Jeremiah 4:1-18.  Sometimes I think the Bible can be so simple and so complicated at the same time.  There are so many images in this passage I’m not sure we could ever understand them all or understand them completely.  Remember this was written about 627 BC that’s 2640 years ago.  Imagine someone 2640 years from now watching a music video or listening to a song from our time, there would be so many references that many would be missed.  Cookie (my wife) likes Looney Tunes cartoons and we have a set of them on DVD.  Matt (one of my sons) likes them too, and I watch them.  There is on episode called “High Diving Hare” in which Bugs Bunny is pushed to be a daredevil by a member of the audience, Yosemite Sam, when an act for his stage show fails to show up.  Sam wants Bugs is to dive from a very high platform into a very small amount of water.  Of course Bugs tricks Sam repeatedly into taking the dive instead.  At one point a door appears on the platform and Sam knocks.  Bugs of course doesn’t open the door and Sam  demands repeatedly that Bugs open the door.  At one point Sam looks toward the camera and says, “You notice I didn’t say Richard”.  I always wondered what that meant.  Eventually Sam rushs the door which Bugs opens at the last moment and Sam runs off the end for another dive.  I eventually found out that it was a reference to an old Vaudeville routine called “Open the door, Richard”, there were even several songs from the early 1900’s about the skit, pretty obscure less than 100 years later let alone 2640.  Although we might not get all of the meaning that people of the time got out of Jeremiah’s words we can get the message, for a couple of reasons.  First is because God wants us to (see Isaiah 55:11).  Second we do know some things about the time, though we might have to work at finding the out (like my internet search to find the meaning of the words in the cartoon).  And finally, the main point of the passage is clear even if all the details are not.

Verses 1-2 contain a promise to Israel (probably a reference to the entire nation , though Jeremiah was talking just to Judah at the time).  This promise is conditional, that’s the “if” part of the promise.  In this case the condition is “if” the Israelites want to honor God “then” they need to do it.  The result of honoring God with their lives is that the rest of the world (the nations) will see it and be “blessed” in God and will Honor God.  The word bless contains the ideas of kneeling down, saluting, and congratulating.  I think the idea of being “blessed” means that something good has happened to you.  In this case whatever it is it makes them want to honor God.  Notice that honoring God involves truth, justice (treating others right), and righteousness (living the way God would want you to live).  It also involves not doing things that God does not like.

Verses 3-4 are a warning.  In verses 1-2 the people were encourage to live for God if that is want they want to do, but in these verses (3-4) they are told that it would be a good idea to live for God because if they don’t God is going to bring trouble into their lives.  Breaking up fallow ground means to plow dirt that hasn’t been used recently so it will be ready for seeds to be planted. Not sowing (planting) among the thorns is probably another example of parallelism (repeated ideas) in Hebrew poetry.  Unused ground usually grows weeds (I know I garden and weeds grow fast if you don’t use the ground and deal with them) so this is a second reference to unplowed dirt.  There is a hidden idea here though.  Land isn’t usually non-productive.  If we don’t care for it weeds will grow.  Spiritually we can’t stand still either, if we aren’t letting God’s word grow in our lives a lot of bad stuff will (Matthew 13:1-23).  Circumcision was a surgical practice that removes a covering of skin on a private part of a males anatomy.  The practice was used as a way for children of Israel to identify themselves for those around them.  In the second line of verse 4 the idea is repeated about their hearts.  You might want to think of this a a way of saying be dedicated and listen to God.  Verse 4 repeats the beginning of verses 3 as a way of making a little envelope of an idea and it emphasizes who Jeremiah is talking to, then comes the warning.  If the people of Judah won’t return to God them there is going to be trouble.

So far there is sort of a progression in the ideas in our reading.  In the first section God says, “if you want to come to me do it?”  In the second part instead of inviting the people to return to him there is more of a command to do it.  It sort of assumes that they didn’t want to do what the first two verses suggested.  In the next section verses 5-9 we see that they didn’t come to God willingly nor did they listen when warned so now trouble is coming.  The trouble is gong to invade them from the north and as we know from history it was Babylon who invaded from the north.

Verse 8 tells us though that God is behind what is going on.  That makes verse 9 kind of shocking.  The king and princes were supposed to be there representing God, as were the prophets.  Yet all of these people were surprised when the invasion happened.  As we sill see later in Jeremiah, there were lots of false prophets in Judah at the time, and certainly most of the kings of the time were interested in their own power were not really willing to share the honor with God.

In some translations verse 10 looks like an accusation by Jeremiah that God has tricked the people by promising them peace.  It is more likely that Jeremiah is quoting either the false prophets from verse 9 (later in the book we see the false prophets saying exactly this same idea) or he is quoting the people themselves.  Remember that these predictions were given during the “quiet” time of Josiah’s reign when the people were honoring God, at lest on the outside and in public.  In verses 10-12 we are assured though that trouble is coming; trouble that will involve death and destruction.

Verses 14-18 return to the hopeful ideas of verses 1-2.  In these verses the people are encouraged to live for God.  Dan is in the very north of the old land of Israel, the hills of Ephraim are just north of Jerusalem.  Some experts see these verses of a repeat of the path of the invaders, from the north.  Notice that the news of the invasion needs to be told to the people of Jerusalem but that it also needs to be told to the nations around them.  Verses 17-18 contain the message that is supposed to be told, “This is happening because Israel didn’t honor Yahweh.”  Verse 18 ends where verse 14 started in the hearts of the people.  The word touched can also mean to “bring down”.  I wonder if that isn’t a better idea, their disobedient lives have “brought down” their hearts because they refused to wash the evil out of their lives.  But notice in the end it is the heart that God is concerned with here.

I like it that God continues to call out to us.  I also like it that he shows us just how unfaithful we are.  We don’t come to him on our own and we don’t respond when he informs us (see “The Old Testament Connection”).  God then gives us trouble in our lives and makes sure we know that it is because we have not listened.  God is clearly very patient and is very interested in a relationship with us, but it must be based on truth, and it must be marked by just and right living, it’s not on our terms but his.  Clearly, though, God’s terms are good and right and best.

God thank you for being a God who loves and warns and disciplines when necessary (which seems to be pretty often).  I know you have my best interest at heart.  Help me see what you have done in the past and learn from that so I can live for you better today.  You do ask us to return but usually we don’t.  Thank you for the Holy Spirit who helps us listen and obey rather that suffer the consequences.  Let me listen to your spirit.  Let your word grow in me today.  I want to be a productive field for you not a weed filled field. Let me be a good example to those around me of how much you love us.  When necessary discipline me and let me proclaim to the world that that is right too.  Thank you for loving me and loving us.

Jeremiah 3:11-25.  Today’s reading starts out by telling us that Israel (the Northern Kingdom which was scattered in 722 BC) was better than Judah (the Southern Kingdom that Jeremiah was prophesying to, and remember that they were in Josiah’s reign when he made the people stop honoring false gods).  So you might wonder how Judah was worse than Israel.  The problem is that the people of Judah were only doing what the king was forcing them to do but in their hearts they still loved their false gods.  Both Israel and Judah were guilty of the same thing.  The difference is that Israel didn’t have the same example that Judah did.  Both kingdoms had evil kings at the time that Israel was scattered by the Assyrians.  But now 80-90 years later Judah has the opportunity to look back and see what happens when Gods people cheat on him.

The next part of this prophecy is awesome.  The Assyrians had a policy of transplanting the people that they conquered, not all of them just some of them; they would scatter them throughout their empire.  They would also bring others into a land that they had conquered and have them intermarry with the people that they left there.  It idea was to get the people to forget their old lives, culture, and loyalties.  The hope was that the next generation would be loyal to Assyria and not to some old tribe. So the people of the Northern Kingdom, Israel, were scattered and intermarried.  The ones who remained in the land also intermarried with “foreigners”.   The children of those left in the north came to be known as Samaritans, and the people of the Southern Kingdom came to hate them.  But God did not hate them and he didn’t care that they were “intermarried”.  In verses 12-15 we see God promising to bring them back, but not all of them.  Allowing them to return was not something God was obligated to do it was a gift or act of kindness on his part and it was based on their response to him; they needed to confess that they had been faithless cheaters, and they also needed to respond to his offer of forgiveness.  Finally they needed to let him be their master .  The word “master” is “baal” in the Hebrew language (the language that the Old Testament was mostly written in).  You might think, “Wait a minute, isn’t that the name of the Canaanite god that they were not supposed to worship?”  The answer is yes, Baal is the name of the false god that they all were not to honor, but the word also means master.  God is making a play on words here; he wants to be their true master.

Also notice where he is going to bring the people from the Northern Kingdom back to.  Their place of worship was in Shechem but he is bringing them back to Zion.  Zion is another name for the hill that Jerusalem and the true Temple sat on.  Verse 17 make it clear that Jerusalem was, is, and always will be the capital of God’s kingdom on earth.  The end of verse 16 though make it clear that honoring God in that forever kingdom wont be based on the old way of doing things; all the ruled of Moses.  The Ark of the Covenant represented the Law of Moses (the rules God gave to Moses for the Israelites) to the people.  But now with God on their throne people will have a different kind of relationship with God.  According to verse 15 it will be one based on knowledge and understanding.

Verse 15 reminds me of the time Jesus was passing through Samaria (the name Jewish people of his day gave to the area around the capital of the old Northern Kingdom).  He stopped and talked to a Samaritan woman at a well.  He ultimately led her to faith in him as the promised coming king of all Israel.  In that conversation the question of the proper place to honor God came up.  Jesus told her that it wasn’t there on the hill in Samaria and it wasn’t in Jerusalem but that the proper place to honor god was in our personal lives based on the truth about him and God.  Clearly Jesus was the first of these “shepherds after my own heart”; the first “good shepherd”.  And his message to that Samaritan woman was very similar as he fed her on “knowledge and understanding” (John 4:4-26).

But it is still clear from verse 17 that Jerusalem will be the capital of the kingdom.  But it is also clear that those who live in that new and forever kingdom will be those who have given their hearts and lives to God.  And it will be people from Israel, Judah, and all the nations.  Verse 18 makes it clear that the nation will be reunited and it also hints at the fact that this is based on the promises God had made to the children of Israel.

Verses 19-21 seem to be referring to this reunited nation of Israel when they talk about Israel (rather than just the northern kingdom).  This newly restored nation will be an example among the “sons” of God, probably a reference to the rest of the people of the earth (the nations of verse 17, also verse 19, remember the parallel or repeated ideas in Hebrew poetry).  This new Israel will call God father and will be faithful to him, not like the old days when they were “cheaters”.  Verse 22 is sort of like a little mini song or like what some churches do when they do “liturgical” dialogs (in some churches the pastor will read a line from a reading and the people will read the response).  Here God calls the people of Israel to come back to him and let him heal their faithlessness; fix their cheating heart, and then the people respond that they will return because he is Yahweh their God.  Verses 23-25 may be a continuation of the response to God’s invitation by the people or it may be additional comments by Jeremiah.  These verses contain additional confessions of the guilt of the people of the nation of Israel.  They admit that worshipping anything anywhere was stupid waste of time and effort.  They had wasted a lot of stuff on dead objects and ideas that could not solve their problem with God.  In verse 25 the people fall down before God, admit that their ancestors should have dome the same thing, and ask their children to honor God too.  The reading ends with an admission that they have not listened.

It’s kind of interesting how the section begins and ends with a similar idea, not responding to the information that they had.  The people of Judah were not responding to the fact that God deals with faithlessness (cheating) and in the end the people admit that they don’t listen.  It’s important to see in this reading that God is fair, that God does deal with cheating , that God wants us to know the truth about our situation, that God wants us with him, and that we need to admit we are cheaters and respond to his mercy.  The way to have a new relationship with God is by confessing our disobedience and rebellion (sin), the turn back to God with our lives (repent) and let his free gift of forever with him (eternal life) flow down over our souls and lives.  We need to let God be our master and let him control the throne of our lives as we live with him in that forever kingdom with Jerusalem as his capital.

God thank you for your mercy.  Thank you for forgiving me. Help me see and understand and respond to you.  Let my life be a pleasing sacrifice to you.  Thank you for extending the kingdom beyond the Israelites to all the nations.  You truly are a good and loving God, help me be God honoring son.  Thank you father for your love.