Pentecost 20C

Jeremiah 14:8-9, 21-22

⁸ O hope of Israel,
its savior in time of trouble,
why should you be like a stranger in the land,
like a traveler turning aside for the night?
⁹ Why should you be like someone confused,
like a mighty warrior who cannot give help?
Yet you, O Lord, are in the midst of us,
and we are called by your name;
do not forsake us!

²¹ Do not spurn us, for your name's sake;
do not dishonor your glorious throne;
remember and do not break your covenant with us.
²² Can any idols of the nations bring rain,
or can the heavens give showers?
Is it not you, O Lord our God?
We set our hope on you,
for it is you who do all this.

Jeremiah

Next week for Reformation I won't blog Jeremiah because I wrote about his New Covenant passage last week; I don't know if I'll reflect on another Reformation scripture or on one of the texts for Pentecost 21. That means today is the last Jeremiah for this lectionary year and calendar year.

Over the past couple of months we've studied only a very small portion of a very long, extremely dense book that Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch began writing before imperial Babylonian armies and authorities wrecked the city and the temple. Jeremiah continued with letters and oracles to the Judean (mostly) leaders exiled in Babylon (some of the "regular people" stayed behind). When we started what became a Jeremiah series in mid-August for Pentecost 10, via Jeremiah we heard God's reassuring, "Am I a God near by, says the Lord, and not a God far off? … Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord." (Jer 23:23-24) That first Jeremiah post also included a little of what scholars know about Jeremiah's background and ministry.

We've observed similarities among Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, and Luke. All three books emphasize living out God's call to distributive and procedural justice, and to loving kindness within the community in order to create a true common-wealth where no one has too much or too little. All of them are all about showing helpful (don't just tell me, please show me!) compassion to those who have only a little, especially to widows and orphans, who in that culture were particularly vulnerable in every sense. All have examples of treating strangers – whether passing through, displaced from their homeland, or otherwise recent arrivals – as if they were native-born, whatever their religion or ethnicity.

The lectionary readings have skipped around Jeremiah in a crazily random way, but as we wrap up this week, in chapter 13 verse 9 the people remind God of what chapter 23 later echoes, "…you, O Lord, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name."

In Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, and Luke to know God is to act in ways that fulfill the ten words or commandments of the Sinai covenant and embody the divine image God created us in. To know God means acting to create the reign of heaven on earth: to demonstrate to the world that God is a God near by and not far off—God indeed is in the midst of us, God is present in the people called by God's name.