Matins Sermon: Jeremiah
02 February 2009 at 10:00 am
The first lessons both this week and next week are from the book of the Prophet Jeremiah, so I thought I would use the first two Matins addresses this month to think about that extraordinary prophet, and the implications of what he said still for us today.
He was, of course, living in a world in many ways very different from ours, yet in other ways it seems remarkably contemporary. He was born probably between the years 650 and 640 BC in the small community of Anathoth, a village a few miles to the north of Jerusalem, and he belonged to the priestly family of that village and lived through some major changes in the balance of power between the significant nations of the region. But what was utterly different from today is that Israel, although ruled by a king, was essentially a theocracy. The King was constantly trying to find what the will of the Lord was, and he had a number of religious advisers who, of course, did not always agree, even on which ‘Lord’ the King should listen to. Jeremiah was part of that prophetic leadership that tried to advise the King.
By the time Jeremiah was born the old United Kingdom of David and Solomon had been dived into two, the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of which Jeremiah was a native, the Kingdom of Judah. But both Israel and Judah were small countries compared to the other major regional powers, of which the main three were Egypt to the south, Assyria to the north east, whose base was in Nineveh, very near what we now call Mosel in Northern Iraq, and whose forces had destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel before Jeremiah was born, and then the developing power of the Chaldeans, also known as Babylonians as they were based in Babylon, a few miles south of what we now know as Baghdad. Jeremiah lived his life, and made his prophecies, against the background of the changing balances of power between those three nations.
Now without wanting to give you a detailed history lesson of that rather strange and disturbing century, filled as it was with all sorts of terrible acts of betrayal and murder, there are just three historical facts that need to be noted to make sense of Jeremiah’s life.
First, although the Assyrians had been effective in destroying the Northern Kingdom of Israel, they were less so in destroying Judah some years later. Under Sennacherib, they had laid siege to Jerusalem but were unable to take it even though they caused some devastation to the land surrounding the city.
Secondly, there were two hugely significant battles involving the Assyrian forces, who fought together with the Egyptian forces as their allies against the Babylonians at Carchemish and then at Hamath in 605 BC. Egypt had attempted to work with the Assyrians, but their joint campaign failed conspicuously and they were roundly defeated by the Babylonians, with the result was the Egypt was never the power it was in the region for many years to come. Jeremiah very clearly recognised the significance of that change, and the significance of the emergence of the Babylonians as the new regional power.
Then, thirdly, the Babylonians, became even more powerful, led by one of the most outstanding if brutal leaders of the period, Nebuchadresser, who had commanded the armies in those victories at Carchemish and Hamath, and he continued to oust both Assyria and Egypt from their predominate role and so that the Babylonians became the great regional power until, some years later, they too were overtaken by the Persians under Cyrus. It was the Babylonians who were eventually to take the people of Judah, or at least their nobles and leaders into captivity into Babylon, and perhaps Jeremiah’s greatest political perception lay in his recognising the developing power of Babylon and pleading always with the various rulers of Judah that they should find their security through making some sort of peace with Babylon. He was probably right in what he wanted, but was usually ignored by the Judean leadership, and sometimes even persecuted by some of them as they saw him as a traitor in his support of the Babylonians. But maybe he just recognised real politic.
If that was the political background there was an interrelated religious one as well. Jeremiah heard the call to prophesy that we heard in the first lesson today, while still a young man in the time of Josiah, the King of Judah. Now it was Josiah who had initiated the great religious reform of Judah by putting into practice the Book of Deuteronomy and centring the worship of Judah in Jerusalem and its Temple. Jeremiah was a deep sympathiser with Josiah’s reforms, wanting purity and centeredness in the nation’s religious life and certainly wanting an end to the worship of other Gods, which appeared to be happening throughout much of Israel. So he welcomed the emphasis on the Temple in Jerusalem, and the purity of the vision that underlay Josiah’s reforms even though that brought him into conflict with his own family, who were committed to worship in Anathoth,. When King Josiah died in battle against the Egyptians a few years before the decisive victory by the Babylonians at Carchemish his successors did not maintain the thrust of Josiah’s reform, to Jeremiah’s great despair.
So his essential messages were a religious one to adhere to the process started by Josiah and to purify the religion of Judah, coupled with the political one of finding a way to make peace with the developing power of the Babylonians. But what makes Jeremiah such a remarkable prophet for us is that interspersed through his prophecies there are some very personal passages where we can sense the human being that was Jeremiah struggling with God as he tries to deal with the implications of his prophetic task. And it was not easy for him. In chapter 20 we hear him saying: ‘For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name’, there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.’ (Ch 20 v 8 – 9) That sort of personal conviction that there was a truth which he must speak, even if it caused him pain and distress, is what is so remarkable about him. And we see some of that in the very start of what was to be a very long career as a prophet in the passage we heard for the first lesson. ‘Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.’ And yet he hears the response ‘Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Be not afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord God.’
Next week I shall look in a bit more detail at some of those very personal passages, but I hope this morning I have established some sort of interest in this extraordinary man, whose conviction of the rightness of his message was matched only by his personal anguish at being such an agent of doom. He had to tell what he saw as the truth, even though it made him so unpopular. It is, I believe that combination, what makes him such an attractive as well as such a compelling person.