Tag: prophet jeremiah

Hospitality Is a Matter of Life and Death (Jeremiah 49:7-11)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

Concerning Edom, the Lord of heavenly forces proclaims:
Is wisdom no longer in Teman?
    Has good sense vanished from the perceptive?
        Are they no longer wise?
Turn, flee, and run for cover,
    you inhabitants of Dedan.
I’m bringing disaster on Esau:
    its day of reckoning.
If workers would come to you to pick grapes,
    they would at least leave a few on the vine.
If thieves would come in the night,
    they would take only what they needed.
But me? I will strip Esau bare.
    I will expose his hiding places,
        and he will find no place to take cover.
His offspring, family, and acquaintances will perish,
    and there will be no one left to say,
“Leave me your orphans,
    and I’ll look after them;
        trust your widows into my care.” (Common English Bible)

You might be saying to yourself, “What in tarnation is this crazy fool doing, having a Bible lesson on this here piece of Scripture that means nothing to you nor me?” Oh, really? To which I say, “What darned fool never gets into the backwoods of the prophets?”

Esau was the twin brother of Jacob, a real mountain man sort of guy. Being outdoors and hunting game was his thing. His descendants were the Edomites. They inhabited the southwest portion of what is now the country of Jordan, and the southeastern portion of Israel and Palestine in the middle east. It’s a territory made up of a network of clefts and caves in the rocks.

Edom tended to think of themselves as being invulnerable, the man’s man. They always had the high ground and knew how to handle themselves in the wilderness. For anyone interested in taking the Edomites down, it would be very difficult to dislodge them from their rocky fortress home. Yet, there is no place that is not vulnerable to the eye and purpose of Yahweh.

Site of an ancient Edomite stronghold in present day Jordan

Just as there was bad blood between Jacob and Esau, so also the Israelites and Edomites did not like each other throughout their history. Edom had no intention of helping their ancestral brother, and even participated with the Babylonians in the conquest of Jerusalem. What’s more, they rejoiced over the fall of the city – all of which raised the eyebrow of God.

Lord, remember what the Edomites did
        on Jerusalem’s dark day:
    “Rip it down, rip it down!
    All the way to its foundations!” they yelled. (Psalm 137:7, CEB)

Turns out that the Lord listened to the psalmist and remembered. The destruction of Edom came about because of two overlapping sins: the profound lack of hospitality; and the overt participation of doing harm. To refuse hospitality is to put someone or a group of people in harm’s way. It also betrays an attitude that works out in eventually becoming an agent of harm to those they could have helped.

In this vein, Edom is much more akin to Sodom and Gomorrah than to its brother Israel.

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49, NIV)

When the ancient Israelites, after having been delivered by God from Egyptian bondage, and traveling in the wilderness, came upon Edom, they made a request of their brother:

“Please let us cross through your land. We won’t pass through any field or vineyard, or drink water from any well. We will walk on the King’s Highway and not turn to the right or to the left until we have crossed your border.”

Edom said to him, “You won’t cross through, or I will come out against you with a sword.” (Numbers 20:17-18, CEB)

It does no one any good to refuse offering hospitality to others. Both the one in need, and the one being inhospitable, find themselves in dire straits. The reason the Lord cares so much about this is that God, at the core, is hospitable – loving the stranger and granting aid to the alien.

Jesus, upholding this long tradition of divine caring and prophetic utterance, had this to say to those who were indifferent:

“Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.”

They also will answer, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?”

He will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”

Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. (Matthew 25:41-46, NIV)

It is high time that we, as a contemporary people, take the Old Testament prophets seriously, and adopt the divine heart for the alien, the stranger, the fatherless, the widow, and all who find themselves unable to meet their own basic needs.

And when a refusal of hospitality happens on a national scale, the people of that nation will discover themselves a bygone country – much like Edom and the Edomites of old.

Whenever the national zeitgeist translates into draconian tactics for keeping “those other people” at a distance and say to them, “get out of our country,” without any hospitality, that nation has come under the eye of a holy God who has a zero tolerance policy toward base unkindness and purposeful callousness.

So, we ought to have the fear of God when we believe we have a moral right to exclude immigrants because they may potentially harm citizens by taking away jobs, reducing wages, and draining social services. This line of reasoning is not consistent with the way of Christ.

I, for one, believe we have failed to live up to the moral universalism we pretend lies at the heart of the United States’ theories and political philosophies; and we have not been willing to accept the radical changes needed to accommodate even a modest notion of hospitality for those who have been the targets for hate crimes based upon their race, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, and gender.

The age old sin of this world is that the wealthy and the privileged, although giving out of their largess, have no intention of sharing power and would never think of following the example of the poor widow who gave everything she had.

So, God said of the Edomites, “I will ‘Edom’ up!” And like the wild game their ancestor Esau killed and ate, they were gone. Turns out that hospitality is really a matter of life and death.

Lord Jesus, you welcomed all who came into your presence. May we reflect that same spirit through the value of hospitality. May your light shine in our hearts this day and dispel the darkness of hate and bigotry. Remove from us anything that stands in the way of radiating your presence. Amen.

Listen (Jeremiah 42:18-22)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment

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:

  1. Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within.
  2. 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.
  3. When engaged with your thoughts, body sensations, feelings, images, and reflections, return ever-so-gently to the sacred word.
  4. 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.

The Sheep Need Boundaries (Jeremiah 23:1-8)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Exploring Church Ministry Blog, Year ALeave a comment

“What sorrow awaits the leaders of my people—the shepherds of my sheep—for they have destroyed and scattered the very ones they were expected to care for,” says the Lord.

Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to these shepherds: “Instead of caring for my flock and leading them to safety, you have deserted them and driven them to destruction. Now I will pour out judgment on you for the evil you have done to them. But I will gather together the remnant of my flock from the countries where I have driven them. I will bring them back to their own sheepfold, and they will be fruitful and increase in number. Then I will appoint responsible shepherds who will care for them, and they will never be afraid again. Not a single one will be lost or missing. I, the Lord, have spoken!

“For the time is coming,”
    says the Lord,
“when I will raise up a righteous descendant
    from King David’s line.
He will be a King who rules with wisdom.
    He will do what is just and right throughout the land.
And this will be his name:
    ‘The Lord Is Our Righteousness.’
In that day Judah will be saved,
    and Israel will live in safety.

“In that day,” says the Lord, “when people are taking an oath, they will no longer say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who rescued the people of Israel from the land of Egypt.’ Instead, they will say, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the people of Israel back to their own land from the land of the north and from all the countries to which he had exiled them.’ Then they will live in their own land.” (New Living Translation)

All of the Old Testament prophets have something to say on the subject of caring for the flock, that is, on the religious leaders of the people and their sacred responsibility to spiritually meet the needs of others.

God cares for each and every sheep (person) and will do whatever it takes to ensure the flock has everything they need for life and godliness.

So, the Lord’s ire is raised whenever shepherd-leaders don’t do their proper job and fail to live into their vocation of responsibly caring for the flock by watching over it and providing for them.

One of the modern forms this takes is expecting worshipers to serve the institution, rather than the institution existing to serve the worshiper. The telltale signs of institutional centrality in the Church (instead of Christo-centric religion) is continually pursuing the priorities of attendance, money, and the church building.

To put it more crassly, some churches seem to only care about buildings, budgets, and butts in the pew. This makes the people the burden-bearers of supporting the system, rather than the system of leaders supporting the people.

“You get what you tolerate.”

Henry Cloud

Admittedly, I just painted a picture with a broad stroke; furthermore, there is nothing inherently wrong with institutional religion (after all, I’m part of the established religion scene). It’s just that shepherds need to be continually vigilant about focusing their pastoral goals and efforts in ways which spiritually care for the common good of all the flock.

A major reason why there is so much fear and anxiety amongst believers is twofold:

  1. Spiritual leaders have too much power and responsibility over too many things, and so, less time and effort is put into pastoral care and compassionately ministering to the flock of God
  2. Churches give spiritual leaders too much power and responsibility, having unreasonable expectations for pastors
  3. Believers aplenty have given up on church

You might conclude (wrongly) that institutional forms of religion, such as churches, just need to be avoided. However, none of us can completely avoid systemic sin because it resides everywhere. Instead, we need to clarify what we will tolerate and not tolerate.

Abusive situations occur when there are no fences to keep everyone safe, secure, and well-fed. It’s important to have boundaries in place for the life and health of everyone.

What are “boundaries?”

Boundaries define who we are. A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, leading me to a sense of ownership. Knowing what I am to take and not take responsibility for gives me freedom.

“No is a complete sentence.”

Anne Lamott

Why is it important to set boundaries?

  • Boundaries help us keep the good in and the bad out. Setting boundaries involves taking responsibility for your choices. You are the one who makes them, and the one who must live with their consequences.
  • Boundaries help protect us from “gaslighting.” Gaslighting is a form of emotional abuse in which one person manipulates another into doubting their thoughts, feelings, judgments, perceptions, and/or memories. Gaslighting convinces someone to accept the gaslighter’s version of reality at the expense of their own.
  • Boundaries hold people accountable for their words and actions. Without boundaries, we can easily feel used and mistreated.

What are some ways to set healthy boundaries?

  1. Clarify your values. Is this about preserving personal space? Do you want to make sure your emotions are not dismissed or invalidated? Are you trying to take back control of your time, energy, or resources?
  2. Decide where the fence will go. Where is your boundary line? What behaviors can you tolerate?  At what point does someone cross the line with you?
  3. Identify specific, problematic behaviors. What specific behaviors constitute unwanted trespassing on your life?
  4. Identify how a boundary violation is handled. Will you remove yourself from the situation, or step away from an unfinished argument?
  5. Follow through on the consequences. This is essential. If you’ve stated clearly what your boundaries are and they are crossed, make sure to do what you said you will do.

God makes and keeps boundaries and puts up reasonable fences in order that God’s people will be safe and cared for. The Lord also enforces those boundaries and has clear consequences when they are crossed.

The sooner we respect those divine fences, the better off we will be.

Almighty and everlasting God, breathe your Holy Spirit into our hearts and inspire us with love for goodness and truth. May we respect and honor you, and have no fear to hinder us from doing your will. Help us to be compassionate leaders and followers, knowing your compassion, being mindful of your love, and serving you faithfully, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Expressing Grief (Lamentations 3:55-66)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year ALeave a comment
An engraving of the prophet Jeremiah lamenting, 1937

I called on your name, Lord,
    from the depths of the pit.
You heard my plea: “Do not close your ears
    to my cry for relief.”
You came near when I called you,
    and you said, “Do not fear.”

You, Lord, took up my case;
    you redeemed my life.
Lord, you have seen the wrong done to me.
    Uphold my cause!
You have seen the depth of their vengeance,
    all their plots against me.

Lord, you have heard their insults,
    all their plots against me—
what my enemies whisper and mutter
    against me all day long.
Look at them! Sitting or standing,
    they mock me in their songs.

Pay them back what they deserve, Lord,
    for what their hands have done.
Put a veil over their hearts,
    and may your curse be on them!
Pursue them in anger and destroy them
    from under the heavens of the Lord. (New International Version)

Over the years of ministry, I’ve encountered a host of confessing Christians who did not know the book of Lamentations even existed in the Bible. Even more people, I have discovered, are unfamiliar with the word “lament.”

This anecdotal evidence is quite telling: It tells me that a large chunk of people in society don’t know what to do with themselves whenever they experience or encounter trauma, abuse, unwanted circumstances, death, or overwhelming situations.

It’s no wonder that so many of us are anxious, depressed, and emotionally struggling. To be overwhelmed means that we don’t have enough internal resources to match what’s going on with us externally. Being overwhelmed means being devastated or overpowered by several circumstances at once; and experiencing several emotions at once, including the feeling of estrangement from God and/or others.

The book of Lamentations is the prophet Jeremiah’s public expression of grief over the destruction of his home city of Jerusalem. King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army invaded the land, broke down the city walls, razed the temple, killed many people, and took most of the rest into captivity. The experience, along with the atrocities committed, were overwhelming.

On top of all that, Jeremiah had proclaimed a message of judgment, prophesying what would happen – and it did. And after the Babylonians took over, the remaining people put much of their misplaced anger and grief on Jeremiah, making his situation even worse.

Lamentations of Jeremiah, by Marc Chagall, 1956

What would you do if you were Jeremiah?

In whatever way you might respond, I believe Jeremiah did precisely what was most needed: He called on the name of the Lord, he expressed his lament, and it was all more than a private affair – because we are able to still read his lamentation all these many centuries later.

To lament is to express our feelings and story of grief to another. Without doing so, we are spiritually and emotionally stuck. And if we remain stuck for too long, our grief comes out sideways, either hurting others or ourselves.

The general populace of the people didn’t deal with their grief, and didn’t lament their loss. Instead, they mocked Jeremiah, plotted against him, and insulted him. That’s what happens when we don’t grieve and lament.

Jeremiah, however, left the people in God’s hands, and didn’t take matters into his own hands. He did what he was supposed to do instead of lashing out on others: Crafted this book of Lamentations, which we have access to, and can read.

So, why don’t we?

There’s lots of reasons we don’t examine the book of Lamentations (and explore our own lament). The primary reason is fear:

  • Fear of our own emotions – getting lost in them and afraid we’ll never get out of them – so we construct elaborate thoughts and words of positivity, believing that it will shoo the difficult feelings away. But the truth is, it won’t. It only makes it worse. We can choose to courageously tell our story, to whomever we want, in as much or as little detail as we want.
  • Fear of getting hurt. We’ve already experienced a level of hurt we never thought was possible. It’s only human to want to keep as far away from hurt as we can. So, we keep tight-lipped, tell others that we’re fine (when we’re not), all in the belief that if we can shut others out, we can keep any more hurt from touching us. The problem is that when we do that, we also keep the love out that could and would come to us.
  • Fear of connection. Examining myself and exploring relationships with others sounds too risky. It’s fraught with emotion. Besides, we might reason, I don’t want to put my burdens onto someone else. So, we don’t face our grief. The feelings get buried and, over time, become gangrene of the soul, poisoning us. Like a nasty boil, our grief needs to be lanced, and plenty of peroxide put on the wound. And the right medicine is doing what Jeremiah did: lament our loss.
  • Fear of losing control. I might cry in front of others. I may get really angry and yell. I could go absolutely ape and do weird stuff around people. If I open up, it will be a Pandora’s box of releasing myself. In reality, this is a fear of vulnerability, of letting others see the true self. And since we may not like our true self to begin with, this makes things quite complicated. However, there is not another way. Yet, if we go down the narrow path of lament, we will find many comforters who are able to empathize with us in our suffering.

“Sometimes you have to get your behind in the past before you can put your past behind you.”

Mit Tdrahrhe

The place to begin is in offering our feelings of grief, and our emotional words of lament, to the God who is always ready and available to hear it. And, from there, we reach out to a trusted friend, relative, or faith leader and tell them our story. Eventually, we discover enough healing that we can then comfort others with the comfort we ourselves have received. (2 Corinthians 1:3-11)

You can do this.

Almighty God, Father of mercies and giver of comfort: Deal graciously, we pray, with all who mourn; that, casting all their care on you, they may know the consolation of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.