Wisdom from Jeremiah: “How to make your suffering a success”

 

Texts: Jeremiah 1.4-19; 16.1-13; 20.7-18

     St. Paul once famously said to his protégé Timothy: “Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (2 Tm. 2.3, NRSV).  Indeed, St. Paul was no stranger to suffering (cf. 2 Corinthians) and neither was Jeremiah, or any of the genuine prophets.  From the get-go, God is up front with Jeremiah and tells him flat out that he will be opposed by the kings and princes, priests and local leaders of Jerusalem but that he is not to be intimidated: “Do not break down before them, or I will break you before them” (Jer. 1.17, NRSV).  Jeremiah finds himself between a rock and a hard place – between a hostile people and an implacable God.  God did indeed keep Jeremiah alive during the 40 years that he spent warning the people of the disaster that was sure to come; though, at times, Jeremiah would have preferred death to continued pleading with those who hated him (cf. Jer. 20.14-18).

     Indeed, in chapter 20, we find some of Jeremiah’s bitterest words, uttered after having been whipped by the High Priest and having spent the night in the stocks at the gate of the Temple: “You pushed me into this God, and I let you do it.  You were too much for me.  And now I’m a public joke…” (20.7f; The Message).  Jeremiah is nothing if not authentic; he wears his heart on his sleave.  He is real and raw (and at that particular moment, so was his back).  Within two verses, Jeremiah’s emotions can range from exuberant praise to black despair: “Sing to God!  All praise to God!  He saves the weak from the grip of the wicked.  Curse the day I was born!” (20.13-14, The Message; cf. Job 3.1-7, 11-16).  This prayer-poem is the last in a series of 5 which begin in chapter eleven and resemble Psalms of lament and complaint.[1]

     As if all this wasn’t enough, God forbids Jeremiah from getting married (16.1-2).  Jeremiah must endure his trials, for the most part, alone.  However, there is one thing that Jeremiah never did – give up.  As Ernest Hemingway said,

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.” (A Farewell to Arms, 1929)

I do believe that Jeremiah was very good, very gentle and very brave; he was indeed broken by his struggle, and became strong, strong enough to carry on speaking the word of Yahweh for four decades.[2]  Jeremiah never lost his grip on the hope that on the other side of disaster, there would be new life for his people: “Your job is to pull up and tear down…and then start over, building and planting” (1.10, The Message).  How to make your suffering a success?  In a word, obey – remain faithful to the mission God has entrusted to you.  See it through, come what may.  Complain all you want, just don’t give in to the pressure to quit.  In any case, the world will kill us all; we might as well face death with the words of St. Paul on our lips: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tm. 4.7, NRSV).

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[1] Cf. Jer. 11.18-12.6; 15.10-21; 17.14-18; 18.18-23; 20.7-13: Walter Brueggemann, Returning from the Abyss: Pivotal Moments in the Book of Jeremiah, Louisville; WJK, 2022, pp. 62-64.

[2] Cf. Brown, Michael L. “Jeremiah” in Longman & Garland, eds. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary 7: Jeremiah-Ezekiel, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010, pp. 52-55.