Delivered by Rev Dr John Evans
on Sunday 22 August 2010
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
Hebrews 12:18-29
Luke 13:10-17
In the commissioning of the prophet Jeremiah it was said
“See I today appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and overthrow,
to build and to plant.” (Jer 1:10)
Here is the commission of one of the greatest prophets ever. What does it mean? How are we as a congregation to our understand our prophetic task? What is our prophetic ministry for our nation, as we await the formation of new government after the election yesterday.
However, let us first be sure we understand Jeremiah a little, and his context.
Many years ago I was assured by the wonderfully eccentric Jesuit, Tony Campbell, I really only had to know four or five dates, and the whole of the Old Testament would fall into place.
1290 BC thereabouts, was the Exodus out of Egypt, Moses and the “promised land”
1000 BC King David
722 BC the destruction of the Northern Kingdom by Assyria
587 BC the fall of Judah and Jerusalem and exile to Babylon
520 BC the restoration or return to Jerusalem after Babylon (Iraq) got knocked off by Persia (Iran)
The Jewish people really began with the leadership of Moses and his forging of new nation over and against the empire of Egypt. There were no doubt bits and pieces that went before this story – the great sagas and myths about creation and the special election of the Hebrew people; and of their patriarchs and a couple of matriarchs. But these accounts really were a back fill exercise in trying to clarify their origin till we get to this point of liberation over in Egypt. Moses was your man, and he led and forged a new community. Interestingly he encountered the same issues we see in the Australian electorate. The people wanted the easy life, people wanted to follow the latest fads – especially religious fads, and people grizzled and grumbled. They even preferred returning to Egypt and the power of the Pharaoh. However Moses had an alternative vision of life, or God, of God’s freedom and love, and the nature of community. He battled through and lead his people to the promised land.
Now these other dates then speak of what happened with this great vision of Moses. Well with Saul, then David, and particularly Solomon, kings are established and the very worship of God, gets centralised, ordered and structured. This is very different to how Moses had envisaged it. He sort of thought of people’s assemblies and leadership just emerging, and worship happening well – round about where you were. For 250 years there was this period of judges, and various shrines around the place. One king with all power, one temple, with the one high priest, was very different. And so what you have are huge swadges of the old Testament that reflecting this royal and cultic aspect of Jewish history – a history that favours the kings – like the books Chronicles 1 and 2, which are like the books Kings 1 and 2, but only kinder towards really ambiguous and flawed people like David. And then there are all those religious rules, such as in Leviticus, and you might even like then to throw in the wisdom teaching , attributed to Solomon – like in the book of Proverbs.
However, what then happened was that these kings, rulers and officials very rapidly departed from that earlier vision of Moses. So first of all after the nation divided into two – the kingdom of Israel and that of Judah – the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. Soon one has people like Hosea and Amos in the north, and Micah and Isaiah in the south – challenging what was actually happening. However, as we noted this Northern Kingdom was occupied in 722. Yes it was a part of the expansion of the then fearsome Assyrian Empire – but it was actually seen by these prophets to be the hand of God acting against the king and nation falling away from worship and what we today we might call social justice. They were not treating the weakest in the land, the orphan, widow and alien, with due respect and honour. Indeed this perhaps is the whole point of the Old Testament – God has acted in history. God has chosen in God’s own freedom a people to be a blessing to all the nations, and as the history of that people unfolds, especially as they drift away from Yahweh, one also can see God acting and a story within God also unfolding.
Now our friend Jeremiah enters the story. He comes just this little bit later – he lives in the years in the lead up to our next big date in Jewish history – 587 BC and the destruction of Jerusalem, the temple, and the taking of the people off to Babylon. His context was the death throes of the Kingdom of Judah – the Southern Kingdom. Indeed the geopolitical situation for Jewish people was grim. Assyria as an empire was on the wain – Babylon was in the ascendency. Egypt to the south was feeling apprehensive about this – and so just marched through Judah on the way to confront Babylon and support the ailing Assyrians. Judah was hanging on by a thread in a world of diplomatic intrigue – and yet all along the royal house and religious authorities could not see it. Let alone could they live in accordance to the covenant – that initial vision of Moses. In fact, as we find later in Jeremiah, they had their own prophets (we would say spin doctors today) who would say – yes times are tough , but we soon will be back to prosperity, or the king will be back to prosperity. Don’t worry, God will look after us. Hananiah, was one of these prophets, he prophesised, in chapter 28 of Jeremiah, that in two years everything would be OK – or is it everything will be back into surplus! Needless to say he was wrong.
So I hope you a getting hold of something of the role of the prophet – but just to finish quickly our Old Testament history . This time of being in exile, those years after 587 BC, turned out to be the most pivotal period in national formation and reflection – and for us too. How had it come to this? So the various bits of the story gets pieced together at this time. Yes there were the bits that seemed to favour the kings, and the religious authorities. There was however, this other story as well of how God, in God’s freedom had chosen this motley collection of slaves in Egypt and with the leadership of Moses had a different vision of how society and religious life could be lived out. This story needed to be retold – it was an inspiration, but falling away of that vision – also needed to be told – warts and all. Scholars call this person or group who did this “the deuteronomistic historian”. Never again should they fall away. And part of task of reflection was that Jewish people kept the various prophesies of people like Hosea, and Micah and of course Jeremiah. Needless to say they did not keep the prophecies of people like Hananiah. They were just wrong – the nation was defeated, the Temple was destroyed, and the people were taken off into exile. God had indeed acted in history. Strangely it was not victors writing history this time – it was losers, very reflective and humble losers.
“See I today appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and overthrow,
to build and to plant.” (Jer 1:10)
The word of Jeremiah was to speak to the geopolitical context of his day: and that includes Assyria, and Babylon and Egypt and all of the rest of them. Then the “pulling down, destroying and overthrowing”, given the history I have just outlined, is relatively obvious. But prophet’s task involved more. It was also “plucking up, and building and planting”. The prophet was there to present again something of this vision of Moses. Although perhaps it was a more nuanced vision this time – so as we discover later in Jeremiah he speaks of a new covenant; not a reinstatement of the old covenant of Moses – but a new covenant. In fact some scholars wonder if these positive visions necessarily all happen back in the awkward days prior to destruction and exile. Perhaps they come later – actually while the Hebrew people were in exile.
So back to our initial question – what was this craft of the Old Testament prophet? How are we to be prophetic today? Walter Brueggemann, perhaps the most significant Old Testament scholar of our generation, speaks of the “prophetic imagination”. The prophet, with great imagination tells it how it is. Imagination in language, in the images that are used – and as with Jeremiah in actions he takes. In fact with Jeremiah we could accuse him of political stunts with some of his behaviour. . . . wearing oxen yokes, going to a potter’s house, buying real estate while one’s city is under threat, referring to one’s own sexual life and so on. However, it is using imagination in trying to express what is happening. A plain speaking message was not getting through. That imagination however, is fuelled by Yahweh’s insight into how we are to live together and how we are we are to relate to God. Moses again.
Prophets are not about predicting the future. Prophets are not just some sort of ancient “culture of complaint”. But then prophets are not just driven by some evidenced based policy. Prophets actually have in mind how life can be lived to the full, and that vision leads them to either to pull down or to build. Jeremiah’s “new covenant” is a classic expression of this.
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt – a covenant they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord (31:31)
This new covenant God will put within them and it will be written on their hearts. A new covenant ! An idea, and a hope Christians have picked up upon. For us Jesus is a sort of new Moses , with a new reign and a new way of being free because, as Jeremiah says “I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.”
Today, how do we express all of this?
Well first of all if we are to have any creditably as a prophet – we are to live it out as a Christian community. On Thursday night at our second Carlton Conversation down at the Clare, Rhonda Galbally our guest was asked what kept her seemingly boundless passion and drive alive. She tellingly said – you don’t do these things alone. You advocate for disabled people with others – and let your vision ripple out. Prophets are really not loan voices.
Is our God given vision for Carlton – actually lived out here? Do we let it ripple out. I think that is prophetic imagination.
The prophetic task is to expose where our community when it goes astray. Just reflect on our recent election campaign – imagine parties actually calling the voters and the financial backers of the campaign to account. No one is going to be elected if you call your constituency racist, bigoted or selfish and greedy – so no one does. With imagination our friend Jeremiah did not shirk from the difficult task of calling what is going on. . . because he actually could see a better life for all, a richer community.
However, in whatever we do and say we always need to be clear about the values of Jesus –and express them positively, hopefully, respectfully – that again I think that is prophetic imagination.
Enjoy being prophets. It is a calling for all of us especially at this time national political uncertainty.
