June 22, 2014 – Jeremiah 20:7-13
Jeremiah 20:7-13
Shut Up and Pray
2nd Sunday after Pentecost [Lectionary 12] –June 22, 2014
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Is it shocking to you the way Jeremiah talks to God?
What we get in the first reading is just a little of how he lets God have it.
He’s got more to say to God right after our reading ends; he is not in a good place.
Curse the day I was born!
And curse the man who delivered the news to my father!
Let that birth notice be blacked out, deleted from the records,
and the man who brought it haunted to his death with the bad news he brought.
He should have killed me before I was born, with that tomb as my womb.
Why, oh why, did I ever leave that womb?
Life’s been nothing but trouble and tears and what’s coming is more of the same.
(Jeremiah 20:14-18, The Message)
And this is not the only place where Jeremiah talks in an outrageous way to God.
A few chapters earlier he is even more outraged:
Why is my pain unceasing, my wounds incurable, refusing to be healed? Truly, you [God] are to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail.(Jeremiah 15:18, NRSV)
This language sounds shocking to us, right?
But it’s also kind of refreshing.
And guess what? Jeremiah is not the only person to speak to God this way in the Bible.
At least 50 – or one third – of the Psalms speak to God in this way:
they are called the Psalms of Lament or Complaint.
Like Psalm 13: How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long must I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
The Book of Lamentations is an entire book of laments like this one:
Why have you forgotten us completely? Why have you forsaken us these many days?
We don’t speak this way very often in worship,
and probably even less so in our prayers lives at home.
Yet characters in the Bible speak this way frequently and often.
This morning I want to suggest that the good news is that we can too.
So let’s look at Jeremiah for a moment! Oh my goodness!
He lived 600 years before Jesus.
During the time of his ministry the great and mighty Babylonian empire began expanding,
and so little Judah’s existence was threatened.
It was then that Jeremiah started warning Israel about the threat;
he believed he had received these warning words from God.
But the people mocked him for uttering them.
Understandably, Jeremiah didn’t want to be mocked.
But when he determined not to speak the words that were given to him,
he felt something like a burning inside him until he spoke the words!
God insists that he speak; the people resist what he has to say.
As Old Testament Professor Terry Fretheim says, Jeremiah feels stuck between
an insistent God and a resistant people.(http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1944)
And so Jeremiah complains that
the very thing God calls him to do causes him tremendous suffering.
He is mocked by his friends. He is threatened with death by the Temple priests.
He is thrown down a well. And he is even thrown into prison for his trouble.
Why? Because he did what God asked him to do.
Why is a great question.
Why is this happening to me?
Why is this happening to my friend?
Why is this happening at all?
In my experience, most people assume there is a God or a force at work in the universe that
has some responsibility for the things they experience.
And they want to know why such a thing is happening to them or to someone they love.
I know because they often ask me why it is happening!
The thing is: I’m not really the best person to address the question to.
Jeremiah is inviting us this morning to consider that
the best person to address such questions to is God.
I have said before that it’s easy to fall into the trap of talking about God.
It’s easy for pastors because people assume we know all about God.
That’s what we went to seminary for, right?
That’s where we earned the most ridiculously named degree on the planet:
the Master of Divinity degree! The Master of Divinity!
Here it is right here(pull out degree): I must know everything there is to know about God:
It says so right here!
That’s just crazy, of course.
But it leads us into thinking that if you know a whole bunch of stuff about God
you will be just fine, like that is all you need to know or do.
The thing is: the Bible, at every turn, is just simply not about knowing about God.
The Bible is often about people, real people in very real and often very extreme situations, encountering God. Addressing God. Challenging God. Calling God to account.
They don’t talk about God. They talk to God!
Last week at Study Conference Rolf Jacobson from Luther Seminary talked a bit about
this kind of way of talking to God in the Bible.
And I love his description of the Psalms of lament – I just have to share this with you.
Basically this is how a Psalm of lament works:
My life sucks. You, God, are complicit in my life sucking.
Enemies and even friends mock me and ridicule me: this isolates me,
making my life suck even more.
So do something, or I am going to die!
You alone are God: so act like it!
And when you get me through this, I will praise you.
This morning I think Jeremiah is inviting us into a real relationship with God.
I mean, think about the relationships in your life.
If you have a meaningful relationship with someone, you don’t just talk about them.
I love talking about my boys, but that doesn’t constitute a relationship with them.
If you have friends, you need to do a lot more than just know about them and talk about them.
You need to invite them over for a drink.
You need to visit them in their homes.
You need to go see them when they’re in the hospital.
You need to just hang out with them.
And talk to them. And listen to them. And enjoy them. And suffer with them.
This is the kind of relationship with God Jeremiah is modelling for us this morning.
An honest relationship with honest communication.
God is alive, right? God is not a distant entity far away.
God is not a curiosity formeldahyded in a museum.
God wants us to say directly when we are hurting, and when we are not.
Jeremiah genuinely does have a lot to complain about.
But Jeremiah assumes that ultimately God can be trusted.
Yah: Jeremiah suffers a lot.
He is mocked, abandoned by his friends, ridiculed by his enemies, and threatened with death.
The thing is: what we learn about God in Jesus is that Jeremiah doesn’t suffer anything that
God in Jesus is also not willing to suffer.
What we learn about God in Jesus is that we don’t suffer anything that
God in Jesus is not also willing to undergo.
God in Jesus is a god you can trust.
God in Jesus is a god you can bring your complaints to.
God in Jesus is a god you can request help from.
God in Jesus is a god you can address. Prayer is the best thing we can do.
So: as I’ve said before: when I’m with you in the hospital room,
and I’m putting my Master of Divinity degree to good use by talking all about God,
just look at me and address me with these words: “Just shut up and pray, pastor.”
Address God with me.
Let’s bring this to God.
Let’s talk to God about this.
Let’s invite God to be God.
And when God gets us through this, we’ll address God with words of praise and thanksgiving.
For we are children of a divine parent who has promised to
look after us and hear us when we pray.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
