Call the Doctor, the People Are Spiritually Sick—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 15C (Jeremiah 8:18-9:1)

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 New Revised Standard Version UpdatedEdition

¹⁸ My joy is gone; grief is upon me;
    my heart is sick.
¹⁹ Listen! The cry of the daughter of my people
    from far and wide in the land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion?
    Is her King not in her?”
(“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images,
    with their foreign idols?”)
²⁰ “The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
    and we are not saved.”
²¹ For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken,
    I mourn, and horror has seized me.

²² Is there no balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of the daughter of my people
    not been restored?

9 O that my head were a spring of water
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night
    for the slain of the daughter of my people!

                *****************

                Twenty-four years ago, I preached a sermon on the second Sunday after the attacks of 9-11. I was trying to make sense of the attacks, though I later learned that my congregation didn’t find my efforts sufficient (I think they didn’t appear patriotic enough). Nonetheless, I asked the question posed by our reading: “Is there no balm in Gilead?” At the time, the nation was still recovering, and many people were not ready to “visit the doctor” and seek medical attention. A columnist wrote at that time in Time Magazine that this was not a time for healing. Rather, it was a time to “nourish rage.” In 2025, the day before the nation observed the twenty-fourth anniversary of 9-11, a young man decided to murder Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist. Once again, the nation has nourished its rage (overshadowing the 9-11 observances as well as another school shooting in Colorado. So, once again, I ask, along with Jeremiah, “Is there no balm in Gilead,” so that our “sin-sick souls” might be healed?

                Jeremiah spoke strong words to the people of Israel, but I don’t think he took pleasure in the words he shared on behalf of the God he served. He poses the question on God’s behalf, asking why the people keep turning their backs on God (Jer. 8:8). We’ve already heard Jeremiah call the people foolish and stupid because they failed to understand the ways of God. Therefore, they are “skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good” (Jer. 4:22).

                As we turn to our reading from chapter 8 of Jeremiah, the prophet begins by declaring: “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.” These are rather poignant words for our time. I think many of us feel what Jeremiah shares here. It’s not just 9-11 or the recent spate of shootings, whether in a school or at a political rally, but the devastation that is taking place in Gaza as thousands have been killed, while Israeli’s await the release or recovery of the October 7^th hostages. Then there is the ongoing war in Ukraine that only seems to get worse. These are just the most followed wars. When Jeremiah spoke these words, he recognized that before long disaster would strike his nation, or perhaps it had already taken place. If the latter, then Jeremiah weeps because the judgment he spoke of had, unfortunately, unfolded. He knew the reason why, but it still hurt.

                As Jeremiah speaks on God’s behalf, we hear the cry of the people land who wondered whether Yahweh was in the land. This is a common cry during times of trouble. People want to know where God is. They want to know why God isn’t doing more. Many of us affirm the premise that God is present with those who suffer, sharing in their suffering. Jeremiah may have thought the same, but he had told the people to expect God’s wrath. Thus, he wept because the people did not heed the message. So, where is God? Jeremiah responds to that question with another question: “Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?” We do have a tendency to cry out to God when we experience trouble, while at the same time ignoring God the rest of the time. In Jeremiah’s view, the problem starts with the people who put themselves in difficult positions because they foolishly stray from the paths set before them by God. So, perhaps Yahweh has left Zion because the people were unwilling to recognize Yahweh’s sovereignty and chased other gods, which led to disaster. Walter Brueggemann offers this commentary on Jeremiah’s challenging message:

Yahweh is affronted by the idolatry. Israel is driven to fraudulent liturgical assertions, which reflect idolatrous miscalculation. Israel wishes for God’s presence in place and on time, but in fact Israel is terminally ill because of idolatry and should entertain no wish. Wishful thinking is inadequate religion. Because Yahweh discerns the pathology as Israel does not, Yahweh is pressed to deep grief. [Brueggemann,  A Commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and Homecoming (Kindle pp. 135-136)].

As we ponder this word from Jeremiah, could this be our fate as well? I don’t mean that we can solve the problem by putting the Ten Commandments in the schools or returning “prayer” to the schools.

                Could it be too late for something positive to happen? After all, the prophet declares that the “harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved” (vs. 20). Have they passed the point of no return? Have we? I have been wondering a lot about that lately.

                But then we hear this word, while Jeremiah’s joy is gone, he speaks, presumably on God’s behalf, about sharing in the hurt of the people. Because the people are hurting, Jeremiah, and presumably God, are hurting. Again, we are reminded that Jeremiah is known as the Weeping Prophet, the prophet who feels the pain of the nation, even as he speaks judgment on it. So, Jeremiah mourns because of what was happening to his people. Dismay has taken hold of him, and he is distraught.

                Jeremiah’s distress leads to his lament: “Is there no balm in Gilead?” Why Jeremiah asked that question is uncertain, but it does reflect his grief and worry about his people. He wonders where healing will come from. Is it even possible to find a cure for what ails the people? We wonder about the same thing? Is there no balm to place on our wounds? Is there no physician we can call? Is it too late? Perhaps what we need is a spiritual hospice chaplain?

                We conclude the reading in verse 1 or chapter 9:

9 O that my head were a spring of water
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night
    for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Jeremiah asked plaintively for a doctor to attend to the nation's wounds. Yet no doctor arrived. So, we conclude almost where we began, in despair. Jeremiah laments the situation the nation faces. All he can think of is weeping. If only his head were a spring of water and his eyes a fountain of tears, then he could he could weep day and night for the people, especially those who had been slain and would never again experience life.

                As we ponder this passage of Scripture, we are invited to join the prophet in weeping for the people. Ours is a different situation, but the need is the same. We have strayed, and we will suffer the consequences. What those will be is yet to be seen.

While there may not be any “balm in Gilead: for our “sin-sick souls,” I still have hope that God will bring some sense of order to our world. There will be a time when God is all in all. That may not be true at this moment, but that is our hope. So, we sing the third verse, as found in the Chalice Hymnal of “There Is a Balm in Gilead.”

3 Don't ever feel discouraged,
for Jesus is your friend;
and if you lack for knowledge
he'll ne'er refuse to lend.
There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole;
there is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.  [Chalice Hymnal #501]