November 23, 2014: Jeremiah's Temple Sermon

Jeremiah 1:4-10; 7:1-11

1:4-10:

⁴ The Lord’s word came to me:

⁵ “Before I created you in the womb I knew you;
    before you were born I set you apart;
    I made you a prophet to the nations.”
⁶ “Ah, Lord God,” I said, “I don’t know how to speak
    because I’m only a child.”
⁷ The Lord responded,
    “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a child.’
        Where I send you, you must go;
        what I tell you, you must say.
⁸ Don’t be afraid of them,
    because I’m with you to rescue you,”
        declares the Lord.
⁹ Then the Lord stretched out his hand,
    touched my mouth, and said to me,
    “I’m putting my words in your mouth.
¹⁰ This very day I appoint you over nations and empires,
    to dig up and pull down,
    to destroy and demolish,
    to build and plant.”

7:1-11:

Jeremiah received the Lord’s word: ² Stand near the gate of the Lord’s temple and proclaim there this message: Listen to the Lord’s word, all you of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. ³ This is what the Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, says: Improve your conduct and your actions, and I will dwell with you^[a] in this place. ⁴ Don’t trust in lies: “This is the Lord’s temple! The Lord’s temple! The Lord’s temple!” ⁵ No, if you truly reform your ways and your actions; if you treat each other justly; ⁶ if you stop taking advantage of the immigrant, orphan, or widow; if you don’t shed the blood of the innocent in this place, or go after other gods to your own ruin, ⁷ only then will I dwell with you^[b] in this place, in the land that I gave long ago to your ancestors for all time.

⁸ And yet you trust in lies that will only hurt you. ⁹ Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, sacrifice to Baal and go after other gods that you don’t know, ¹⁰ and then come and stand before me in this temple that bears my name, and say, “We are safe,” only to keep on doing all these detestable things? ¹¹ Do you regard this temple, which bears my name, as a hiding place for criminals? I can see what’s going on here, declares the Lord.

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We often use words like ‘prophet’ and ‘prophetic’ and only think about predicting the future.  ‘Wow, those words ended up being prophetic…did you see what ended up happening?’ or ‘That sounds like a crazy prediction, let’s see if it ends up being prophetic.’  Speaking of prophets might conjure up images of strange seers examining chicken livers in order to find out whether a business deal should occur or if a journey should be taken.  That’s not what we’re looking at today.

The Hebrew prophets of the Old Testament certainly spoke of what was coming, but if we think they were only concerned with predictions and the future we’d miss the most important aspect of who the prophets were.  Verse 9 and 10 in our passage today gives us insight as to who the prophets really were (and are).  Jeremiah reports, “Then the Lord stretched out his hand, touched my mouth, and said to me, “I’m putting my words in your mouth.  This very day I appoint you over nations and empires, to dig up and pull down, to destroy and demolish, to build and plant.”

Prophets speak for God and they have just as much to say about the present as they do about the future. The overwhelming message of the prophets for hundreds of years was two-fold.  Jesus himself summed it up very well when he listed the two most important commandments:

#1: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and all your might. (Deuteronomy 6:5)

#2: Love your neighbor as yourself. (Leviticus 19:18)

Again and again the prophets spoke against the sort of thing Jeremiah is talking about today: the oppression of the poor, the immigrant, the orphan and the widow.  Again and again the prophets spoke against the sort of thing Jeremiah mentions: sacrifice to Baal and other gods.  For the prophets, it was really impossible to separate loving God and loving your neighbor: the two simply went hand in hand.

Jeremiah lived in the land of Judah as it was being threatened, once again, by a large empire that threatened to gobble it up, this time the Babylonians. (If you start to get confused by the various empires that rose and fell in ancient times you’re not alone.)  It can be hard to keep track of the Egyptians, Hittites, Mycenaean, Babylonians, Assyrians, Medes, and Persians. Let’s just say that empires were always rises, throwing their weight around and then falling.  Sometimes it took hundreds of years, but sooner or later they all fell apart.

In the meantime, little nations like Judah had to watch their step. Jeremiah’s prophetic careers spanned many years, but it all came to a head during the years of King Zedekiah: Judah’s last king.  Zedekiah wanted to rebel against his Babylonian overlords, but Jeremiah prophesied that Jerusalem would be handed over to the empire.  He spoke of how the rich oppressed the poor and how God was not honored or worshiped.  In 586 BCE, his words did indeed come to pass and Judah was no more.

As you can imagine, life for the prophets was seldom easy and they were rarely popular.  If you wonder why this is the case, read Jeremiah’s words from 7:1-11 and pretend he’s saying them to you. Would that make you feel all warm and cuddly inside? I’m guessing not.  Some prophets were killed, others were banished, and many more were simply ignored. Jeremiah himself will soon be attacked by his own brothers, beaten by priests, and thrown into a cistern.  People were often unhappy with the message of Jeremiah and it certainly showed!

And yet, the prophetic message didn’t end. Individual prophets were killed, but the message grew and strengthened.  Eventually their words became part of the Holy Bible and we read them today.  Present-day prophets are around us: taking up that important dual-message: LOVE GOD, LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR! Sadly, they meet with the same reception of Jeremiah, but the message still won’t die: nor will it ever.