Jeremiah 4:11-28

Pentecost +17 - Year C 

Jeremiah 4:11-28

Even though it is difficult to break beyond your experience, the values of your community, the paradigms handed to you, to not do so can lead to writhing in soul pain. This is especially true when it comes to major symbols of meaning. Here to proclaim against Jerusalem is to call into question all that is holy. After all, isn’t Jerusalem the sign of religious exceptionalism—our G*D is not only an awesome G*D, but a winning G*D and, did I mention, my G*D.

Those who can only live within current power structures are known as court prophets who tell one another about the way it should be, which is how is currently is, without attending to any cloud on the horizon. A common but ultimately false way to live. We have so many court prophets that we are empty, empty of understanding.

A very neat thing about this passage is that even though all considered holy is abandoned, it is not a full end. Yes, an end, but a necessary beginning point to shed the accretion of lies (especially those mini-truths that go just a tad beyond what can actually be known) that have deafened us to the full range of gifts that can move a community forward. Eventually we will be able to hear all of creation is holy without breaking it into rankings of this is holy, that is less holy, and that isn’t holy at all.

Start mourning now for a next end in your life. It will be as final as final can be. You won’t be able to go back again. Yet (what a wonderful word) Yet this is not a full end, but a final reality that pushes us to journey onward. If you have mourned well, your ears will open to a real and less far-off hymn that hails a new creation.