GEMS FROM JEREMIAH (57) sharing God's burden V

 


“I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, says the Lord… and who lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or command them, so they do not profit this people at all, says the Lord.

When this people or a prophet or a priest asks you, “What is the burden of the Lord?” you shall say to them, “You are the burden. I will cast you off, says the Lord.” And as for the prophet, priest, or the people who say, “The burden of the Lord,” I will punish them and their households.” (Jer. 23.32-34)

     No prophetic book talks more about prophets and prophecy than does the book of Jeremiah.[1]  In this book, all “the prophets” mentioned are presumed to be false.  Chapter 23 consists of a denunciation of all “the prophets”, not only of the (now defunct) Northern kingdom of Israel, but also those of Jerusalem/Judah.  The chapter culminates in a play on the word “massa”[2], i.e., “burden”/“oracle”.[3]  The people of God have become a “burden” that Yahweh will cast off (into exile).  “The prophets” have been prophesying “peace, peace, when there is no peace” (cf. Jer. 6.14; 8.11; 23.17).  Jeremiah is obliged to announce “violence and destruction” (20.8).  All is not well with the people of God, and to pretend otherwise is both foolish and, in the case of “the prophets”, maliciously deceptive.  False prophets always pander to the whims of those to whom they prophesy, while genuine prophets share Yahweh’s burden, and, more often than not, are crushed under its weight.

     Just as the generation that Moses led out of Egypt was “evil” and perished in the desert (cf. Num. 32.13; Dt. 1.35; cp. Lk. 11.29[4]), the last generation of this phase of the history of God’s people was also “evil”, provoked Yahweh’s wrath and would suffer the consequences (cf. Jer. 7.29).  Both Moses and Jeremiah – though they lived 6 centuries apart – were called to “carry” the people of God during a time when the people were in open rebellion against Yahweh and thus ripe for judgment.  As Noah was a righteous person in the midst of an evil generation (cf. Gn. 6.9; 7.1), so, at the time of Moses, Joshua and Caleb were the only members of their generation to arrive in the Promised Land (cf. Num. 14.30; 26.65; 32.12).  In his day, Jeremiah saw himself as the only true prophet (cp. 1 Kings 19.4, 10, 14 with Jer. 20.7-9, 14-18).  Just as Moses had led the people of God through the wilderness for 40 years, so Jeremiah prophesied in Jerusalem for 40 years – the span of one generation.  Like Moses, Jeremiah was called to witness to the reality of God in the midst of a generation which had refused their vocation to be God’s people and were thus doomed to death, famine, plague and captivity (cf. Jer. 15.1-2).  Both Moses and Jeremiah shared the fate of their generation – Moses died before entering Canaan and Jeremiah died in exile in Egypt.  Theirs had been a thankless task – that of carrying the people of God at a time when the people would rather go back to Egypt (at the time of Moses) or trust to alliances with Egypt against the Babylonians (at the time of Jeremiah: Jer. 2.36).  The memory of Jeremiah – and the book that bears his name – would remain as a memorial to the people’s treatment of Yahweh, especially that generation who witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem.

     Jeremiah’s identification with Yahweh contained a yet more sinister dimension.  There were many plots against Jeremiah’s life (cf. Jer. 11.18-20; 26.7-11, 24; 38.1-6).  This is the dark reality of Israel’s rejection of Yahweh – the people of God consistently seek to silence God’s voice by killing his prophets, and ultimately, six centuries after Jeremiah, they would end up – at the very limits of paradox – killing God himself (cf. Mk. 15.1-39).  The way of truth, the way of God is always the way of the cross.  The one who would speak for God must share the fate of God, who was always rejected, mocked, humiliated and ultimately, destroyed by those who claimed to belong to God.  As the culmination of the tortured history of Yahweh and Israel, the cross of Jesus does not come as a surprise, but that takes nothing away from the horror of what Jesus – what Yahweh – was willing to undergo to demonstrate his solidarity with his beloved and hopelessly obdurate people.  In Mk. 13, Jesus had announced the destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem within one generation.  He was the last in a long line of messengers (cf. Mk. 12.1-12; Jer. 7.25) to be rebuffed (and worse!) by the people of God.  Time was up (again)!  What more could Yahweh do?  Well, quite a bit actually.  Yahweh is a faithful God; he will not abandon his people without being abandoned along with her.  Yahweh had bound himself to this people, and since they have rejected the things that make for peace,[5] he would share their doom.  The love of Yahweh on display on Golgotha is a beautiful and terrible sight, perceived only by him who had been responsible to oversee the murder of the Son of God (Mk. 15.39).  Like Jeremiah, whose laments/complaints had been met with divine silence, so Jesus cried out in dereliction at having been abandoned by Yahweh (Mk. 15.34), only to realize that “God was no longer separate from him”.[6]


[2] This word is used in only two chapters of Jeremiah – 17, where it has the sense of (physical) “burden” and 23, where those who claim to announce the “oracle” of God are said to have become a “burden” that God will cast off.

[3] Ibid., p. 753; cf. Jer. 23.33-40; cp. Is. 13.1; 15.1; 17.1; 19.1; 21.1; 22.1; 23.1, etc.

[4] Jesus also prophesied to an “evil generation” and, like Jeremiah, foretold its destruction (cf. Lk. 21.32).

[5] Lk. 19.41-44.

[6] Williams, Rowan, Meeting God in Mark, Louisville: WJK, 2014, p. 56.

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