Richard Davenport
September 3, 2023 – Proper 17
Jeremiah 15:15-31
Jeremiah stands tall as one of the great prophets of old. There are many who hold a prophetic role throughout the Bible, most are never named in Scripture, much less contributing to the actual writing of Scripture. Even among those who do, several have such short books that many people never read them. Obadiah, Haggai, Zephaniah, and all the rest have books that are only a couple of short chapters. The content of their books often sounds much like the various prophecies of judgment you find elsewhere, such as Jeremiah or Ezekiel, so they get overlooked in favor of other books.
Not Jeremiah, though. When you think of the biggest prophets of the Old Testament, Jeremiah’s name is near the top of the list. Next to the books of Isaiah and the Psalms, Jeremiah has the longest book in the Old Testament, which tells you he has quite a lot going on. For better or for worse, he has a momentous life.
Today we find Jeremiah still in the first half of his book. He’s been doing his job as a prophet for a while now and things aren’t going well. That’s somewhat to be expected, since he’s one of the later prophets. That means things are pretty bad. It isn’t over yet though. With God, it’s never too late until it’s too late. God hasn’t dropped the hammer yet. The Israelites still have time to get back on the right track. It would be a lot of hard work, but it’s still possible. It would have to be preferrable to being invaded by a foreign nation and either killed or carted away. It would be preferrable, but the citizens of Judah were pretty far gone by now. The northern kingdom of Israel had been destroyed some time back, but they didn’t really learn anything by that. Now, where God had been withholding judgment to give them time to mend their ways, they’ve instead taken that time to work themselves even further into idolatry, greed, and pride.
Even from the outset, Jeremiah’s job is almost completely hopeless. Many prophets have already come and gone in the kingdom of Judah and nothing has changed. Sure, you get the occasional king with his head on straight, but immediately after he’s gone, everything ends up worse than it was before.
So Jeremiah goes out, even knowing his message won’t be well received. It isn’t as if he’s going to some group of people who are generally indifferent or who are curious. St. Paul’s visit to the Areopagus is initially met with curiosity. Not many follow up with him after he speaks so they can learn more, but at least they are open to letting him speak. Not so with Jeremiah. He is proclaiming God’s message to hardened idolaters. These days it might be like sending a Christian missionary to Mecca. You aren’t going to be well received. You’ll probably be lucky to survive more than a few days.
Needless to say, the response to Jeremiah’s message is about what you’d expect. People laugh at him. Insult him. At one point they toss him into a dry well to hang out for a while. They don’t kill him, but they threaten to. Any of the scattered believers that might still be hanging around out there aren’t standing up for him either. He’s very much on his own.
Now, you’d think that someone who was directly called by God to go share his word would have some confidence, would show some backbone. I mean, Elijah does. He goes up against hundreds of priests of false gods and he stands vindicated. He gets the spectators to put all of the priests to death. It would be like striding into Mecca, bold as you can be and having a showdown with the Muslim priests there and then having the crowds put all of those priests to death.
Of course, the story with Elijah doesn’t end there. Elijah is all bold and confident here, but as soon as the queen threatens to kill him, he hightails it out of there. He literally finds a cave to hide in. He goes from confessor to coward. He fears for his life. He stays there in that cave until God comes along to set him straight. Elijah does get back to work, but he needs a little coaxing.
Jeremiah doesn’t really run away like Elijah does, but that doesn’t mean he’s all that happy about his job. He’s like an oncologist who has the unpleasant job of telling people they’re dying of cancer. The upside is, he’s got a 100% effective cure for the disease. The problem is that, not only do they not want the cure, they think he’s nuts for even suggesting they’re sick to begin with. He’s trying to do his job. He’s trying to help them, but they refuse him, they insult him, they even attack him.
That all leaves him, well, pretty lonely. He’s doing God’s work, but he has no real friends around. No one wants him around at all. There are a couple of points in his book where the loneliness and seeming futility of it all really gets to him and he has to tell God about it. In his isolation, he reaches out to God.
Being lonely is no fun. It’s manageable when it’s just short term, you’re gone for a couple of days on a trip or something and you know it will be over soon and life will get back to normal. It’s another issue when there’s no foreseeable end to it. It isn’t the kind of thing we’re meant to deal with. We’re social people. We’re meant to be in community. We’re meant to connect with others. As much as we sometimes pride ourselves on being independent, we can only do it to a point. We need people around us to spend time with, to share our lives with, to grow together with. Being shunned, being made an outcast is so painful because it goes against who we are.
Still, it happens. Sometimes it happens despite your best efforts. Sometimes it happens precisely because you’re trying to do the right thing. You might wonder why you’re the one who’s been put in this position, whether because you were trying to do the right thing or just because that’s how life turned out. It feels very much like punishment. It feels like the world is out to get you and make your life miserable. It feels like God just lets it happen.
Now, it’s important to remember that there’s a difference. There’s the loneliness and isolation that happens just in the course of life. You are separated from your friends and family for a time, the death of a loved one, bouts of depression, serious illnesses and things of that sort are an effect of this broken world. They should not exist, but they still afflict us from time to time.
The loneliness that comes about because of our own sin is entirely of our own making. Refusing to repent to someone we’ve wronged, refusing to forgive someone who has repented, our smug sense of superiority that looks down on others as less important, our refusal to put the best construction on the words and actions of others and so think less of them, all of these kinds of things create divisions among us. Fear, like in Elijah’s case, also causes divisions that God does not want for us. Those divisions separate and isolate us. The loneliness that comes from this is self-inflicted and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
But that’s not what Jeremiah faces here. The self-inflicted loneliness isn’t always the problem. In cases like this, it’s natural to reach out to God, to ask for relief, for a resolution. If there are people who have been heaping abuses on you, that they be dealt with, but also for some evidence that you aren’t truly alone.
In Jeremiah’s case, sad as it is, God points out that it is not Jeremiah who is cut off and isolated. The Israelites are isolating themselves. They are the ones casting everyone away and rejecting those around them. God reminds Jeremiah that they are the ones who are isolated. They may not be feeling it yet, but they will. Instead, God tells Jeremiah that he is never truly alone. Whatever the Israelites or anyone else may do to him, he will never be truly alone. God is always present to strengthen and defend him.
God knows what isolation looks like. He understands loneliness. Hell is complete and entirely self-imposed isolation that lasts forever. Jesus faced this on the cross, cut off from everyone, unable to be with friends and family and even cut off from his Father. Jesus faced this so you don’t have to. He warns us about sin because he knows where it leads and what ultimately comes of it. He warns us not to get caught up in actions that will bring it on ourselves.
Jesus enters into that isolation to bring us out. Jesus dies to bring us out of death. He finds us, hidden in the dark and draws us back out of the pit. Though we have wronged him, Jesus doesn’t want that division to exist between us, so he forgives it. He brings us back so we won’t be alone forever.
But, Jesus also knows loneliness and isolation are here too, and sometimes they aren’t caused by anything we’ve specifically done. Nevertheless, he wants to make it very clear that he means what he says when he tells us, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” God is committed to that promise. That’s a large part of why he invites you here every Sunday, not just to tell you, but to show you that he’s right here with you. Communion is celebrated as his meal at his invitation. He is here and he wants you to be a part of the celebration. He knows sometimes others will abandon you, sometimes others will leave through no fault of their own, sometimes it looks like there’s no one with you at all, but he’s always here, here for you.
His forgiveness and grace are part of that commitment too. He is always willing to forgive. He wants nothing more that to heal the division, to let bygones be bygones, to make sure there is nothing left to come between you. He’ll forgive you over and over again, every time you see the rift your actions have created and want to return, he will forgive you. That is the proof of his love for you.
God encourages Jeremiah, telling him that he isn’t alone. God is always there, always acting as a savior and deliverer. The Israelites and anyone that tries to cast him out, tries to destroy him will find him unassailable. No one else can cut Jeremiah off and leave him all alone, for God is always with him.
He makes that same promise to you. You’re never alone. You’re never without someone to be there to support you. So committed is God to being with you that he came to earth to die for you. Jeremiah’s job wasn’t fun. He had a lot of struggles and a lot of grief, but he never faced it all by himself. Even at life’s end, the Lord was right there with him and continues to be. He promised Jeremiah, he promises you and everyone else that he calls his own that he will he will always be there as your savior and deliverer, defending you from the evils of the world and even death itself.