“Weary Prophets”
“O Lord, you have deceived me, and I was deceived; you are
stronger than I, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock
all the day; everyone mocks me….If I say, ‘I will not
mention the Lord, or speak any more in the name of the Lord,’
there is in my heart as it were a burning fire, shut up in my bones,
and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”
These are the words of a weary and frustrated prophet, who was sick
to death of speaking God’s message to people that did not want
to hear it. When he first heard the call, Jeremiah wanted to refuse.
“Not me, please, Lord—I’m too young, I don’t
know how to say it, they’ll never listen, they’ll hate
me…” He already sensed the challenges he would have to
face, above all the fact that—like Cassandra in the Iliad—he
would always prophesy truly and never be believed. But God wouldn’t
leave him alone, and Jeremiah was driven by the Spirit to ceaselessly
denounce his country’s injustice, infidelity, and false confidence
in the face of an even more powerful oppressor. Sometimes he used
fiery words, sometimes guerilla theater with delightful props like
wooden yokes and dirty underwear. Jeremiah was condemned as a traitor
by the ruling elite. He was ridiculed by other prophets whose candy-coated
words promised peace without justice. He was beaten, put in the stocks,
tossed in jail, and thrown into an empty cistern to die. And when
he couldn’t take it anymore, he tried to turn in his resignation--to
stop speaking the Word in his heart-- but he found that he couldn’t.
It burned inside him until it had to come out. So he burst out with
lament, even rage, not just at his persecutors but at the demanding
God who wouldn’t let him watch people suffer the results of
their own foolishness without a fight. And once Jeremiah spent enough
time pouring out his feelings to God and to his faithful scribe and
friend Baruch, he found they eased and shifted. Jeremiah knew once
again the confidence to speak his truth. He rediscovered his trust
that God was with him, and took up once more his destined task of
trying to challenge and comfort his beloved, frustrating people.
Thank goodness that Jeremiah’s story has been handed down to
give us courage, because if you’re like me it can sometimes
feel exhausting and impossible to persist in words and actions of
truth and justice. It is hard to keep confronting a government bent
on taking from the poor to give to the rich, squandering its young
people’s lives in an unjust and failing war, and engaging in
torture even as it claims moral leadership of the “free world.”
It is hard to keep confronting a church that denies the gifts and
call of so many of its members, that fights reform and perpetuates
outmoded power structures, that seems to have come so far from the
words and example of our brother Jesus. Sometimes I just get weary,
and I want to turn in my resignation.
Jesus too faced rejection and suffering for his prophetic words; he
fought the temptation to back down or sell out; and his mission seemed
to end in failure. He was cut down by political and religious structures
that claimed to speak with divine authority, while often being deaf
to the life giving inspirations of the Spirit. And the first generation
of Christians to proclaim his resurrection and his message often found
a similar skepticism. Those from a Jewish background, like the community
that gave us tonight’s Gospel in the tradition of Matthew, were
especially frustrated. So many of their sisters and brothers saw Jesus
as just one more failed messiah. The new movement grew with the addition
of Gentiles—but at the cost of abandoning so many beloved laws
and customs, and ultimately being rejected as apostate Jews by their
own people. So Matthew’s anxious and embattled community clung
to, combined, and elaborated Jesus words’ warning his disciples
of the persecution they would face into a baffling mix of loving encouragement
and chilling threats. “Proclaim your truth from the housetops,
don’t be afraid, the hairs of your head are all numbered.”
And “fear the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell”
and “everyone who denies me before others, I also will deny
before my God who is in heaven.”
Is this the Jesus who was attacked for his ceaseless love and welcome
to all kinds of outsiders, even notorious sinners? These horrifying
words sound more like a 1950s nun from one of my aunt Mara’s
stories, who constantly worried about the possibility of a Communist
takeover. She told stories of the first Christians facing down lions
and gladiators, and reminded the children that they too must be prepared
to defend their faith at any cost. “Imagine that the Communists
have come, children. Remember, they hate anyone who believes in God.
They line up your mother and father, and your little brothers and
sisters, against the wall of your house. They are going to shoot them
all, unless you deny Christ. What are you going to do?” Perplexed
silence filled the classroom, and every arm remained glued to a little
side—except Mara’s. She knew exactly what Jesus would
want her to do, and flung her hang into the air enthusiastically.
The teacher smiled with an approving nod—until she heard Mara’s
confident answer: “I’d deny Christ, Sister!” If
we take the words of tonight’s Gospel literally, that little
girl’s compassion for her family would lead her to burn in hell—and
I’m sure that Sister wasted no time in pointing that out.
I don’t know whether Jesus, in a moment of frustration, actually
spoke the harsh words attributed to him in tonight’s Gospel—or
whether they reflect the pain and betrayal felt by Matthew’s
persecuted community when some of those who had joined the struggling
new group backed down when the price became too high. I do know, as
we all know from our own experience, that doing what is right and
good often comes at a high price. The labor of giving life itself
is amazing joy mixed with literal blood, sweat and tears. Excelling
in our chosen vocations can call for much dedication and sacrifice.
Moving toward a promising new home means letting go of the blessings
of the old one. And opening our heart to love another person, or a
community, means becoming vulnerable to pain when the time comes,
as it always does in some form, to say goodbye. I also know, as we
all do, that there are hard times that stretch beyond these forms
of life-giving challenge. Sometimes suffering becomes so long, so
intense, and so disproportionate to any fruit borne that it becomes
destructive and isolating. It can cause us to question our own goodness,
and God’s, and to lash out in resentment against those who have
helped cause—or even those who seem to be spared from—such
unutterable anguish. I think it is this level of pain and betrayal
that led to these bitter Gospel words promising denial for denial.
And I think it is leading our own country to respond to terrorist
atrocities with escalation and vengeance, tempting us to become the
very thing we hate and condemn.
Is there a way out of this cycle of pain and bitterness? There are
a lot of answers that don’t work, some of them seductive in
their apparent spirituality and virtue. But trying to shove down these
intense, unacceptable feelings with sheer willpower, or run away from
them with denial masquerading as faith, doesn’t work in the
long run. Rage that is suppressed just resurfaces, and one of its
most dangerous forms is judgement and rejection of people different
from ourselves, often cloaked in religious and moral justifications.
In my own wrestling with these demons, I have found great strength
in two things: honest engagement with God in prayer, and honest sharing
with sisters and brothers in community. Jeremiah and Hagar and Job
and so many of our ancestors in faith, did not pray sentimental Hallmark
prayers. They cried out to God, complained to God, even cursed at
God—and found in God’s patient, compassionate listening
an affirmation that the fears of rejection and aloneness are lies,
which flee like shadows in the morning light. They also did not face
their struggles alone. I doubt Jeremiah could have stayed the course
without Baruch to pull him out of the cistern, clean off the mud,
listen to his fury, and bring out a ready pen when Jeremiah was ready
to go back into the ring and dictate the next message.
There are a host of ways that we can give each other this kind of
support through the dark nights, and they go far beyond what can happen
in one hour a week of liturgy, and perhaps another half hour of hospitality.
We can connect in person, on the phone, by email. We can pray for
healing and strength. We can listen with the patience and compassion
and warrior’s courage it takes to feel and face this level of
anguish in ourselves and one another. But our brief time together
on Sunday nights is a precious and important part of this process
of transformation, and its power lasts far beyond when the table has
been cleared and the words of the homily forgotten. When we tell the
stories and break the Bread, we engage in anamnesis--living memory--memory
so powerful that it brings us into the real presence of God-in-Christ
and one another. And when we leave this assembly, we carry deep in
our bodies and spirits the love of God-in-Christ and of one another.
We carry within us the strength to share that love, whatever the twists
and turns of our journey, as we walk toward our reunion at the joyous
banquet that awaits everyone when this weary world will be made new.
