Jeremiah

Review: Preaching Jeremiah

/ rtrube54 / 1 Comment

Preaching Jeremiah, Walter Brueggeman. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2020.

Summary: Bruggeman takes the framework of Jeremiah as a model for preaching, both in its structure of introduction, ending(s), and body, in its bringing a message of beyond, that both confronts the denial of God, and the grounds for hope that outlasts despair.

The arrival of this book was timely as our church has been preaching through Jeremiah, and as one called occasionally to fill in, I was thinking about the message of Jeremiah and the preaching of it. Walter Brueggeman not only explores these matters but also the nature of preaching in this book.

In particular, Brueggeman considers a situation where his audience is smugly spiritual and complacent when they are both in denial of God and of the approaching danger resulting from their apostasy. This is not unlike the preaching task in America today, one that requires the preacher to be courageous, imaginative, and countercultural.

He begins with Introductions, decrying many of the clever introductions in contemporary preaching. He looks at the call of Jeremiah, describing his task and the rejection he will face. There is both a call from beyond and a very specific grounding in a person and place. The introduction of Jeremiah suggests that the sermon begins long before the first word is uttered.

He then turns to conclusions. He notes that this is plural and points to the multiple endings of Jeremiah. Instead of “preaching to a decision” he proposes sermons that are “open-ended and multivoiced” recognizing that the preacher does not know the endings God has in mind, and thus leaves room for different responses.

He then turns in his last two chapters to the body of the sermon. Throughout the book Brueggeman parallels the trajectory of Jeremiah to that of Christ from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. There is the death, “the long Saturday,” and finally resurrection to new life and hope. First must come the plucking up and tearing down, and particularly meeting the resistance of the Jerusalem establishment. He must name their self-deception as to their status within the covenant and that through the nation from the north, God will make war against them, not with them. The preacher must engage in truth-telling that subverts denial.

In the final chapter he turns to the other aspect of Jeremiah. When the people are brought to a null point by the devastating invasion, Jeremiah turns to hope-telling, how they do so during exile, and look ahead to the wonder of God’s restoration, begun in repenting and returning that leads to healing, reversed fortunes, building, cleansing, forgiving and prospering.

As he concludes, he considers the challenge of this practice of truth-telling and hope-telling in the American context, a context where he thinks such preaching is “hardly utterable”:

  • our preaching is largely privatized without an opening for public issues;
  • there is a broad pattern of collusion with denial in the interest of a kind of therapeutic kindness;
  • we preachers ourselves are enough citizens of the nation of denial not to have energy to risk so much; and
  • the God we utter is usually not tough enough for infidelity, invasion, and illness, not powerful enough for fidelity, peace, and healing.

As this should make clear, Brueggeman thinks Jeremiah confronts “faint of heart” preaching with a call to resistance, prophetic integrity, and pastoral hopefulness rooted not in worldly optimism but in the wonders and redemptive work of God. This work both brings Jeremiah’s call and message to life, it informs the shape of pastoral integrity in a culture where God is paid lip service while its heart is in another place. It seems this would be a good work for one to read before embarking on preparation for pastoral ministry. Just as the call of Jeremiah made sure he was shed of all illusions, so is the case of this work for the aspiring preacher.

________________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Review: The Theology of Jeremiah

/ rtrube54 / 3 Comments

The Theology of Jeremiah, John Goldingay. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2021.

Summary: A survey of the life of Jeremiah, the composition of the book, and the theological themes running through it.

The book of Jeremiah is a formidable book to study. It is a long book, one John Goldingay likens to a series of blog posts stitched together into a scroll, the contexts of which are not always apparent. It covers over forty years. Its author was reviled by many, ending up carried off to Egypt while many of his people were relocated to Babylon and those who remained in Judea struggled to eke out an existence.

This book is not a commentary to unpack the tough textual questions (the author has written one of these as well). Rather, what John Goldingay does is help us see the forest instead of just the trees, as well as the rivers, fields and hills. He looks at Jeremiah’s life and literally overviews the book forward and back. Then he considers the major theological themes running through the book.

He begins with Jeremiah’s life and the kings during whose reigns he prophesied largely unheeded (apart from Josiah). Goldingay stresses how he both embodies the faithfulness to which Israel was called, and in the treatment of Israel, he reflects how they are in fact treating God. He considers the composition of “Jeremiah,” originally a scroll of messages read to and burned by Jehoiakim, subsequently a scroll Goldingay believes his followers compiled of his messages in the years following his exile and after his death. He takes a retrospective view of Jeremiah’s life that he believes reflects the retrospective vision of the scroll of Jeremiah. He then traces the themes of the various sections of the two parts, chapters 1-25 and 26-52. He walks through various divisions that he singles out with “Begins with: Think About…” and then walks through the section concluding with a section outline. For example Jeremiah 2-6 is “Begins with: Think About the Exodus” the subject of chapter 2 followed a call to turn back to God in chapter 3, warnings of devastation in chapter 4, condemnation of their unfaithfulness and injustice to the poor in chapter 5, and warnings of devastation from the north because they have been judged and found wanting in chapter 6.

The second part of the book centers around biblical theology, considering five theological ideas and how they are unpacked in Jeremiah. They are:

  1. God
  2. The People of God
  3. Wrongdoing
  4. Being a Prophet
  5. The Future

The chapter on the people of God is rich with reflection on all God wanted (and wants) for his people. a possession belonging to God, a household, a community, a country and domain, a city and also a sabbath resting place. God wants for them well-being and good leadership. The chapter on “wrongdoing” delineates the ways God’s people turn from him. The chapter on being a prophet includes a striking list of the qualities of prophets evident in Jeremiah the man and the book: do they say the opposite of what we think? do they get attacked by the people of God and especially their leaders? do they love the people of God? and do they intercede? to name a few. Each of the chapters reflects on the implications of these themes in a Christian context.

This book is both concise (140 pages plus a page of commentary recommendations and scripture index) and rich. Leaving exegesis to the commentaries, Goldingay helps us make sense of the whole scroll, the collection of messages (blog posts) over 40 years, the section themes, and the larger theological themes. This is invaluable for anyone studying, teaching, or preaching this book who has to make sense both to oneself and others the message of the sections of the book and the recurring themes of the whole. This helps us move from the information of exegesis to the formation we long for in our lives and those with whom we share this rich and complicated text called Jeremiah.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

False Prophets

/ rtrube54 / 6 Comments

Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_-_Jeremia_treurend_over_de_verwoesting_van_Jeruzalem_-_Google_Art_Project

Rembrant, Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem

I’ve been thinking about the question of how, in an era of “fake” news, “alternate facts,” and conflicting discourses, one discerns truth from falsehood. It is actually quite an important question, because few of us want to go down a wrong path or be deceived or deluded.

Warnings abound in the scriptures about false prophets along with instructions about how one may discern them. While many of today’s voices are not claiming to be prophets, they are attempting to convince people to believe a certain narrative, and to respond in certain ways based on that belief. They may not claim the label, but they are functioning in the role, even if they do not invoke religious language.

One passage on which I have particularly reflected is Jeremiah 6: 13-15

13 “From the least to the greatest,
all are greedy for gain;
prophets and priests alike,
all practice deceit.
14 They dress the wound of my people
as though it were not serious.
‘Peace, peace,’ they say,
when there is no peace.
15 Are they ashamed of their detestable conduct?
No, they have no shame at all;
they do not even know how to blush.

I notice at least several things here that bear on our contemporary concerns:

  1. Do people have a significant financial interest that is tied to their message? In today’s world, this could come in the form of significant followings that garner advertising dollars, or campaign contributions, or donations to a cause, or a business seeking an “inside” or “preferred” track.
  2. The fact that a person is in a religious office or invokes religious language does not mean their message is true. Jesus warns of “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matthew 7:15). Jesus actually describes them as ravenous wolves. Sadly, religious offices and language can be used to exploit people for one’s own purposes or gratification.
  3. Is there a demonstrable pattern of deceit on the part of the speaker, apart from their message? Jeremiah says that they “practice deceit.” In Jeremiah 23:14 (NRSV), Jeremiah describes the false prophets of Jerusalem as “walking in lies.” As children, we may have been taught that when we tell a lie, we make it harder for someone to know if we are telling the truth. If there is a demonstrable pattern of lying in action and deed, we should be even more reluctant to credit a message from such a person as truthful.
  4. They refrain from confronting hard truths that point out flaws, indeed sins, in their hearers lives, or minimize their seriousness. I’ve written elsewhere (and prior to our current administration) that we have dressed the wounds of racism and our treatment of native peoples as though these were not serious national sins. False prophets assure us that there is nothing really wrong with us, that we are all basically good people, and that no serious amendment of our lives is required. Sometimes, such messages are accompanied with the scapegoating of others who are “them,” outsiders in some way on whom we may conveniently place all the blame.
  5. They tell us life will be all right, that we will have peace, even if we are in imminent danger. That’s what we want to hear, after all, isn’t it? In Jeremiah’s day, people were longing for liberation from the yoke of the superpower, Babylon, and the false prophets said it was coming soon. Jeremiah took to wearing a wooden yoke to symbolize this domination. When a false prophet broke the yoke, Jeremiah replied that God would replace that yoke with one of iron (Jeremiah 28).
  6. They are shameless. Dictionary.com offers the following synonyms for shameless: brash, wanton, improper, bold, rude, audacious, flagrant, brazen, outrageous, high-handed, unabashed, immoral, unprincipled, abandoned, arrant, barefaced, brassy, cheeky, depraved, dissolute. While the term “hypocrite” is not on this list, the fact that the moral character of these people is distorted enough that they flaunt what most people are ashamed of means we should not look for truth from this person.

It is noteworthy that Jeremiah, and other true prophets like Elijah, were far outnumbered by false prophets. It’s not popular, and sometimes dangerous, to tell the truth. Indeed, one thing that may distinguish true prophets from the false, is that their message has been personally costly (as opposed to the “gain” of false prophets).

Scripture provides two other important criteria that distinguish false prophets.

  1. A prophet is false if what they prophesy does not come to pass (Deuteronomy 18:21-22). No matter our efforts to defy or deny reality, in the end, we either live by its truth or find ourselves false to our loss. We may say gravity does not exist, but our denial of its reality will be readily and lethally exposed if we step into the air from a tenth story window.
  2. Prophets are false even if what they prophesy comes to pass if they lead us to believe in what is no god (Deuteronomy 13:1-5). For the Christian, if a message invites us to put ultimate allegiance and trust in anyone or anything else than the Triune God of holy love and saving grace through Christ, whether it be ourselves, a political party or figure, a religious teacher, or anything else, that message is false.

I’m not going to point fingers, and I would ask in commenting that you refrain from this as well. Usually, we don’t point fingers at those whose messages we listen to, but rather at the “other guys.” What I might suggest instead is that we use the criteria above to honestly evaluate those to whom we listen. What matters most is that we discern whether those we listen to are telling us the truth. If we are people who teach, or blog, or editorialize, and seek to persuade others, we do well to examine ourselves by these criteria.

At the end of the day, to build our lives, or to build our nation on lies is a perilous undertaking. To speak falsehoods is even more perilous. Jesus warns that on the day of judgment we will give an account for every careless word (Matthew 12:36). He warns that if our words or lives cause a “little one” to stumble, it would be better to have a millstone around our neck and drown ourselves in the ocean than face God’s reckoning (Matthew 18:6).

This is not a game.