Lent 27

I had a nice chat with The Pastor Next Door (everyone should have A Pastor Next Door - I highly recommend it for theological insight and lawn mowing help) yesterday about this pesky Jesus of ours and my Lenten readings. He helpfully explained how necessary the Old Testament is for understanding the New Testament, which I've certainly noticed over the course of these readings. He pointed out how much of what Jesus is saying in an enacting of judgement against the Pharisees. It was good to remember that.

It did leave a bit of a gap for me though. Understanding what Jesus was doing then makes it harder for me to figure out what Jesus is doing now. Reading Jeremiah and knowing he was talking to Israel is super, but one has to wonder who is God talking to now? Because don't we believe that God is still talking? This can become a bit of a wormhole for me and I'm loathe to travel too far down this road, but still, the question ought to be asked, right?

Probably, like most things, someone else knows the answer. And it's not super-smart to rely on what I know for the answer. This would be on the list of reasons it's wise to do faith in community - do it with The Pastor Next Door, do it with The Church I Am In, and do it in The Church Worldwide. When we do it solo, we've only got our own understanding, but of course we're not supposed to lean on our own understanding, right? The broader community listens and hears and points to what God is doing, and who God is, to confirm and affirm who we are figuring out God to be.

While I figure that out, I think I will also have to think more about whether or not my heart is letting sin die, and whether or not I'm doing anything about the other idols I've built to worship. That is really the heart of this Lent, and even of the conversation I had with Andy. Jesus is pointing out over and over, that the leaders of the day were like the idols themselves, deaf and blind. If I can't see or hear, ought I not wonder about whether or not I am still trying to listen to an idol instead of to God?

Lord, teach me your power and might, that I will know your name is Lord.

Jeremiah 16:10-21

New International Version (NIV)

¹⁰ “When you tell these people all this and they ask you, ‘Why has the Lord decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against the Lord our God?’ ¹¹ then say to them, ‘It is because your ancestors forsook me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook me and did not keep my law. ¹² But you have behaved more wickedly than your ancestors. See how all of you are following the stubbornness of your evil hearts instead of obeying me. ¹³ So I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your ancestors have known, and there you will serve other gods day and night, for I will show you no favor.’
¹⁴ “However, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when it will no longer be said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt,’ ¹⁵ but it will be said, ‘As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them.’ For I will restore them to the land I gave their ancestors.
¹⁶ “But now I will send for many fishermen,” declares the Lord, “and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt them down on every mountain and hill and from the crevices of the rocks. ¹⁷ My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes. ¹⁸ I will repay them double for their wickedness and their sin, because they have defiled my land with the lifeless forms of their vile images and have filled my inheritance with their detestable idols.”

¹⁹ Lord, my strength and my fortress,
    my refuge in time of distress,
to you the nations will come
    from the ends of the earth and say,
“Our ancestors possessed nothing but false gods,
    worthless idols that did them no good.
²⁰ Do people make their own gods?
    Yes, but they are not gods!”

²¹ “Therefore I will teach them—
    this time I will teach them
    my power and might.
Then they will know
    that my name is the Lord.