Proper 20
Preaching
Preaching and Reading the Old Testament Lessons:
With an Eye to the New
This moving elegy is the passage from which the Negro spiritual, "There is a balm in Gilead," is taken, although that spiritual turns the negative questioning of verse 22 into a positive assurance of healing. But in Jeremiah's time, there is no healing for sinful Judah.
The poem follows immediately on those judgment pronouncements in Jeremiah that deal with the mysterious, transcendent "Foe from the North," 8:14-17 forming the last of those oracles. (For the others, see 4:5-8, 13-18, 29-31; 5:15-17; 6:1-8, 22-26.) In a prophetic vision, the prophet sees the imminent destruction of his beloved people at the hand of God, and he weeps, as Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44).
Jeremiah hears in his ears his people crying out in alarm (v. 19; cf. a similar hearing in 4:19-21). And he portrays the future desperate dialogue that the people will have with God. They will question why the God who dwells in the Holy of Holies on Mount Zion is attacking them, and God will reply that Judah has provoked him with their idols. The people will mourn that the summer -- the season of military adventure -- has brought them no ally's salvation (v. 20). And they will be wounded (v. 21). No healing balm from Gilead, famous for its medicinal cures, will be available. Sinful Judah will not be restored to health, but instead will be destroyed by the Babylonians and her people carried into exile, first in 597 B.C. and then decisively in 587 B.C. Jeremiah sees and hears it all in a vision of the future, and he is sick at heart (v. 18) and weeps day and night (9:1) over his people's coming ruin.
That which is so noteworthy in this passage is not the vision of Judah's future destruction; many passages announce that imminent fate. Rather, the prominent feature is Jeremiah's identification with his sinful people. When we witness the downfall of a wrongdoer, we are all too apt to gloat over his just punishment. Or when we know someone in the church who is nevertheless not acting in a Christian manner, we separate ourselves from her and consider ourselves righteous compared to her unrighteousness. Even some preachers fall victim to such pharisaism, considering themselves on God's side and the sinful and stubborn people on the other. Not Jeremiah, and not any of the prophets of the Old Testament. They know themselves to be bound up in the bundle of life with their sinful folk, and they share the misery of that faithless people. Indeed, they suffer first in their own lives the judgment that is coming upon Israel. And so Jeremiah's heart is broken before Judah's is wounded.
The further fact is that Jeremiah's grief is not only his, but also God's. God has no pleasure in the death of anyone (Ezekiel 18:32). When he sees that "the imagination of the thoughts of (our) hearts" are "only evil continually," his reaction is not wrath, but grief (Genesis 6:6). And when Jesus foresees the future destruction of Jerusalem, he mourns, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... How oft would I ... and ye would not" (Luke 13:34). There therefore follows our text in Jeremiah, two verses in which God, in his weariness with his sinful people, mourns their evil ways (Jeremiah 9:2-3). Not only Jeremiah's heart is stricken, but also God's -- that great heart of mercy that wants so very much only our good. And Jeremiah's tears are the tears of the God who loves us beyond all our imagining.
Lutheran Option: Amos 8:4-7
It has often been said that commercialism has become the dominant note in American society. Our primary goal in life has become the accumulation of wealth, in order that we may buy more things that will give us comfort and status. Most families now are two-worker families, because a high standard of living cannot be maintained without two paychecks. And without that standard we are not considered successful or important. The "beautiful people" are those who capture our interest, because they can afford to live in luxury -- witness the television program about the lives of the rich and famous. We admire those who have money, and every year we read, sometimes with envy, the list of the wealthiest Americans. Making money is the national goal, our bottom line for life.
Human beings change very little over the centuries, and that was the goal of the merchants in Amos' eighth century B.C. Israelite society also. Indeed, they were impatient with anything that prevented them from making a shekel. Especially were they impatient and vexed over Israel's worship days when commerce was not allowed.
Most of our shopping malls are now open for business on Sundays, but that was not the case in Israel. Times of worship were still days of rest from labor in Israel -- days when everyone could enjoy the cessation from work that God gave in his mercy from the beginning (cf. Exodus 20:8-11; 23:12; 34:21, etc.). And that the merchants of ancient Israel did not approve. They muttered over the New Moon festival rests at the beginning of every month, and they did not like every seventh day sabbath of rest. They wanted to sell and accumulate money. They were very much like us.
More than that, the merchants of the northern kingdom were so intent on adding to their wealth that they cheated those who bought from them. They made the ephah, that forty-liter measure of grain, smaller than its standard, and they made the shekel, the 11.5 gram weight on the balance scale, heavier so that more silver would have to be paid to them. They even bent the balance scale out of shape in order to cheat their customers.
The result was that poor people in their society could not afford to buy food without falling into debt and being sold into slavery. With their ill-gotten gain, the cheating merchants could buy slaves for as little as a price of sandals, while some of the poor were reduced to scraping up the chaff and leavings on the threshing floor in order to have something to eat (v. 6).
All such practices violated Israel's law. From the earliest times, such dishonesty was specifically forbidden in the Torah (Leviticus 19:35-36; Deuteronomy 25:13-16) as an "abomination" to the Lord (Proverbs 11:1; 16:11; 20:10, 23). "You shall not steal," God commanded in the Decalogue (Exodus 20:15). Israel's sellers defied God's covenant command.
God, however, does not pass over our sinful ways or ignore our neglect of his just commands. In our text, he swears by "the pride of Jacob," ironically taking an oath by Israel's proud self-confidence (cf. Amos 5:18--6:14). God will not forget his people's sin, and as is announced at the beginning of Amos 8, an "end" will come upon Israel for her actions (cf. 7:8; 8:2). Her ten northern tribes will be carried into Assyrian exile in 721 B.C. and disappear from history. God will have done with their defiance of his lordship.
The poem follows immediately on those judgment pronouncements in Jeremiah that deal with the mysterious, transcendent "Foe from the North," 8:14-17 forming the last of those oracles. (For the others, see 4:5-8, 13-18, 29-31; 5:15-17; 6:1-8, 22-26.) In a prophetic vision, the prophet sees the imminent destruction of his beloved people at the hand of God, and he weeps, as Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41-44).
Jeremiah hears in his ears his people crying out in alarm (v. 19; cf. a similar hearing in 4:19-21). And he portrays the future desperate dialogue that the people will have with God. They will question why the God who dwells in the Holy of Holies on Mount Zion is attacking them, and God will reply that Judah has provoked him with their idols. The people will mourn that the summer -- the season of military adventure -- has brought them no ally's salvation (v. 20). And they will be wounded (v. 21). No healing balm from Gilead, famous for its medicinal cures, will be available. Sinful Judah will not be restored to health, but instead will be destroyed by the Babylonians and her people carried into exile, first in 597 B.C. and then decisively in 587 B.C. Jeremiah sees and hears it all in a vision of the future, and he is sick at heart (v. 18) and weeps day and night (9:1) over his people's coming ruin.
That which is so noteworthy in this passage is not the vision of Judah's future destruction; many passages announce that imminent fate. Rather, the prominent feature is Jeremiah's identification with his sinful people. When we witness the downfall of a wrongdoer, we are all too apt to gloat over his just punishment. Or when we know someone in the church who is nevertheless not acting in a Christian manner, we separate ourselves from her and consider ourselves righteous compared to her unrighteousness. Even some preachers fall victim to such pharisaism, considering themselves on God's side and the sinful and stubborn people on the other. Not Jeremiah, and not any of the prophets of the Old Testament. They know themselves to be bound up in the bundle of life with their sinful folk, and they share the misery of that faithless people. Indeed, they suffer first in their own lives the judgment that is coming upon Israel. And so Jeremiah's heart is broken before Judah's is wounded.
The further fact is that Jeremiah's grief is not only his, but also God's. God has no pleasure in the death of anyone (Ezekiel 18:32). When he sees that "the imagination of the thoughts of (our) hearts" are "only evil continually," his reaction is not wrath, but grief (Genesis 6:6). And when Jesus foresees the future destruction of Jerusalem, he mourns, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ... How oft would I ... and ye would not" (Luke 13:34). There therefore follows our text in Jeremiah, two verses in which God, in his weariness with his sinful people, mourns their evil ways (Jeremiah 9:2-3). Not only Jeremiah's heart is stricken, but also God's -- that great heart of mercy that wants so very much only our good. And Jeremiah's tears are the tears of the God who loves us beyond all our imagining.
Lutheran Option: Amos 8:4-7
It has often been said that commercialism has become the dominant note in American society. Our primary goal in life has become the accumulation of wealth, in order that we may buy more things that will give us comfort and status. Most families now are two-worker families, because a high standard of living cannot be maintained without two paychecks. And without that standard we are not considered successful or important. The "beautiful people" are those who capture our interest, because they can afford to live in luxury -- witness the television program about the lives of the rich and famous. We admire those who have money, and every year we read, sometimes with envy, the list of the wealthiest Americans. Making money is the national goal, our bottom line for life.
Human beings change very little over the centuries, and that was the goal of the merchants in Amos' eighth century B.C. Israelite society also. Indeed, they were impatient with anything that prevented them from making a shekel. Especially were they impatient and vexed over Israel's worship days when commerce was not allowed.
Most of our shopping malls are now open for business on Sundays, but that was not the case in Israel. Times of worship were still days of rest from labor in Israel -- days when everyone could enjoy the cessation from work that God gave in his mercy from the beginning (cf. Exodus 20:8-11; 23:12; 34:21, etc.). And that the merchants of ancient Israel did not approve. They muttered over the New Moon festival rests at the beginning of every month, and they did not like every seventh day sabbath of rest. They wanted to sell and accumulate money. They were very much like us.
More than that, the merchants of the northern kingdom were so intent on adding to their wealth that they cheated those who bought from them. They made the ephah, that forty-liter measure of grain, smaller than its standard, and they made the shekel, the 11.5 gram weight on the balance scale, heavier so that more silver would have to be paid to them. They even bent the balance scale out of shape in order to cheat their customers.
The result was that poor people in their society could not afford to buy food without falling into debt and being sold into slavery. With their ill-gotten gain, the cheating merchants could buy slaves for as little as a price of sandals, while some of the poor were reduced to scraping up the chaff and leavings on the threshing floor in order to have something to eat (v. 6).
All such practices violated Israel's law. From the earliest times, such dishonesty was specifically forbidden in the Torah (Leviticus 19:35-36; Deuteronomy 25:13-16) as an "abomination" to the Lord (Proverbs 11:1; 16:11; 20:10, 23). "You shall not steal," God commanded in the Decalogue (Exodus 20:15). Israel's sellers defied God's covenant command.
God, however, does not pass over our sinful ways or ignore our neglect of his just commands. In our text, he swears by "the pride of Jacob," ironically taking an oath by Israel's proud self-confidence (cf. Amos 5:18--6:14). God will not forget his people's sin, and as is announced at the beginning of Amos 8, an "end" will come upon Israel for her actions (cf. 7:8; 8:2). Her ten northern tribes will be carried into Assyrian exile in 721 B.C. and disappear from history. God will have done with their defiance of his lordship.
