Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 Commentary

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The Emperor’s New Clothes is a wonderful parable for explaining the prophet’s task.  The prophet is not the only person who knows or notices what is true.  The prophet is the one who foregoes pretense and is unafraid to say the quiet part out loud. In the classic children’s story, it is a young boy who announces the emperor is parading through the streets buck naked.  He didn’t have the social graces and/or pride that restricted others from doing the same.  But some prophets—and I think Jeremiah fits in the category—know the enormity of what they will lose for speaking the truth out loud.  They are afraid but they say it anyway.

Commentary:

“The Ministry of Articulated Grief”

In Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination, he offers, “My impression is that one could open Jeremiah’s poetry almost anywhere and find this ministry of articulated grief.” Living under kings and religious leaders who would rather ignore the calls to repentance, the challenge of amending their lives and the subsequent signs of impending judgment, Jeremiah is “the clearest model for prophetic imagination and ministry. He is a paradigm for those who address the numb and denying posture of people who do not want to know…”. Brueggeman lifts up Jeremiah as the one who “grieves the grief of Judah because he knows what the king refuses to know” articulating “that they were in fact present in the community whether they acknowledged it or not.”

Folks love to quote certain verses in Jeremiah.  I think especially of 29:11: “‘I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord. ‘Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.’” However, these verses are a kind of minority report within the book of Jeremiah as a whole.  I suppose it’s not surprising verses like these aren’t embroidered on pillows and emblazoned on t-shirts.  But I wonder what the impact is on the discipleship of God’s people when they claim Jeremiah 29:11 without grappling with all the feelings on display in the book of Jeremiah.

Mirroring

One of the earliest modes of developing attachment with infants is when loving care-givers respond to smiles with smiles, cooing with similar vocalization and even to tears and screams with a responding lower, soothing tone.  As children get older, they depend on the adults in their live to notice and name their feelings.  Seeing tears, a parent might say “you feel sad.” Or, “You are frustrated by this task.” Not only does this behavior offer a vocabulary lesson, it also creates a sense of safety and security.  The child is seen and known. This is what child development experts call “mirroring.”

Last week, we were all up in our angry feelings.  This week’s Hebrew Scripture lectionary text moves us from our anger into our tears.  Beginning in verse 14, the people begin to set out their complaint.  There is a sad resignation to their fate expressed in these verses. Interestingly, the verses seem to vacillate between owning up to the fact that the coming destruction is a logical consequence of their disobedience (v. 14) and the result of God’s decision not to relent in punishing them (v.15).

The CEB Study Bible summarizes the end of Jeremiah 8. “The community cries out in despair, resigning itself to a terrible future (8:14-16). Although God doesn’t relent, God is heartbroken and crushed (8:17-21). Note that verse 18 belongs in God’s mouth, rather than the multi-vocal song of God’s people. “No healing, only grief; my heart is broken.”

The Hebrew Scripture lectionary text this week is spoken in God’s voice.  Hearing the weeping and sorrow of God’s people, God responds by mirroring them, what The CEB Study Bible calls “A remarkable display of divine grief, God would weep uncontrollably for Israel.” However, the commentator goes on to complicate the narrative by asking, “Does God lament because of Israel’s terrible suffering or because Israel has wandered so far from God? The two can’t be easily separated.”

Unanswered Questions

Jeremiah 9:1 includes a familiar phrase “Balm of Gilead,” which many churchgoers will know from the African-American spiritual that asserts: “There is a balm in Gilead.”  However, this week’s Hebrew Scripture text does not make that assertion.  Rather, it asks, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” And, additionally, “Is there no physician there?” Finally, “Why then have my people not been restored to health?”  The Lectionary reading ends on these unanswered questions.

As the people prepare to go into exile, Walter Brueggemann explains (but doesn’t answer!) the questions in 9:1: “The answer was not given because answering is the way of royal Israel. Now it is time not for answers but for questions that defy answers because the royal answering service no longer functions. Answers from that source presume control and symmetry. And that is gone.” When there was a King in Israel, the people had a place to make their appeal.  Since they have disregarded their heavenly king and their earthly kingdoms are in shambles, edicts, proclamations and—in a word—answers are in short supply.

In the conclusion of his section on the prophetic ministry of Jeremiah, Brueggemann makes a turn toward Jesus who, we learn from the shortest verse in the Bible, also wept.  Although the verse is short, it contains truths essential to Jesus’ work as our mediator and savior.  Brueggemann asserts, “Jesus knew what we numb ones must always learn again: (a) weeping must be real because endings are real; and (b) that weeping permits newness. His weeping permits the kingdom to come. Such weeping is a radical criticism, a fearful dismantling because it means the end of all machismo; weeping is something kings rarely do without losing their thrones.”  But, then, Jesus’ tears are not such a great loss after all because he has already given up his heavenly throne to walk this earth—with all its sorrow—as one of us.  He was on his way to empty himself even of life itself on the cross so that then (and only then) he could be raised and exalted to a throne above every throne before which every knee will bow and, perhaps more important still given the topic of weeping, every tear will be wiped away from every eye.