Tuesday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Jeremiah 14:17-22

This passage was written during a period of death and famine in Jerusalem preceding the Babylonian captivity in 587 BC. It is also a response to Yahweh’s anger against false prophets who are raising expectations among the people that they are not going to experience “sword” and “famine”. In fact, they are going to experience that and more. Jeremiah, as a true prophet, will not raise such expectations, but however unpopular his words, will warn them of what is coming, and why. This won’t make him very popular; real prophets seldom are.

As written, however, today’s passage is another lovely reading full of compassion and tenderness. There is no anger in God’s words today against his people. Rather he is presented as deeply upset over their sufferings. Through the prophet, God says:

Let my eyes run down with tears night and day…for the virgin daughter of my people is struck down with a crushing blow…

The “daughter” is Jerusalem. Everywhere God sees people in the countryside killed by the sword, and in the city sick with hunger. Even the prophets and priests, who would normally be supported by the people, are reduced to foraging for food “throughout the land [about which they] have no knowledge”. All are at their wits’ end.

Jeremiah then expresses his own distress at what is happening and wonders what the Lord is doing about it. He asks:

Have you completely rejected Judah?
Does your heart loathe Zion?
Why have you struck us down
so that there is no healing for us?

It is the cry of a people deep in despair at their never-ending sufferings and who lament:

We look for peace but find no good,
for a time of healing, but there is terror instead.

At the same time, the prophet acknowledges that his people are in no way innocent. They have brought their own tribulations on themselves:

We acknowledge our wickedness, O Lord…
for we have sinned against you.

But the prophet reminds the Lord that they are his own people and, for his own Name’s sake, he prays that they not be rejected:

…remember and do not break your covenant with us.

Their suffering and shame somehow reduces the glory of their God, especially in the eyes of Gentiles. Who could honour a God who allows his people to suffer in this way?

But it takes two to make a covenant, and its observance depends on both sides keeping their promise. He is their God, but they are his people and must show it by their behaviour. This they have miserably failed to do.

The prophet concludes by appealing to the unique power of their God:

Can any idols of the nations bring rain,
or can the heavens give showers?

We remember the challenge that Elijah made to the priests of Baal about breaking a drought (see Exod 18:25-29). Only Yahweh can bring the longed-for rain:

Is it not you, O Lord our God?
We set our hope on you,
for it is you who do all this.

We see here, on the one side, the picture of the tender God who cares so deeply for his people. This was all so graphically illustrated by the life of Jesus, our God incarnate. We must never forget it.

On the other side, during times of tragedy, pain, loss or distress it is easy for us to wonder if our God really does care, when he allows such terrible things to happen to us or to our loved ones. But it is precisely at such times we need to be aware of the closeness of God’s love to us. His love for us was most clearly shown as Jesus hung dying in terribly agony and shame on the Cross. Paul writing to the Romans said:

He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us… (Rom 8:32)

And Jesus himself cried out:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mark 15:34)

The words died on his lips and were followed by total acceptance when he said:

It is finished. (John 19:30)

And he surrendered his life into his Father’s hands. That was the moment of supreme love, the moment of new life and glory.

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Monday of Week 17 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Jeremiah 13:1-11

Today’s passage presents the symbol of the “linen loincloth”. It describes, not something that actually happened, but a symbolic vision. The meaning is clear: Israel, whom Yahweh had fastened as close to himself as a loincloth round his waist, had broken away and contracted the corruption of Babylonian idolatry. Not infrequently the prophets like to present the Lord’s message in the form of symbolic images, something like parables.

The prophet is told by Yahweh to purchase a linen loincloth and put it round his waist and he does so. Linen was the material from which the robes of the priests were made and was symbolic of Israel’s holiness as a “priestly kingdom” (Exod 19:6). So the linen loincloth or belt was a symbol of the formerly close relationship between God and his people. Jeremiah is also told not to put the loincloth in water, a symbol perhaps of the sinful pride of Judah, which did not want to be washed clean.

Later Jeremiah is told to take the loincloth around his waist and to hide it in a hole in a rock near the Perath, another name for the River Euphrates. The river Euphrates, which flowed through Babylonia, is here a symbol of the corrupting Assyrian and Babylonian influences, which began during the reign of Ahaz and which brought about Judah’s abandonment of Yahweh for the idols of their conquerors.

The Perath may, however, refer to the town of Parah (see Joshua 18:21-24), which was near the modern Wadi Farah, three miles northeast of Anathoth (Jeremiah’s birthplace). Since in other contexts the Hebrew for Perath refers to the river Euphrates, it serves as an appropriate symbol of the corrupting Assyrian and Babylonian influence on Judah that began during the reign of Ahaz. It is more likely that Jeremiah would have been told to put the loincloth in a place easily accessible to him. In any case, the symbol has the same connotation.

Jeremiah hides the loincloth, as instructed. After a considerable length of time, Yahweh tells the prophet to retrieve the loincloth. The hiding of the loincloth for a long time beside the river represents the period of exile of the Jewish people in Babylon.

When Jeremiah found it, it had become filthy dirty and was fit for nothing, least of all to be worn. Clearly it had become dirty from contamination with the place where it was concealed. The meaning of the symbol of the loincloth is then spelt out clearly. The people of the southern kingdom of Judah and its capital Jerusalem are going to be punished for their arrogance and pride:

Thus says the Lord…I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own will and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing.

That had not been God’s idea originally. He had wanted the whole House of Judah to be in a close and intimate relationship with him, just as a loincloth clings to a man’s waist. God says they were to:

…be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory.

Unfortunately, in their arrogance and pride, they refused to listen. Now they will pay the price for their infidelity. They will be carried away by the very creators of the idols they worshipped.

Once again we are being asked to reflect on the idols in our own lives. What are the things, the desires and the ambitions which come between us and our relationship with God? Do we try to compromise, to sit on the fence, to try to have our cake and eat it? Do we try at the same time to serve God and ‘mammon’—something Jesus said was impossible?

Where your treasure is, there your heart is too, Jesus said on another occasion. Where and what is my treasure in life? How close am I to my God and his ways?

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