This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘As my anger and wrath have been poured out on those who lived in Jerusalem, so will my wrath be poured out on you when you go to Egypt. You will be a curse and an object of horror, a curse and an object of reproach; you will never see this place again.’
“Remnant of Judah, the Lord has told you, ‘Do not go to Egypt.’ Be sure of this: I warn you today that you made a fatal mistake when you sent me to the Lord your God and said, ‘Pray to the Lord our God for us; tell us everything he says and we will do it.’ I have told you today, but you still have not obeyed the Lord your God in all he sent me to tell you. So now, be sure of this: You will die by the sword, famine and plague in the place where you want to go to settle.” (New International Version)
We all find ourselves in trouble at one time or another. The real issue is whether we’re in trouble for no fault of our own, or if we’re in dire straits because of our own stubbornness and stupidity.
God tends to take a lot of flack from us humans, whenever we are in the middle of trouble. Yet, much of the time, it’s our own dang fault for not listening to God in the first place.
Whenever other people are hard-hearted and unjust, we’re ready for some divine judgment to happen. But when it’s me, all I want is some mercy and grace, some understanding and acknowledgment of my predicament. We have got to realize that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Talk can be cheap. The ancient people of Judah verbally affirmed their dedication to doing what God would tell them to do. And then, like some sort of spiritual dementia, they seemed to forget everything they said, and turned around to disobey all they heard from God.
It all came down to an issue of trust. The people looked to Egypt for their deliverance from the Babylonian army, instead of turning their faces toward God and doing exactly what the Lord wanted.
So, the Lord, an ever-present power much like the force of gravity, let the people know that if they’re going to ignore that force, they’ll end up falling and breaking their bodies.
People make mistakes. They do stupid things. And they sin against God and others. It happens. But how we respond to it all is highly important. If we don’t learn from our missteps, and choose to keep living without adjusting our lives to God’s abiding presence in the world, we can expect trouble.
A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions.
The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. (Proverbs 27:12, NLT)
The ancient people of Judah had already suffered one Babylonian invasion. Now they were faced with yet another. The people wanted to flee. But their looking to Egypt was not a wise avoidance; it was an attempt to stick their heads in the sand, to put their fingers in their ears and shut tight their eyes. Instead, they needed to stay put and face the music.
The prophet Jeremiah reminded the people that, in this situation, there was a dual danger: It’s bad to go to Egypt, so don’t do it; and it’s really bad to disobey God, so listen and do what the Lord says.
Ignorance puts everyone in jeopardy. To follow through with plans that are diametrically opposed to what God has specifically said not to do, puts the entire community in the grip of a death sentence. After all, the Lord already knows what’s up and what’s going to happen if we foolishly amble into a hornet’s nest of trouble on top of trouble.
Whenever people are cursed, it’s typically because they refuse to listen; they don’t heed the warnings and end up doing something out of their anxiety, instead of acting with wisdom.
Unnecessary suffering comes from disobedience. Disobedience is a result of ignorance. And ignorance comes from purposefully not listening to sage advice, divine commands, and the wisdom of the ages.
It all comes down to giving focused attention so that we might hear and heed the voice of God. This is why the spiritual practices of solitude, silence, stillness, and contemplative and centering prayers are so very important. It puts us in a position to listen with open ears and receptive hearts.
The following are four guidelines of centering prayer, offered by one of the masters of this form, Father Thomas Keating, Intimacy with God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer:
- Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within.
- Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly, and silently introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God’s presence and action within.
- When engaged with your thoughts, body sensations, feelings, images, and reflections, return ever-so-gently to the sacred word.
- At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a couple of minutes.
The best way to avoid unnecessary trouble, heed biblical warnings, and listen to the divine is by aspiring and dedicating oneself to a genuine spiritual life.
St. John of the Cross, a spiritual giant of a prayerful and listening life, wrote in the sixteenth century, “God spoke one word from all eternity and he spoke it in silence, and it is in silence that we hear it.”
The reason God is so often silent, is that silence is God’s first language; all other verbal languages are but poor translations. Centering ourselves in prayer is a needed preparation for the contemplation that enables us to hear and listen well to the language of God.
Perhaps if the people in Jeremiah’s day did so, they would not have found themselves in such a dire predicament.
Almighty and everlasting God, make me ready, when your voice is truly heard, so that I may respond with glad obedience glad and steady devotion, silent and still to follow every word. Speak, Lord, for I am listening. Amen.
Rev. Tim Ehrhardt 