The Rabbi

Jeremiah brief biography—
(1) God promised a land to Abraham,
(2) Moses saved Israel from Egypt and delivered them to the land,
(3) Joshua-David conquered the land,
(4) God promised king David that he would always have a descendent on the throne,
(5) his son Solomon built a Temple in which God chose to live,
(6) from then on it went downhill: with each successive king the people worshipped other gods more and more, while continuing to worship God externally, but less and less internally,
(7) finally God had enough so he sent Jeremiah to end useless Temple worship, to terminate the corrupt king, and to kick a disobedient people out of the polluted land—Jeremiah did this job well,
(8) in spite of this destruction his hope was so strong, his imagination so vivid that he knew God would bring his people back and restore temple and land,
(9) this restoration happened, but just like Moses Jeremiah was denied the privilege of re-entering the promised land

1. Stories from the life of Jeremiah, the suffering servant
One walks with God at great risk; for example:
Jesus dared and it cost him his life
Paul was hijacked to suffer continuously
Hosea was commanded to marry a party-girl; she continued
Ezekiel was not permitted to mourn after God killed his wife
Jeremiah was drafted to fight man and God, he lost to both
No one wants to walk with Jeremiah
If you chose to walk close with God be prepared to die in Egypt

2. My end is near, for too many years I have spoken God’s words to my people, few remain—they did not listen. I am in Egypt, my people are in Babylon—how did I ever get here?
Nebuchadnezzar came against Jerusalem 3 times, twice we bribed him to leave, first by giving him the best of our youth, our future leaders, Daniel and his friends, the second time by giving him our king and 10,000 doctors, lawyers, engineers, skilled craftsmen, builders, Ezekiel too—in 70 years these would return to rebuild from ruins, but the third time we had nothing more to give to Nebuchadnezzar, so his army encircled Jerusalem for 18 months, no one in, no one out, all either starved or were killed, the rest he exiled. I remained with the dirt poor trying to live off the devastated land
Let me tell you how that happened: one day a Babylonian general knocked on my jail cell door, he then freed me, knowing what I had said
“Surrender and live, fight and die”—what a message, I gave it faithfully
The general gave me the option go to Babylon where I would be cared for or stay with the poor in the land; I chose to remain
But then a glimmer of hope, Gedaliah, the new Jewish governor put in charge by Nebuchadnezzar was wise
But soon assassinated by some renegades, who abandon us
Those remaining flee to Egypt, not willing to trust yhwh by remaining in the land, instead they worship the Queen of Heaven, she leads them to Egypt—they take me with them there
Here I am, here I will die—no one, regardless of how faithful, ever returns from Egypt

3. But let me take you back in time; it was 45 years ago when God first talked with me
Young, naïve
Great desire for service—caught up in Josiah’s revival: many were once again reading Torah, obeying the Lord’s commandments, joyfully worshiping our creator
Then God showed up, overpowered me with his words, later I would claim that he abused me with his words
How did I know it was God? that cannot be described, other than I knew it was him
We talked, vision or dream, I never was sure, still not
With assurance I claim inspiration
Here’s what he gave to me to do:
(1) dismantle God’s kingdom: temple, king, and land, destroy them all, then and only then
(2) to plant them anew and rebuild from the ashes
Praise God, he did not describe the abuse that I would suffer for him

4. So that you better understand my situation, I will give you one of my typical messages
I spoke this frequently
If king and people would return, repent
Put away their other gods
Practice justice and righteousness
Take care of widows, orphans, poor
Then God would provide, defeat enemies, extend the life of the kingdom
But if not, God would manifest his anger by destroying everything:
the land of milk and honey would become desert,
Jerusalem a land fill,
the temple, God’s house, carted away like a tourist souvenir
the people dead or exiled
I threaten them with God’s words, these are my people, I love them, but threaten I must
But he would mercifully delay their destruction, giving them another opportunity,
I of course looked like a fool in their eyes, saying that God would curse while he instead mercifully blessed

5. Let’s go back even earlier, here’s my first official message, the Temple Sermon, my debut as a prophet
Long ago Moses established a ceremony to renew the covenant every 7 years—remember the “great opera,” the Levites singing the blessings and the curses?
Josiah, the best king of them all, revived this tradition
Priests continued after his death
God sent me to speak during that covenant renewal ceremony
After they just finished claiming “Yahweh is our God and we are his people”
I show up, same message, repent or die
No one listened; no one ever listens—
they thought, rather they knew that they were right with God,
so why listen to me
They claimed: God would never destroy his house, the temple
So I remind them of Shiloh: that’s where young Samuel worked, Eli the high priest and his wicked sons, lost ark, army defeated, tabernacle destroyed by Philistines—it happened once, it will happen again—remember Shiloh
No one listened; no one ever listens

6. Eventually God’s continuing to extend mercy to his sinning people, after he sent me to threaten them, got to me. So I complained; here’s the story:
Review: LORD called me
He promised to protect me from inevitable opposition
I accepted
When he showed up, I would speak what he gave me
Opposition would arise, just as God said it would
But he didn’t protect; he abandoned me
What was I to do, they wanted to kill me?
I found myself at the bottom of a bottomless pit
So I accused the LORD of not keeping his promise
We went at it nose to nose
In reality he did protect, I just could not imagine that protection meant (1) being thrown into prison, (2) suffering beatings and being manacled in the public stocks, (3) almost drowning in a cistern, or (4) living here in Egypt with these apostates—so what sort of protection is that?
Think of what I just said: From my perspective I often found myself suspended between God and the people; (1) I suffer with my people when God judges them because they did not listen and (2) I suffer from my people when God abandons me to an angry audience who do not like what I say; either way, I suffer

7. I was God’s prophet, his spokesman, for many years. In that time Judah had 5 kings; let me introduce you to them:
Josiah—one cannot say too much about good king Josiah, his encounter with Moses (remember they found and read Deuteronomy), a great revival followed, Josiah then made a covenant with God and the people to keep Torah; too bad it was so shallow
His untimely death—a bad political decision turned the revival over to hypocrites, it became all show without substance
His son Shallum—he wanted to be king to receive the perks, the prestige; he lasted 3 months before Pharaoh took him to Egypt
His brother Eliakim—I saw what God saw, so I prophesied of destruction; God chose mercy, because of his promise to David. My unfulfilled message left me the target of their laughter
His son Coniah—bad, so off to Babylon God sent him along with the best of our people. Little did we realize at the time that it was to preserve them, so that they or their children could return 70 years later
Finally the last of the kings of Judah, the last descendent of David to reign, Zedekiah—he really wasn’t that bad, but by now the whole kingdom was so mixed up no one knew right from wrong. If he had listened to my words he would have lived. Sad to say he didn’t; it cost him his eyes, which wouldn’t have helped too much in his Babylonian jail cell.
My message to each of them was the same: do right, obey, take care of the socially disadvantaged and live, none listened, none lived.

8. You may be wondering why God was so upset with his people, let me tell you how stupid they were
Description of our great God: Yahweh the God of Israel, created the heavens and earth, plagued the Egyptians until Pharaoh let them go, he led them across the Red Sea, and guided them through the desert for 40 years giving them water to drink, food to eat, and clothes to wear—you would think the people would worship such a great God
But this is what they now worship:
A piece of wood cut from a tree in a forest—by a lumberjack
Carved—by a furniture maker
Plated with gold—by a silver smith
Decorated—by a jeweler
And then they call this man made thing a god!, who would believe?

9. Here’s an ugly, gross story you may not want to hear, definitely you will see a side of God that perhaps you have not yet, nor hopefully never will experience: the Broken jar in Ben-hinnom
Ben-hinnom—(1) Jerusalem’s land fill, garbage dump, but also (2) place of most idolatrous of worship practices
I take some religious and secular leaders, those who think they serve my God along with a new clay jar to Ben-hinnom
There I smash the jar before them while giving the message: “as I smashed this jar so God will smash Jerusalem”
Because this is what the people do
Now you may not believe this but this is the place where some of the people sacrifice their babies to their gods!
These priests I have with me know this, but they don’t do anything about it
God never gave such a command, although the people somehow think that it’s ok with him
God is upset to say the least, but wait to you hear what he is going to do to them
When Nebuchadnezzar and his army come, circle the city with siege mounds to prevent anyone from entering or leaving, we will starve inside
Without food for days, weeks, months people do crazy things, like cook and eat their own children
God punishes them in the same way they rejected him:
eye for eye, tooth for tooth, baby for baby?
my God, my God how did it ever come to this!

10. I was not the only prophet speaking to the people; the only problem was that the other guys all and always said nice stuff, what the people want to hear. Let me tell you about Hananiah—and our prophetic fight
I always liked Hananiah, I wish he had been right, but his message was grounded in his theology, so it neither reflected current behavior nor supported my words from God
As during the time of the great Hezekiah, Hananiah told of God’s intervention; God would as he did then defeat a super-power, sending them back home preventing them from conquering Jerusalem
To make his point Hananiah embellished his story, claiming that God would return our families Nebuchadnezzar had taken to Babylon along with the golden vessels from our temple, all within 2 years.
God sent me to confront—nose to nose I spoke exactly the opposite: not only would our families die in Babylon, the vessels would also remain, and even more so the vessels that remained in Jerusalem would be likewise taken to Babylon.
To demonstrate that my unpopular message was God’s, I added that Hananiah would die young, before year’s end.
And die he did, but it didn’t make any difference, it never makes any difference.

11. I had been at it a long time, the LORD called—he wanted me to write down all that I had spoken for him, at least a good summary of it all, and then have it read before the country’s leaders, perhaps they would listen to this anthology
As I was in jail at the time, I had my faithful servant Baruch go to the temple and read my words before the people
Word traveled to the leaders, who summoned Baruch to read my scroll to them
These officials then warned Baruch, as well as me, to hide, because they were going to read the scroll to the king—and knew he would not be pleased
So Jehudi reads my scroll to the king
Every once and a while the king would cut a chunk off from what Jehudi had read and throw it in the fire, with the result that when Jehudi finished reading, there was nothing left of my scroll
Does anyone remember what Josiah did when a similar scroll was read to him? He fell down before God asking for divine forgiveness, removed idols from the land, and instituted a great revival
Jehoiakim did nothing—the end is near, Nebuchadnezzar—God’s destroyer—comes, exile follows soon

12. Prophets predict, I prefer the word imagine; that is, what will be? I know. I will tell you 3 predictions that would happen after I died—the NEW COVENANT, the end of BABYLON, and the RETURN of God’s people to the land
NEW COVENANT—prophetic imagining at its best
I am a student of Moses, I know of David, Solomon, Isaiah—there must be something on the other side of this destruction
So I prophesy of a new covenant, though not like the old one
Same Torah, what could possibly be better than Torah?
But this time the Torah would be placed in the people’s hearts by God himself, so that they will never wander to other gods; once again he will be their God and they shall be his people
BABYLON—the nation God uses to judge his people is the nation that will pay a heavy price
Someday, about 70 years, God will raise up a fierce nation to destroy Babylon
The Assyrians were bad, the Egyptians evil, but the Babylonians are the worst of the lot, and their king, Nebuchadnezzar, though God’s tool, was the worst who ever ruled, he is the one who destroyed God’s temple, exiled his people, and devastated God’s land
This great sin will cost Babylon its existence, someday a pile of sand will be all that remains of this once great empire.
RETURN—God will pardon those who abandoned him, but then God’s outstanding characteristic is mercy, and mercy isn’t mercy if it is deserved
God will call his people out of Babylon, destroy Babylon, and then lead them back home
God will once again settle them in the land, rebuild his temple, and set over them a son of David; this will happen, God always keeps his promises

13. Someday read my lamentations—you will learn why I am known as the weeping prophet
Let’s go back several years to the time of Jerusalem’s destruction
People are dead or taken away
Nebuchadnezzar’s army makes its way back home
I alone am left; I am tired
But I make my way up the mount of olives
Stopping in my favorite garden
I turn, sit, and then see the flames, mostly gone, but smoke, stench ascends to God, hardly the sacrificial “pleasing odor”
I begin to cry, lamenting the destruction I see, trying to use words to express my, and in reality, God’s grief over the loss
I try to picture the future, I see nothing
I try to say something positive upon which we may begin again, nothing comes
And then I remember my God, and his most outstanding characteristic, that of mercy
Somewhere in that mercy, some time in the future, I know that he will see fit to bring my people home
I, though, will be long dead in Egypt, buried, forgotten, God’s faithful suffering servant