(Jeremiah 1:4-10; Ps. 71:1-6; Hebrews 12:18; Luke 13:10-17)
I’m going to ask you a question. What is prophecy (in the biblical sense of the word)?
It’s not fortune-telling. In the Bible, prophecy has to do with speaking the truth: truth which, for whatever reason, we have forgotten, or are blind to, or intentionally ignore. And since all truth originates in God, that’s the truth that prophets speak: the truth of the real world, which we’ve moved away from, constructing a fictional world of our own, which we find more comfortable; but which is fictional.
So hearing prophecy – true prophecy – is almost always an uncomfortable experience. And I think it’s appropriate that we’re outside today, because I think the biblical prophets were mostly outside when they spoke (like John the Baptist and Jesus), because most people don’t want to have somebody like that under their roof, it wasn’t safe. I also think the prophets take up so much literal space in the Bible because the need for prophecy is so constant, it’s part of human nature to go off track this way, we do it all the time.
I’m bringing this up today for two reasons. The first is that we heard this morning, and will be for the next couple of months, from the prophet Jeremiah. It’s a long book, and a lot of it’s a tirade: a furious, wailing, fist-shaking denunciation full of finger-pointing. Jeremiah nails people for pride, hypocrisy, slothfulness, infidelity of many kinds, most especially infidelity to God. As somebody once said, there was nothing in need of denunciation that Jeremiah didn’t denounce (at one point he even denounces God for giving him this job, this thankless task of prophecy.)
But all of that’s just part of what Jeremiah has to say; and I’m glad that we’re going to be hearing from Jeremiah for a while now, because his message has a beginning, a middle, and an end; and the passages we’ll hear outline that story.
Jeremiah certainly begins by talking about what’s gone wrong. He tells the people of Israel, You’ve abandoned God, you’ve shut God out of your lives, you’ve gone to other gods To turn away from the one God is to turn away from the one real source of life, and truth. And he says, Because you’ve done this – because you’ve turned away from God – you’re going to be in trouble. The biggest kind of trouble. And this is, specifically, what it’s going to look like (and he uses various metaphors for this, one of which is to take a big clay pot and smash it to bits.) So get ready, he says, and don’t complain. You’re responsible.
And for the people of Israel – people of faith – such turning away is also breaking the covenant, which is the foundation of their identity as a people. It’s betrayal, and comes at a deep personal cost, and not just for the Israelites. This is the second part of Jeremiah. He goes on to speak in God’s voice, saying, You should know how this tears at my heart. This isn’t what I wanted for you. This is the opposite of the highest hopes, the most wonderful dreams, that I had for you. (If anyone has a family member who’s been the victim of addiction – some behavior that’s ruining their lives, that they can’t stop themselves from doing, and you’re sitting there having to watch it happen – that’s the kind of sorrow, the desolation, that Jeremiah says God feels.)
And at the very end of our time with Jeremiah, we will hear him say, again on God’s behalf, But the story’s not over: here’s how to come back. Here are the first, tiny steps on that road. Because, even though you’re sitting in the middle of a mess, and all you can see around you are ruins, know that I have not abandoned you. I will never abandon you. You need to recognize the truth: that I am who I am: I am the Lord your God, and you are my people. I will make a new covenant with you, and I will write this one on your hearts.
This is the prophecy of Jeremiah, and there are gifts of the spirit for all of us in all of it.
The other reason I’m talking about prophecy today is because this afternoon our church is participating in a particular prophetic witness. At three o’clock this afternoon, the bells here at St. John’s will ring for one minute. We will be joining thousands of other churches around the country, from many denominations, to mark the four hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved people in the colonies that became the United States of America. We don’t know the exact date, but it was in late August of 1619 that something over twenty African men and women were debarked from a ship (ironically named the White Lion) at a place called (also ironically) Point Comfort, now the site of the Fort Monroe National Monument in Hampton, VA.
As you may remember, earlier this year the Episcopal Church in Connecticut proclaimed this a season in which we focus on the sin of racism. That word is often used in a very polarized and polarizing way, which unfortunately diverts us from the real work that’s there to be done, by all of us. A good approach to the subject was recently made by a current public figure who put it this way (and I’m paraphrasing): The conversation about racism is really about a community that has been left behind, and worse, for many generations, left behind simply because of the color of its skin. When you’ve been denied job, after job, after job because you’re black or because you’re brown. Or when you go to the emergency room to have your baby. The fact is that w if you are a black woman you are four times more likely to die in childbirth there because that healthcare provider may not believe you, may not even hear you when you say I don’t feel right. Because that health care provider instinctively doesn’t value you the way he or she would value a white person.
That public figure went on to talk about the same kind of racism in the system of justice in this country. She could as easily have included the educational system, the financial system; there’s racism all through our society: it’s not confined to folks who put on white hoods and lynch black people . And if you resist this idea, if you feel disbelief, the literature on racism in America is voluminous. I’ve put the names of just three titles on a piece of paper, and I ask respectfully that you take a look at one or more of them.
But the whole issue is framed well in a recent article by – please excuse me – my cousin Drew Gilpin Faust, recently retired president of Harvard and a historian of the antebellum and Civil War South. She writes that, in the most recent national conversation on racism, “…we are…avoiding the most fundamental work. The media frequently report accusations that this or that public figure is a racist, and usually the circumstances or actions described are deeply concerning and worthy of condemnation. It is good that we are noticing. But name-calling and shaming seem to me too often expressions of a certain smugness and self-righteousness on the part of the accuser, acts that too often simply seek to separate us into saved and damned, sheep and goats….This pattern is dangerous. It situates the issue of race in individuals and their personal morality and choices, rather than focusing on the broader, structural, historical forces that perpetuate inequality and injustice in the United States – inequality and injustice for which we all, sheep and goats alike, bear responsibility.”
This is prophecy. Because it’s telling us truth that we’re ignoring, or denying. As people of faith, God calls us to do something about that. Thanks be to God for Jeremiah, and all the prophets, throughout history, who remind us of who we are.