admire Jeremiah’s courage and honesty with God. From another point of view, as Fr. Johnson put it, Jeremiah “whines.”

        Well, I hate to think this, but maybe that’s precisely why I identify with him so easily. Maybe I’m a whiner, too. But I think Jeremiah fells more than let down. He expresses a sense of coercion, of being used. Another translation more accurately reflects the intensity of the prophet’s choice of words: “You seduced me, and I was seduced.”

        Nevertheless, the Jeremiah passage continues with a statement of faith; God will prevail. The prophet’s persecutors will be punished.
        But if you know the story of Jeremiah, you know that he suffered a great deal; God didn’t rescue him. Why not? Was he a bad prophet? Was God punishing him?
        Of course not. Fr. Johnson identifies Jeremiah’s expectations as the source of his grievances and deep disappointment. Clearly, the prophet believed that if he was faithful, God would protect, rescue, and vindicate him.
        Most of us share this notion that God will protect us from all sorts of things because God loves us. But is this expectation really in line with what we know of Jesus? Does the fact that God didn’t protect Jesus from evildoers mean that God wasn’t with him, or that Jesus wasn’t following the Divine Will. Of course it doesn’t. But it is a challenge to our expectation that God will make us happy. Or comfortable.