“For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and a derision all day long.”
Jeremiah 20:8
It was probably in a college English class where I first heard the term. A jeremiad is a “complaining tirade in a tone of grief or distress.” It’s a word that alludes to the oracles of the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. Often referred to as the “weeping prophet” Jeremiah preached sermons that pointed to trouble on the horizon and invited people to adjust course to avoid disaster. When people saw Jeremiah set up on a street corner to deliver one of his messages, many crossed the street and passed by as quickly as they could on the other side. He was the preacher they loved to hate. After all, who wants to make a steady diet out of “complaining tirades in a tone of grief or distress.”
Jeremiads are not pleasant to listen to. While they tell truth, they do it in a way designed to increase our discomfort. They seek to highlight just how desperate the situation is and raise enough of a clamor to awaken us from a slumbering indifference so that we will rise up, change course and thereby head off certain doom. But the seeming hyperbole with which they are delivered often does little more than inspire an eye-rolling response. At worst, they make us want to shoot the messenger.
Such was the case with Jeremiah. He was given the nick name “Terror is on Every Side.” The phrase was Jeremiah’s chosen description of the status of Israel and became a phrase of derision that people spit back on him. “O there he goes again: terror is on every side. Please, can’t someone shut that alarmist up?” Jeremiah had the rather unenviable task of calling people back to God at a time when God seemed to have abandoned his people. The Chaldean armies had destroyed the walls and the temple of Jerusalem and taken most of the surviving leadership of the failed kingdom into exile in Babylon. Jeremiah had warned them of this impending doom and even after it happened people wanted little to do with him. But he continued to stand in that gap between God and God’s people and give witness to the truth of God’s desire for covenant relationship.
Jeremiah’s one big message was simply this: “Things are bad. You’ve been living a lie. It’s time to turn around and take in the Truth. Turn toward God. He hasn’t abandoned you. In spite of your exile, God is still with you. God will not let go of you.” It’s not easy to listen to and believe in a message of hope when all evidence seems suggests that despair is the better response. Enduring an exile is never easy work. When we feel like we are no longer at home and won’t be getting home any time soon, when we are surrounded by people who are not “our people”, when all of our familiar moorings have been severed, it’s hard to take solace in God’s assurance “I am with you to deliver you.”
It’s hard to relax into the promise of God’s steadfast love when we feel abandoned. It’s hard to rest confidently in God’s presence when all evidence suggests God is absent. But dealing with these kinds of feelings is not new to any of us. Exile is not an unfamiliar experience in the life of faith. And Jeremiah is not the only prophet in the Scriptures whose ministry is dedicated to helping us address this experience. In fact, it could be said that the task of turning our eyes toward God in times when he is hard to locate is pretty much the central task of our time together every week in worship. We gather to remember, to refocus, to encourage one another to turn away from all the invitations despair and scan the horizon for signs of God’s hope.
Almost six hundred years after Jeremiah, Peter answered the same prophetic call. Speaking to first century Christians who lived under the oppressive dominance of Rome, Peter delivered a similar invitation: “If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile.” (1 Pt. 1:17) “Finally, all of you have a unity of spirit, sympathy, love for one another, a tender heart and a humble mind. Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse; but on the contrary, repay with a blessing. It is for this that you were called—that you might inherit a blessing.” (1 Pt. 3:8).
There is great strength to be found in the silent and often invisible dedication to the simple tasks of loving God and loving neighbor. They are things that can be done irrespective of circumstances. Whether we are enduring chaos or enjoying stability, whether we are resting at home or struggling with an unwanted exile, we can scan the horizon for signs of God’s work and entrust our neighbors to that work. The storms in our immediate vicinity are real, and they may be with us for some time, but there is One who transcends our circumstances. Jeremiah says it well:
The thought of my affliction and homelessness is wormwood and gall!
My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind, and therefore have hope:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
God’s mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in God.”
(Lamentations 3:19-24)
David Rohrer
08/15/2022