Jeremiah 7:1-15.  Finally a break, sort of.  In today’s reading Jeremiah starts out by challenging the people to change their ways.  If they do God will let them stay in their town.  So far no talk about invasion and destruction.

One dictionary defines religion as “the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power.” (Apple Dictionary).  A second part of the definition deals with the “system of faith and worship”.  The Jewish people definitely had a system by which they worshipped (remembered the deeds and promises of God and honored him for those things) Yahweh (the personal name of the one true God as revealed to Moses. Exodus 3:14).  From the time of King
Solomon through the time of Jesus that worship involved a temple in Jerusalem (though the Northern Kingdom had it’s own places of worship after the division of the nation).  Ancient people credited their gods with a lot of power but their also thought that they could control their gods through bribes; sacrifices, gifts, and “rituals”.   Those religions became more about what they could get out of their gods rather that being times of remembrance and thanks.  Of course since their gods were only imagined I suppose there was nothing to thank them for anyway.  The true God, Yahweh, on the other hand has communicated his plan and expectations to mankind since the days of Adam and Eve.  As we compare that plan with the work of God we see unfolding in history we have reason to honor him.  That is part of what the “religion” of the Jews was supposed to be about.  Also it was supposed to keep the situation (sin and separation) between us and God in our minds (See “The Old Testament Connection” and also Romans 3:19-20).  But to the Jewish people the rules and regulations had become the end of the story rather than just a reminder pointing to God.  We see this trust in the ‘system” rather than in God in verse 4 when god tells the people don’t say “this is the temple of Yahweh”.  The three time repetition shows that it was about the temple rather than God, it was a habit to them.

The contrast to just going to “church” is found in verses 5-6 where they are told to treat others well and to be faithful to the one true God.  If they will really honor God with their lives then he would let them stay in the land.  In the end of verse 7 God brings up one of the promises that I mentioned above; the land was to belong to descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Israel, see “What’s in a Name”) forever.  So the reality of Yahweh can be checked out by the promises he has made and their fulfillment.  But we must also understand that, although the land would belong to Jacob’s descendants forever, that doesn’t mean that every generation would necessarily live there.  In God’s words here in today’s reading we see that sometimes we can miss out on good things God has for us because of our own actions.

Verses 8-11 describe how dumb they were in thinking just going to “church” could protect them.  They thought it didn’t matter what they did with their lives if they just entered the temple from time to time and followed the “religion” that Moses had given them.  In verse 11 God tells them he is watching and makes it clear that he know how they are living.

The fact that just playing at living for God cannot protect us from trouble is seen in two examples in verses 12-15.  Also in these examples we see what I was talking about above.  God reveals his plan and then acts so that we can see that he is real and active in our world and lives.  The first example is a place called Shiloh.  In the history of Israel they didn’t always have a temple.  After they left Egypt they wound up spending quie a bit of time in the Sinai Desert.  It would have been pretty tough to carry around a stone temple so God instructed them to build a Tabernacle, a sort of portable church or temple that was like a tent.  They entered the land promised to them by God and originally set us that tent, or tabernacle, near a town named Shiloh.  In fact the tabernacle was there for most of the next 400 years.  At the end of the time of the judges (actually in the time of the last judge, Samuel) the Israelites found themselves at war with some other inhabitants of their land, the Philistines.  In one of the initial battles the Israelites were defeated by the Philistines and wondered why Yahweh let then lose (if you want to know why go back and read through the book of Judges).  They decided that he best way to win was to go to Shiloh, to the tabernacle, and bring the “Ark of the Covenant” to the place of the next battle.

The “Ark” was a specially decorated wooden box that contained stone tablets that God had personally engraved with the ten first commandments of the Law of Moses on them.  The box also contained a branch that belonged to Moses brother Aaron.  This branch miraculously budded and produced almonds overnight in a display of God’s power.  It was a symbol of God’s choice of Aaron and his descendants to be the “priests” or representatives between God and the Israelite people.  Finally the ark contained a jar full of manna, the special food that God produced each day while the Israelites spent 40 years in the wilderness. The ark was a reminder to the Israelite people of the presence of God in their lives and actually was the place where God actually was present in the lives of the Israelites for most of the 400 years.

When the Israelites took the ark to the battle with the Philistines they made two mistakes.  First they violate God’s rules about the ark.  Since the ark represented God’s presence it was kept in a part of the tabernacle separate and forbidden for anyone to enter with one exception.  On one day each year, Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) the high priest, a descendant of Aaron, could enter the special area of the tabernacle and place a special offering on the ark.  Also when the tabernacle was moved from place to place during the forty years in the desert it was to be carried with special poles by certain Israelites.  It was not to be touched upon penalty of death.  Second the Israelites mistook the ark for the actual presence of God.  At the battle the Israelites were again defeated and the Philistines captured the ark.  During the battle 30,000 Israelite soldiers died including the two sons of the then High Priest, Eli.  Upon hearing the news of the defeat and capture of the ark, eli fell down and died of a broken neck.  The widow of one of the sons, pregnant at the time, went into labor when she heard the news.  She died in childbirth.  Just before she died she named the new son, Ichabod.  His name means “the glory has departed” and was a recognition that God was no longer going to be a helping presence in the lives of the Israelite people (See “What’s in a Name”) (1 Samuel 4).

In today’s reading God applies the events at Shiloh to the situation in the time of Jeremiah.  The people in Jeremiah’s day thought of the temple as a sort of good luck charm that would protect them from any enemies.  They were failing to see that God was the real power.  So God was going to allow one of their enemies, Babylon, to conquer and destroy the temple.

The other example of true verses false honoring of God involved the Assyrian conquest of the Northern Kingdom.  Here Jeremiah calls them Ephraim.  Ephraim was one of the twelve sons of Israel and was the name of one of the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom.  Perhaps Jeremiah uses the name of this tribe to describe the Northern Kingdom because Shiloh was within the territory of Ephraim.  If the people of Judah wanted to ignore their connection with the Northern Kingdom they would also have to ignore their connection with Shiloh and the Ark.  In 722 BC the people of the Northern Kingdom were conquered and dispersed throughout the Assyrian Empire.  It was a punishment by God for years of distorted worship of Him and also worship of other gods.  As we saw in Zephaniah 1:5 God will not share his people with other so called gods.  The people of Judah were about to suffer the same punishment as their unfaithful brothers from in the North.

Being a Jew was not some game in which a pretend god was lived for.  Being a Jew meant a real relationship with the one true God, Yahweh.  This relationship was to be instructive to the world around them.  In it’s best form this example could have shown the world the love and provision of God.  But is also would have shown his purity and specialness (holiness of God)) through the standards of the Law of Moses.  Unfortunately most of the time this second lesson was all that was seen as the Israelites suffered punishment for being untrue to God and his rules.  It wasn’t enough to be religious and pretend either, the point of the reality and presence of a real good loving and pure being was probably the most important part of the Israelite example, a point they failed to realize and live out.  For now the Israelite people are on the bench as God’s players in the world and the church is in the game.  In a very similar warning about our actions as God’s people Paul told the believers in Corinth not to make alliances with the world.  As followers of Jesus they were to be light to world, living right with God.  He then called them the Temple of the Living God.  People with who God would walk personally and encouraged them to live pure and separate lives for God.  We, like them, are the people of God and need to follow the encouragement that Paul gave them, we can’t just play at church or we run the same risk as the people of Judah in Jeremiahs day.  We need to learn the lesson from Shiloh and Ephraim and Judah and paint a true picture of a relationship with the one true God, Yahweh or risk the same sort of punishment.

God help me paint a true picture of you to the world.  Help me be serious about our relationship.  Let our relationship show the world that you are the one true living God, a god with standards and a God who loves and provides.  Let my trust be in you and not in worldly alliances nor in my own ideas and inventions.  Thank you for your patience when I fail.  Help me succeed with you and for you.