Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

  Lectionary: 240

Thus says the LORD: 
This is what I commanded my people:
Listen to my voice;
then I will be your God and you shall be my people.

We should notice the progression in Jeremiah's words from the command of the Lord to reminders of our sins, and to the prophet's experience. 

First, "This is what I commanded my people: Listen to my voice." As creatures of our Creator we are given both the freedom of being something other than God, and the very real need to remain in touch with that Being who is God; for our existence still depends upon God's goodness. 

He had no need to create us; even an atheist can see that our dear Planet Earth can do fine without us, and did for several billion years. And the Earth would please God without us! But by his creation of "mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them" his work was complete and all but perfected. 

But it was not perfected by our sins, which Jeremiah remembers:

But they obeyed not, nor did they pay heed.

They walked in the hardness of their evil hearts

and turned their backs, not their faces, to me. 

Jeremiah was neither the first nor the last prophet to discover, 

"When you speak all these words to them,

they will not listen to you either;

when you call to them, they will not answer you."

We've all heard and echoed the plaintive cry of old people, "Ain't it awful how they...." American Christians remember the influence of the churches -- Protestant first and then Catholic -- in the United States. 

If the Founding Fathers, who were mostly deists, intentionally avoided every reference to God and Jesus Christ in the American Constitution they nonetheless expected that the Christian and Jewish religions should their part in its governance. The "wall" separating religion from the government was supposed to protect the freedom of religion; but not the government from religion. The Founders had bitter experience of the overwhelming power of the government and its ability to misuse religion. 

Today, we see religion made a pariah by some politicians, entertainers, and influencers. I've often heard people declare that wars are spawned by religion, as if the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the World Wars were religious conflicts. (They were not.) 

Jeremiah and a prophetic Church should not be surprised that, 

"...this nation does not listen

to the voice of the LORD, its God,

or take correction.

Faithfulness has disappeared;

the word itself is banished from their speech."

It does not contradict our nature to listen to the word of God; we'd certainly do better if we did. But we do not; history shows it. And it comes as no surprise to those who know the Scriptures. The prophetic Church is a stranger in a strange Land. We were sent here to be the witnesses of the good news of the God who saved Jesus from death. He saves everyone who believes in HJim.

We are sent, as Jeremiah and Jesus were sent, to "speak all these words to them." We will be disappointed as the prophets and God were disappointed. But that disappointment is also a privilege shared with God.