Why Have You Forsaken Me? —Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 12C (Jeremiah 2:4-13)

 

Jeremiah 2:4-13 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

⁴ Hear the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel. ⁵ Thus says the Lord:

What wrong did your ancestors find in me
    that they went far from me
and went after worthless things and became worthless themselves?
⁶ They did not say, “Where is the Lord,
    who brought us up from the land of Egypt,
who led us in the wilderness,
    in a land of deserts and pits,
in a land of drought and deep darkness,
    in a land that no one passes through,
    where no one lives?”
⁷ I brought you into a plentiful land
    to eat its fruits and its good things.
But when you entered you defiled my land
    and made my heritage an abomination.
⁸ The priests did not say, “Where is the Lord?”
    Those who handle the law did not know me;
the rulers transgressed against me;
    the prophets prophesied by Baal
    and went after things that do not profit.

⁹ Therefore once more I accuse you,
            says the Lord,
    and I accuse your children’s children.
¹⁰ Cross to the coasts of Cyprus and look;
    send to Kedar and examine with care;
    see if there has ever been such a thing.
¹¹ Has a nation changed its gods,
    even though they are no gods?
But my people have changed their glory
    for something that does not profit.
¹² Be appalled, O heavens, at this;
    be shocked; be utterly desolate,
            says the Lord,
¹³ for my people have committed two evils:
    they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
    and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
    that can hold no water.

                **************************

                The God of Israel is a jealous God. While jealousy is supposed to be a bad thing, in this case, it’s not. God made covenants with Abraham and Moses, calling together a people. Yet, the people always seemed to fall short of the covenant promises. Maybe it’s a human thing, but people (including me) always seem to know better than God. But God keeps calling the people to come back, working through the prophets, including Jeremiah. With the previous week’s reading from Jeremiah 1:4-10, a passage that records Jeremiah’s call to prophetic ministry, we begin several weeks of readings from the prophet Jeremiah, whose ministry began in the reign of Josiah and continued through the early stages of the Babylonian captivity of Judah. As Mary Donovan Turner notes, “He saw the nation move from prosperity to devastation, from community to exile. The story of Jeremiah is a painful one” (The Preacher’s Bible Handbook, p. 138). It is difficult to watch one’s nation crumble, but that is the context in which Jeremiah speaks.

                After Jeremiah calls for the people to hear the word of the Lord, Jeremiah asks, on God’s behalf, “What wrong did your ancestors find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthless things, and became worthless themselves?” (Jer. 2:4). God wants to know why the people lost their trust in God and pursued other things, worthless things at that? You can tell that God is feeling hurt by this abandonment of the covenant relationship. As Abraham Heschel notes, “God’s pain and disappointment ring throughout the book of Jeremiah” [Heschel, The Prophets (Kindle, p. 139). HarperCollins].

With that sense of disappointment ringing out, Jeremiah asks again on God’s behalf: Why did they not ask where the Lord was who led them out of bondage in Egypt and then led them through the desert toward the promised land of plenty? Yes, why? God had provided a wonderful homeland, and yet they defiled the land and made it an abomination. Why is that? Why did the people stray from God’s ways and pursue worthless things, such that when they arrived in the land of plenty, they defiled it? God had provided them with what they needed to flourish, and yet they defiled it. As I ponder this question, my mind goes to the larger created order. Here we have this planet, which we proclaim is God’s creation, God’s provision, and yet we seem intent on defiling it because we hear dominion and think that means pillaging the earth rather than caring for it as good stewards might.

                The message that Jeremiah delivers to the people is similar to the messages other prophets delivered to the people. It is sometimes a compassionate voice, but sometimes the prophet tells it like it is, whether we like it or not. Turning again to Abraham Heschel:

The prophet is a man who feels fiercely. God has thrust a burden upon his soul, and he is bowed and stunned at man’s fierce greed. Frightful is the agony of man; no human voice can convey its full terror. Prophecy is the voice that God has lent to the silent agony, a voice to the plundered poor, to the profaned riches of the world. It is a form of living, a crossing point of God and man. God is raging in the prophet’s words. [Heschel, The Prophets (Kindle, pp. 5-6)].

The messages delivered through the prophets still ring true in our own time. We also find it difficult to stay true to God’s call on our lives. The problem for us is sin.

While we often think of sin in personal/individualistic terms, especially in the Old Testament, it is understood corporately. That is because the prophets continually call the people as a whole to return to the covenant relationship God established with the people. I find this word from Abraham Heschel intriguing when it comes to the nature of sin, a definition that fits this passage. The prophet does not judge the people by timeless norms, but from the point of view of God.

Prophecy proclaims what happened to God as well as what will happen to the people. In judging human affairs, it unfolds a divine situation. Sin is not only the violation of a law, it is as if sin were as much a loss to God as to man. God’s role is not spectatorship but involvement. He and man meet mysteriously in the human deed. The prophet cannot say Man without thinking God. [Heschel, The Prophets (Kindle, p. 29)].  

The prophets, such as Jeremiah, seek to emphasize that God remains faithful to the covenant relationship. Unfortunately, that is not always true of the covenant people. The question is, why is that true? After all, God put the people in a position to flourish, but they chose a different path, one that continually got them into trouble. Not even the priests could remain faithful, let alone the rulers. Not only that, but prophets appeared in the land who prophesied on behalf of Ba’al. How can this be? Has a nation ever exchanged its gods for others, even if these gods are no gods? It doesn’t happen. Yet, this is exactly what Judah had done as it chased after Ba’al. We might want to ask whether we also chase after our own versions of Ba’al.

                Since our reading takes the form of a lawsuit, though poetically laid out, the heavens essentially serve as the jury, before whom God lays out the accusations of infidelity and disloyalty to the covenant. God notes that God’s people had changed their glory for something that did not profit them, which, in God’s mind, should appall and shock the heavens. How can this be? After all, other people from Cyprus to Kedar, who worship much less reliable gods than Yahweh, haven’t exchanged their gods for no gods. So, why has Judah done this? Why have they exchanged their glory for something that doesn’t profit them?

                So, God, who is asking the heavens to be appalled as they see what Judah is doing, notes that God’s covenant people had committed two evils. First, they had forsaken God, who is the fountain of living water. Secondly, they dug cisterns for themselves that were cracked and failed to hold water. Walter Brueggemann comments on this final reprise to the passage, which is essentially a divine lawsuit against an unfaithful covenant partner:

The poem introduces the metaphor of living water and empty cisterns. Yahweh is the living water that originates as a gift outside of Israel (cf. John 4:10). Israel need not generate its own water or conjure its own life. It is freely given by this gracious partner of a God who is owner and husband. But Israel has rejected such a free gift that embodies its very life, and wants to be its own source of life—which of course leads only to death.  [Brueggemann, A Commentary on Jeremiah (Kindle p. 62).]  

Isn’t that true of so many of us? God offers us living water, but we turn it down because we want to be our own life source.

                As one reads Jeremiah and other prophets who have a similar concern, one wonders why people are so inclined to listen to false prophets (in this case, the prophets of Ba’al). After all, there is nothing to profit from. But it’s not just Jeremiah’s people who seem enticed by the messages of the prophets of Ba’al. We face the same temptations as modern “prophets” proclaim a message, even in our churches, that seems so foreign to the message Jesus proclaimed. We hear messages that suggest that greed is good, that immigrants are bad, and that gay folks shouldn’t have the opportunity to marry and have families of their own. We hear messages that conflate America First with the Gospel, even though if we embrace the Gospel, which proclaims the coming of God’s realm, there really isn’t any room for America to be first.

What is interesting when one reads prophets such as Jeremiah is that one of their core messages is focused on social justice. Despite the prevalence of this social justice message in Scripture, and especially in the prophetic literature, many Christians are uncomfortable with it, even outright rejecting it. Yet we keep hearing the message proclaimed. In Jeremiah’s case,  he brings God’s accusations against the people because they have exchanged no gods for the real thing.  As we read Jeremiah’s words, we need to ask the question of why we refuse to heed the message.

                Here in the nation of my birth and citizenship, we’re witnessing the rise of authoritarianism that is rooted in what has become a personality cult. It is embraced by significant numbers of Christians, many of whom proclaim their loyalty to the Bible as the inerrant word of God. I have to wonder whether God is asking Christians in this country, who seemingly chase after false gods: Why have you forsaken me? Many embrace forms of Christian nationalism that are more nationalist than Christian. Why is this? It appears that the desire to gain power over every area of life is a goal worth trading loyalty to God’s coming realm for a broken cistern that won’t hold water.