Jeremiah 8e. Is God in a Cage?

 God has excoriated the wise, the rich, and the powerful in Judean society with the words of the prophet that we read last week. What remains is God’s prediction/prophecy of what is going to happen. I said last week, “They will pay the price for ignorance and disobedience.” 

 Along the way in this text there are many voices with claims, objections, and questions, including the voices of Yahweh and Jeremiah. It is more difficult to read without attributions for the quotes, rather like reading a play without all the notations about who says what. I am following the lead of John Goldingay in his decisions about who is speaking (The Book of Jeremiah, 2021, page 263).

 In the previous section, God has been listing the ways in which the people were misguided and thus made wrong choices. The elite claim to be wise, after all they have God in the temple, rather like a tame lion. Therefore, they think they are safe. Such is their brag, but they are clearly wrong. 

 In The Chronicles of Narnia, when Lucy learns that God is like a lion, she asks, “If he safe?” Mr. Beaver responds, “Course he isn’t safe, but he is good. He is not a tame lion.” Mr. Tumnus concurs, “He is not a tame lion.”

 God is soon to leave the temple. Ezekiel records a sad vision of God’s glory rising up from the temple, stopping at Jerusalem’s gate, looking back, and then leaving Jerusalem (Ezekiel 10). Here in Jeremiah, God lays out that future for the people of Judah, and their future is not good.    

Jeremiah 8: 10-13.  

Therefore I will give their wives to others   

and their fields to conquerors,

because from the least to the greatest   

everyone is greedy for unjust gain;

from prophet to priest,   

everyone deals falsely.

They have treated the wound of the daughter of my people carelessly,

    saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.

They acted shamefully;

they committed abomination,   

yet they were not at all ashamed;   

they did not know how to blush.

Therefore they shall fall among those who fall;   

at the time when I punish them,

they shall be overthrown,         

says the LORD.

I will surely gather them (to make an end of them), 

says the LORD; 

(until) there are no grapes on the vine 

nor figs on the fig tree; 

even the leaves are withered,   

and what I gave them has passed away from them.

 That is what God said, not Jeremiah and not me. There is no hope in this prophecy because not only is there no crop this year, but the leaves are withering, so there will not be a crop next year or thereafter.  

 Look at the claim and imagine what that might look like today. The leaders say “Peace, peace,” but anyone can see that there is no peace. They act shamefully, committing abominations shredding our morality, but they do not know how to blush. Instead, they double down on their wicked behavior. 

 What about the people in the rural areas? The prophecy imagines a time not far off when they will be in full goose panic.

Jeremiah 8: 14-16. 

Why do we sit still?

Gather together; let us go into the fortified cities   

and perish there,

for the LORD our God has doomed us to perish   

and has given us poisoned water to drink   

because we have sinned against the LORD.

We look for peace but find no good,   

for a time of healing, but there is terror instead.

The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan;   

at the sound of the neighing of their stallions   

the whole land quakes.

They come and devour the land and all that fills it,   

the city and those who live in it.

These are the voices of the people, not so much in conversation as spitting out the words in disgust: 

 “‘We might as well go into the city and die there as to sit here and die. Either way, we are doomed because God has turned against us for some sin; who knows what? He’s like that. What happened to the peace we were promised; instead, we are at war. What about the healing in this new health system that we were promised, now we can’t find medicine anywhere. Wait, do you hear that rumble? The enemy aren’t that close, are they?”

Jeremiah 8: 17 

See, I am letting snakes loose among you,   

adders that cannot be charmed,

and they shall bite you, says the LORD.

 God hears all the complaints, then God reveals the truth. 

 “You got that right, but don’t ask me for help. I am here to tell you that there is no peace. Instead, I am the one who is letting loose snakes that cannot be charmed before you are harmed.”

Jeremiah 8: 18-19a.

My joy is gone; grief is upon me;   

my heart is sick.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?”

Jeremiah the prophet chokes on his own words, or rather on the words of God coming through his mouth. He has joy in the Lord, but that joy is turning into grief at what he has to preach. He hears the plaintiff cry, ‘We thought that the Lord was in the temple and our king was in Jerusalem! Where are they?’

Jeremiah 8: 19b.

“Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?”

 In answer, God hears the question differently. The real issue is not, ‘Where has God gone, but where have the people gone?’ 

Jeremiah 8: 20. 

“The harvest is past, the summer is ended,    and we are not saved.”

 The people lament: ‘Seasons come and seasons go and we are no closer to being saved’. 

 Whose fault is that?