Jeremiah 12a. Ask this question often.

 Where are we in the story? Get your bearings. If you are lost at the beginning, you are not likely to discover the intended meaning of the story.

 Jeremiah, a prophet from a family of priests in Anathoth, north of Jerusalem, has been called by God to preach a series of warnings to the king, priests, and people of Judah. Why? Because what they are doing does not match who they pretend to be when they go to temple worship on Sabbath. It's the equivalent of Christians not being who they say they are when they go to Sunday services at church. The people of Judah are Israelites who are supposed to be the people of YHWH. But do they behave as God behaves? Even if they sing the praise songs and light the candles, Jeremiah says that their hearts are far from God. 

 How can we tell? Because their behavior is not godly; that is, they do not reflect God’s character to others. Israelites were chosen to reveal to the nations the love, justice, and good behavior (righteousness) of YHWH. Instead, the country of Judah reflects the ethics of Ba’al, an idol who is no god. People who worship Ba’al seek to be rewarded for greed, lust, and the desire for power. All of these behaviors hurt other people, even other Judahites. The kingdom of Israel had already paid the price for this weird theology in 721 BC. Now, the remaining Israelites living in the kingdom of Judah still refuse to listen to the word of God as preached by Jeremiah.

 Jeremiah is having a hard time of it, as was anticipated by God. He is a preacher whose sermons are ignored, a pastor who is barely tolerated by his people, a prophet whose warnings are rejected. His own family in Anathoth has raised a conspiracy against him. 

 We are at a point where Jeremiah is fed up with the people. He preaches, he prays, he warns; and the result is that the greedy get wealthy, the lustful find more victims, and the elite go crazy with power. What a terrible society to live in where the elite and leaders get away with these things.

1-2. You will be in the right, O LORD,   

when I lay charges against you,   

but let me put my case to you.

Why does the way of the guilty prosper?   

Why do all who are treacherous thrive?

You plant them, and they take root;   

they grow and bring forth fruit;

you are near in their mouths   

yet far from their hearts.

 Jeremiah is speaking. He is aware that God will be justified in the end. But, he is so disgusted with the deceitfulness of the king and the wickedness of the people of Judah that he has to cry out to God. His question is one for the ages. Why do the rich get richer, live a long time, and then die happy?

 In the Bible, who was the earliest person to ask that question? Job? That’s right! Those who are well-off usually do not ask this question. It is Job who has lost his family, his wealth, and his position in the community who asks, ‘Why did this happen to me and not to someone who deserves it?’ Read Job’s own words.

Why do the wicked live on,

     reach old age, and grow mighty in power?

Their children are established in their presence

     and their offspring before their eyes.

Their houses are safe from fear,

     and no rod of God is upon them.

Their bull breeds without fail;

     their cow calves and never miscarries.

They send out their little ones like a flock,

     and their children dance around.

They sing to the tambourine and the lyre

     and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.

They spend their days in prosperity,

     and in peace they go down to Sheol.

They say to God, ‘Leave us alone!

     We do not desire to know your ways.

What is the Almighty, that we should serve him?

     And what profit do we get if we pray to him?’

(Job 21: 7-15).

 Jeremiah asks the same question. He charges that these people hold God “near in their mouths,” meaning that they talk a good game about God, but God is “far from their hearts.” That is a good description of most of what I hear from Christians in America. 

3-4.  But you, O LORD, know me;   

you see me and test me;

my heart is with you.

Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter,   

and set them apart for the day of slaughter.

How long will the land mourn   

and the grass of every field wither?

For the wickedness of those who live in it,   

the animals and the birds are swept away,   

and because people said,                                                                              

"He is blind to our ways (or to our future).”

 Jeremiah confirms that his heart is with God. But then he pushes God to bring on the punishment that the people deserve. He is making a court case. Jeremiah claims that their behavior hurts not only the faithful, like Jeremiah, but also they harm nature; the land, the grass, the animals, and the birds. How many Christians are worried about how the behavior of our so-called ‘Christian nation’ harms the land, the grass, the animals, and the birds? The prophet of God is concerned.

Finally, Jeremiah charges that the delay also hurts the people themselves because they are emboldened in their wickedness since God does not seem to care how their pollution ends. What will God have to say?

5-6. If you have raced with runners

and they have wearied you,   

how will you compete with horses?

And if you trust in a safe land,   

how will you fare in the thickets of the Jordan?

For even your kinsfolk and your own family,   

even they have dealt treacherously with you;   

they are in full cry after you;

do not believe them,   

though they speak friendly words to you.

 God does not specifically answer the question, just as he does not answer Job except obliquely. Instead, God warns Jeremiah that the end is not here yet, and things will get tougher in the coming months or years. Tighten your belt, and prepare for things to get worse, and beware of false friends and false family. 

 How can a nation pretend to belong to God, whether YHWH or Jesus, and yet tolerate some of the behavior of today’s governments? Consider how the world ends. It gets worse before it gets better. The scary part is that the people who claimed to be Christians will be shocked. 

 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me you evil-doers’” (Matthew 7: 21-23; see also Matthew 25:31-46).  

 The key phrase here, repeated three times, is that people don’t realize that the works were effective because they were done “in your name.” The people apparently had no relationship with Jesus and so did not become like Jesus: humble, merciful, and dedicated to God’s mission of grace here on earth. Since the so-called Christians did not become Christ-like, Jesus says, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”