The Book of Jeremiah is not easy to just sit down and read. Often poetic, sometimes confusing, regularly dense and complicated, the Book of Jeremiah cannot be read in the same way that we might skim through a novel or pore over a straightforward passage of prose. One commentator, in fact, has written that “the reader who is not confused by reading the book of Jeremiah has not understood it” (R.P. Carroll, in Robert Laha, Interpretation Series: Jeremiah).
But Jeremiah’s words and proclamations continue to intrigue us because the themes and images that they contain so often transcend their original context, and bear profound meaning and relevance even into our own time, and our own lives.
At times, Jeremiah’s words are filled with profound despair – despair at the state of Israel’s society, despair at their willingness to follow other gods, despair at the injustices and the idolatry that had so warped the life and faith of people who had been called and chosen by God to be a faithful, exemplary light to the nations
And yet, at other times, Jeremiah’s words are filled with tremendous hope – hope that God’s steadfast love and faithfulness would ultimately prevail, carrying the people back to a situation of grace and of good relationship with their God, hope that the threats that were presented by the nations that surrounded them would not overwhelm them, hope that the difficulties that they were facing would inspire a restored devotion, a greater faithfulness, a renewed relationship. And in those ancient words of hope, we continue to find consolation and inspiration. It was, after all, in later passages in Jeremiah that we hear words that have brought such wondrous consolation to people who find themselves in difficult times – “for surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me, if you seek me with all your heart, I will let you find me, says the Lord.” Even in our most difficult times, to hear this promise of a future towards which God is able to guide us, and is actively guiding us, can bring a level of peace and comfort to the very depths of our being.
Today’s suggested reading from Jeremiah chapter 2 contains these notes of despair and of hope, in its powerful indictment on the ways that the people of Israel had fallen away from devotion and allegiance to the God who had been revealed to their ancestors, who had led them through the wilderness and who had established themselves in their land. Their initial relationship with God, according to the first verses of Jeremiah chapter 2, which immediately preceded today’s reading, had attested to the beautiful, faithful, loving relationship that Israel had first had with God.
Speaking on behalf of God, Jeremiah had proclaimed,
I remember the devotion of your youth,
Your love as a bride,
How you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.
Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest,
All who ate of it were held guilty;
Disaster came upon them, says the Lord.
Those words, albest seemingly nostalgic, attested to the relationship that had once existed between the people and their God, comparing it to the love of a newly married couple. They had enjoyed God’s favour, God’s affection, God’s protection.
But, sadly, the honeymoon was over.
After the people had entered the land, things had not gone well. They had followed after other gods, they had neglected their covenantal obligations, they had turned a blind eye to the Law, they had tolerated injustices, they had allowed their role as God’s blessed and exemplary community, in the world, to become marred and twisted. As today’s text attests, “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. 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 Ba’al, and went after things that do not profit.”
Those in positions of social, political, religious and spiritual authority had not always acted with integrity and faithfulness. The people had, all too often, followed blindly along behind those corrupt and unjust leaders, and were equally complicit in the injustices and idolatries that had arisen. And things were not good.
Israel had turned from God, and had – all too often – both oriented their worship, and placed their trust, in substitutes for god.
The image that Jeremiah uses to explore this terrible situation is that of a flowing fountain of living water, on the one hand, and a cracked cistern on the other. God, the fountain of water, was being ignored, even as the people were trying to draw life-giving water from a cracked container that could not be trusted to hold water.
Imagine a modern analogy to the images that Jeremiah presented. Imagine a person standing beside a perfectly functional waterfountain, and all that they have to do is press the button and they will be able to drink deeply of all of the water that they will need – water to quench their thirst, cool their body, refresh them.
But, instead of drinking from the water fountain that is right there beside them, they keep trying to get water out of the water bottle that is in their hands – which just happens to be completely cracked and broken, and neither able to quench their thirst nor to hold any water at all.
It might seem like a rather ridiculous situation. But that is how Jeremiah was viewing the state of the people of his time.
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.
Be appalled, O heavens, at this,
Be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord,
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 fountain of living water was right there, for them, but they were trying to draw sustenance and nourishment from a cracked cistern from which all the water had drained out.
But that situation was not necessarily unique to Jeremiah’s time. Rather, the question that Jeremiah wrestles with, in today’s suggested reading, addresses a question that is actually quite timeless. Why do we, as human beings, constantly choose to place our trust and devotion to other “things”, other allegiances, other gods, rather than in the God who is there for us, with us, longing to bless us and nourish us?
In the sixth section of T.S. Eliot’s “Choruses from the Rock”, the poet reflected on this strange human tendency to turn away from God and place our faith in other less trustworthy and potentially destructive allegiances. After a long section during which Eliot reflects on humanity’s continued brokenness yet persistent struggle towards the light of God, Eliot writes,
But it seems that something has happened that has never happened before; though we know not just when, or why, or how, or where.
Men have left God not for other gods, they say, but for no god; and this has never happened before
That men both deny gods and worship gods professing first Reason,
And then Money, and Power, and what they call Life, or Race, or Dialectic…
Eliot’s poem continues to reflect on this tendency to elevate other “things” into the place that should rightly be reserved for God, which eventually leads Eliot to ask a question that we, as members of the Church, are wise to ponder. Eliot asks,
Has the Church failed mankind, or has mankind failed the Church?
When the Church is no longer regarded, not even opposed, and men have forgotten
All gods except Usury, Lust and Power.
Eliot’s assessment might seem harsh, in certain ways, and it must be remembered that his reflections are poetic rather than intentionally polemical, but the sobering scope of his questions is undeniable. Why do we turn from the One who is and place our trust in things that are not only transient, but are sure to betray us?
Of course, it is fairly easy to hear Jeremiah’s laments, or Eliot’s reflections, and turn a judgemental eye out to all of “those” people who place their trust in all of those competing allegiances rather than in God.
But judgment of others is not the point of the spiritual life, or the call of faith. In fact, to spend time judging the lives and spirituality of others is a rather pointless endeavour, since we were never called to be judges of each other in the first place. Rather, it is far better hear these ancient laments and reflections and use them to ponder our own lives, our own priorities, our own allegiances – to ponder, perhaps, how often we are the person standing there desperately trying to get refreshment out of a cracked water bottle when we could simply turn ourselves towards the water fountain and receive all of the nourishment that we will ever need.
Such is the promise of God, and such is the good news that was revealed in Christ – that there is One who longs for us to turn and be filled with living water, that there is One who deeply desires to bless us and to help us to be a blessing to others, that there is One who offers abundant, joyful refreshment, life-giving grace, neverending love.
And it is that same God who invites us, challenges us, calls us to stop looking for satisfaction and fulfillment in the cracked cisterns, the broken water bottles that we cling to. Wealth and power, status and influence, ideological conviction and political allegiance, beauty and strength – all of these things make grand promises, but they slip away, and are certainly incapable of providing us with the nourishment, the satisfaction, the fulfillment, that our souls most desperately need.
There is only One source that can offer that nourishment, that satisfaction, that fulfillment. And it is to that source that Jeremiah was calling his people to return, that T.S. Eliot was encouraging his readers to consider, and that you and I are wise to turn towards when our souls are thirsting and our spirits depleted.
May we turn, and return, and drink deeply from that fountain of living water; and may that living water flow deeply in us, and through us, becoming a blessing to this world that God so dearly and deeply loves.
Amen.
