Scripture Reading—Jeremiah 20: 7-9
You enticed me, Yahweh, and I let myself be enticed. You were too strong for me, and you 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 Yahweh has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, “I will not mention God, or speak any more in God’s 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.
One of the defining moments of Jeremiah’s life came with a yoke around his neck. It occurred in the public square of Jerusalem, and for all those who saw Jeremiah, the yoke represented the bondage of his people. Like animals under a plow, the people of Judah labored under the king of Babylon. Judah had its own kings, and the two most recent had struggled for independence from Babylon. On this Fourth of July weekend, it might be easy to feel a sense of righteous indignation in stumbling across this scene in Jerusalem. How dare this foreign king from Babylon treat the prophet Jeremiah in such an insulting, barbaric, and cruel manner? But if we talk with someone in the crowd, we will soon discover that everything is not as it might at first seem to an outsider. First of all, even though the yoke represents the oppressive, imperial rule of Babylon, it was not placed on Jeremiah by the Babylonians or their Judean lackeys. It was instead placed on Jeremiah by none other than Jeremiah himself. As it turns out, Jeremiah was following instructions given to him by God. God wants Jeremiah to make a public statement to all of the provincial kings under the rule of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. The message is simple: All of you lesser kings are to submit to Nebuchadnezzar.
Wait a minute…aren’t prophets supposed to rail against unjust, tyrannical rulers? What’s this about? To make matters more unusual, another prophet appears on the scene in this public square to ridicule and denounce Jeremiah. This prophet’s name is Hananiah, and he proclaims that he is the true bearer of God’s message, not Jeremiah. According to Hananiah, God has promised to break every single one of Nebuchadnezzar’s yokes. God’s going to restore the king of Judah to power and bring the Judean people back from exile. To make his point, Hananiah then lifts the yoke from Jeremiah and breaks it in two. In watching from the crowd, we might feel as if Jeremiah has just been supremely humiliated. In the world of prophets, it looks as if Hananiah might as well do a touchdown dance around Jeremiah. Those who love independence might want to set off a few fireworks. Take that Nebuchadnezzar! You’re going down!
If I were Jeremiah, I might have had some doubts at this point. “God, have you been two timing me? This other guy says that you also spoke to him and that you told him the exact opposite of what you told me.” But Jeremiah doesn’t do any second guessing. Instead, Jeremiah does Hananiah one better. He replaces the wooden yoke that Hananiah broke with an iron one. There won’t be any breaking of this yoke. Jeremiah then proceeds to call Hananiah a liar and claim that he is instilling a false confidence in his people. To top it all off, Jeremiah prophesies that Hananiah will die in the next year. Holy smokes! It is a good thing Jeremiah didn’t give George Washington and Thomas Jefferson any advice. The American Revolution would never have happened. Jeremiah might have told the colonists that they needed to keep the iron yoke of the British on their shoulders.
Yet, there must be more to the story than this. Jeremiah is one of the most significant prophets in the Bible. In fact, the book of Jeremiah is the longest of the prophetic books in the Bible. This isn’t surprising when one considers that Jeremiah was a central figure in one of the most traumatic and pivotal events in the history of Israel: the destruction of Jerusalem and its holy Temple. Jeremiah had been right in prophesying doom and devastation. He was also right about Hananiah dying. Still, how are we to make sense of this situation in which Jeremiah seems to be on the wrong side, even if he was right in his predictions. Wasn’t Nebuchadnezzar just an evil, oppressive king and wasn’t independence a just cause? As it turns out, history isn’t always so simple or black and white. While there is no denying that Nebuchadnezzar was evil, Jeremiah saw that the greater threat to the wellbeing of his people was the local ruling class. Under the guise of fighting for independence, what they were actually doing was furthering the exploitation of their own people. Military efforts cost money and that money typically comes from the poor. Meanwhile, the ruling class was leading a decadent and luxurious lifestyle as they pounded the drum for war. The rich were getting richer as the poor got poorer. Does any of this sound familiar? The king of Judah’s lavish palace causes Jeremiah to declare, “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice; who makes his neighbors work for nothing, and does not give them their wages.”
Jeremiah was choosing the lesser of two evils, and it wasn’t easy for him. He was outraged with God for forcing him to judge his own nation so harshly. On top of that, as one scholar asserts, “Of all of the prophets, Jeremiah is the one who suffered the most and who was most often publicly rejected.” Since we know how well most prophets are treated, that’s saying a lot. Here’s a short list of what happened to Jeremiah: He was put on trial by priests who wanted him dead. He was placed into stocks. He was banned from the Temple. He had to flee into hiding. He was arrested, beaten, and thrown in jail. He was dumped into a muddy cistern and left there to die. The list could go on. Jeremiah experienced so much pain and anguish that at one point he wished that he had been aborted before his birth. He asked out loud, “Why did I ever issue from the womb, to see misery and woe, to spend all my days in shame!” Remember how Amos was called the Prophet of Doom? Well, Jeremiah has been called “the sorrowful prophet.” He didn’t just prophesy doom. He lived it. To his credit, even though the Babylonians offered him a cushy life in exile, he refused it so that he could be close to his people.
So how was Jeremiah able to do it all? How did he muster the stubborn courage to say and do the unpopular in the face of tremendous opposition? You might want to consider for a second an unpopular view that you yourself hold. Consider a view that would be unpopular among at least some of the people that you know—relatives, friends, coworkers, members of the broader community. Now, imagine that you are walking around with a sign or symbol that let’s all of those people know exactly how you feel. With the recent Hobby Lobby decision, there might be some interesting symbols. Think about what would motivate you to take this kind of Jeremiah-like action.
Now, think about what might have worked for Jeremiah. Notably, there are parts of Jeremiah in which he amazingly does say some hopeful things. In exile, he believed that his people should make a life for themselves, despite their circumstances. They should build houses, plant gardens, and raise families. Moreover, he believed that his people would one day return from exile. Jeremiah had even bought land in Judah with this hope in mind. In addition to a physical return from exile, Jeremiah also believed that his people would experience a spiritual return. One day they would return to God with their whole heart. While this is all very interesting, I will be honest with you. I don’t think hope is what made Jeremiah wear that iron yoke. Hope is wonderful, but I suspect it might be overrated sometimes when it comes to people actually doing something.
I believe Jeremiah acted when he didn’t have an ounce of hope in him. I believe he acted even in those moments when he wished he had never been born. I believe the true insight into why Jeremiah acted is found in our scripture for today. Jeremiah talks about how he is the laughingstock of everyone’s jokes, how people mock him, how he is always having to raise his voice to prophesy doom and destruction. It sounds like Jeremiah is about to submit his resignation to God. He doesn’t want to be a prophet anymore, but then we get this central insight into Jeremiah. He declares, “If I tell people, ‘I will not mention God, or speak any more in God’s name,’ then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones.” He goes on to say, “I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” It has been said that one knows one’s calling in life when it is something one can’t walk away from. One has an internal compulsion to act even when your mind might be telling you, “No,” and even when everyone around you agrees with that “No.”
What is that internal compulsion? What is that fire in the bones? We might think of it as a deep passion. In the case of Jeremiah, I think it was a burning sense that the truth must be told. As unpleasant as that truth was, as unpopular as it might have been, as unsafe and hazardous as it was to express out loud, Jeremiah simply couldn’t help himself. He had to speak the truth regardless of the cost, regardless of the ridicule, regardless of the risk. I believe one of the best things we can do during the difficult times in our life is to say, “Hey, I don’t know how this is going to turn out, but I am going to let my inner sense of passion drive me forward. I have got this fire in my bones, and I can’t hold it in any longer.” Let’s all make the most of that divine spark that propels us and drives us forward even in the worst of times. Amen.