Jeremiah 1:1-10 A Prophet to the Nations

Here in an extended form is the call of God to Jeremiah. We can be fairly certain about his background from the few words in verse 1- the son of a religious family important in Israel for 400 years, and perhaps for twice that long. We know from verses 2 & 3 that his ministry lasted for about 40 years, from the reign of one of

Judah’s greatest kings until the fall of Jerusalem and the captivity of the people.

We know from the very beginning of his ministry that Jeremiah was not timid about stating his feelings to God, something he continued to do throughout this book of proclamations and words of judgment, descriptions of his dealings with priests and kings and people, his laments over his sufferings and his complaints at the seeming harshness of God’s call. Here, in verse 5, Jeremiah tries to evade

God’s call- no, I don’t want to, I am too young, I’m not ready yet, I haven’t been taught, I’m not talented enough. But he cannot get away from the call of God, he may have a million excuses, but in the end he will go where God wants him to go, and will say what God tells him to speak. Not that God isn’t sympathetic: God may not provide a way out, but remains as his power and comfort and authority.

For Jeremiah, God calls him to be what he was meant to be. It was God’s plan all along, from before he was even conceived, that Jeremiah was to be God’s prophet. Attaching this most important phrase “the word of the Lord” to his call emphasizes God’s choice of Jeremiah and the mission to which he is called.

Usually “the word of the Lord” is a pronouncement of God, a word of judgment- or blessing, a command to the people. It is an unalterable statement describing what God is doing or what God desires. We often speak the liturgical response at the end of our scripture readings, “this is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God” signifying that we understand God’s rule over us, and God’s command to us, in the words of scripture. Here is that same inscrutable sovereignty and powerful assertion over Jeremiah’s life. And he cannot avoid it.

In some ways we could look at these verses as a resume. Jeremiah’s growing up in a powerful family, his long experience as a prophet, and his vindication as God’s prophet- who truly spoke and lived God’s word- unlike so many others who preached their own words, but passed them off as “the word of the Lord.” We should read this book of Jeremiah and understand that in these pages God has spoken to this man of Judah in this time in history- the last decades of the 7th century and the early years of the 6th century B.C., but he is not simply an important man in a little country, rather one of the pre-eminent religious men in the history of the world. Look at how God verifies what and who Jeremiah is, and the message he speaks, and his authority: God gives him the power to build up or to destroy nations and kingdoms; God names Jeremiah the title “Prophet to the

Nations.”

I have struggled with that statement of God to Jeremiah. It appears that

Jeremiah spent his entire life in and around Jerusalem until the very end of his life, when he was more or less kidnapped and taken to Egypt after the destruction of

Jerusalem. So how can he be “Prophet to the Nations”? He never went on a mission trip with his youth group. I think we can understand Jeremiah only as we compare him to the priests and prophets of his day, those who spoke words of comfort, “peace, peace,” they said, to make the people feel at ease and still approved by God, despite their sin and their greed (6:13-14); those leaders who spoke “deceptive words” (7:8) trusting in their concept of godly worship, smugly confident that their way was blessed by God.

But Jeremiah has this word for them (7:5-7):

If you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow, or shed innocent blood, if you do not go after other gods, then I will let you dwell in this place…Will you…go after other gods and then come and stand before me and say “we are delivered!” only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? I have seen it, says the Lord. They are wrong to think they could be made righteous by their heritage or nationality, or by the manner of worship or past relationship to God, but only “by the content of their character.”

Are these teachings we need to hear today? in our country, and in our world, that increasingly is becoming a land of haves and have-nots? where lust for power and disregard for others are the rule of the day? where so many say “just make it as it was before” and all will be well? Is that not “healing the wound of my people lightly” as Jeremiah writes (6:14)- not taking seriously the injustice of a system that is tilted already in favor of the strong and the well connected? But for many, for most, for the dispossessed and the different, it is pain and deprivation and hopelessness. Isn’t this what Prophet to the Nations means: that Jeremiah does not bless the national interests and corporate influence, but that he condemns the rich and powerful even as they try to justify their actions, claiming to be God’s people, that they worship in the right spirit, that they hold to the ancient traditions;

“Prophet to the Nations” because Jeremiah recognizes that God is bigger than nations and political philosophies; God is big enough to love and to welcome and to save the people of any and all nations, and that they needn’t become Judahites, they need not become like us, they must simply, in the name of the Lord, “execute justice, refuse to oppress or to shed innocent blood.”

So perhaps there is yet one more way Jeremiah is the Prophet to the Nations, in that he comprehends that God is the universal God; for Jeremiah, the Lord is not just the God of Judah over against the gods of other nations, but the Lord is the

God of all tribes and nations of the world. And so, when Jeremiah speaks the word of the Lord, it is a message for all peoples; nor is it not limited to those 40 years in

Jerusalem, but it is true for us even today. And when we read in verse 9, “Behold,

I have put my words in your mouth,” then the words we read in this book are words that go out as condemnation of the selfishness and evil and prejudice that

“break down and destroy and overthrow” justice and fraternity in the world; and they also are the words of good news of God’s mercy and acceptance, that “build up and plant” God’s Kingdom in the communities of worship and sacrifice, where the love of God and the Spirit of humility and kindness establishes God’s presence in our hearts.

Are you familiar with these groups that travel around to schools and churches and youth gatherings, of huge muscled-up men who lift incredible weights, bend iron bars, tear phone books in half, break baseball bats- there is one big guy who calls on15 or 20 people from the audience to battle him in a tug-of-war. What these people do is perform amazing feats, and then witness to the crowd about their strength in the Lord, and the power of Jesus, in which they are victors over temptation and sin. It’s good stuff for children and teenagers. What they are doing is making their bodies and lives and abilities part of their ministry to Jesus.

It is kind of the same thing we see in Jeremiah. He didn’t just speak the word of the Lord. He lived it and suffered for it. He was beaten, put into stocks, thrown down a dry well for a while, because some of the important people didn’t like his preaching. But still he was driven by God to proclaim God’s judgment on the land.

He was commanded by God never to marry and beget children, because the nation had no future, it was doomed; he was commanded not to mourn the suffering of the people because God had taken his shalom from them. God commanded him to buy a garment and intentionally ruin it as an example of the nation becoming worthless to God; Jeremiah was told to buy a pottery flask and break it before the elders and the priests and say that this is what the Lord will do to Jerusalem and all its inhabitants. Get the idea? Time and again God sent Jeremiah out to proclaim against the kings and the religious leaders, because of their infidelity and their pride before God, and their greed and their mistreatment of the people. And Jeremiah places himself in the way to bear their outrage at these judgments of God.

So the life of Jeremiah displays the word of the Lord, just as his message does. Like the traveling musclemen for Christ. Except that Jeremiah doesn’t get to experience the physical and emotional highs of accomplishment and applause.

His is a life of defeat, even though it is a life lived in the deepest intimacy with

God. So, if I have a call to discipleship to offer you today from Jeremiah, it is a question: can we live with times of defeat, and still be God’s faithful women and men? Can we believe in the peace and grace and hope of Jesus Christ, even as the life he has called us to, challenges us, and sometimes brings us to hard places and hard choices? For it is life he has promised to share with us, and it is a life we all share together.