For those who want a change from the Gospel

Trinity 2 – Jeremiah 20:7-13 (Related)

I love a good courtroom drama, and my wife and I particularly love Judge John Deed (I think my wife particularly loves him!) I’m always struck by the swearing in of witnesses, who have to promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I wonder whether as Christians we do the same thing when we give witness to our faith?

Some readers may know that I’m in the final stages of doctoral studies which has meant a lot of thinking about charismatic-type worship, and in particular some analysis of what it is we’re singing in our worship songs. One of the common critiques of the worship-song culture is that it can paint the Christian life as rosy all the time. When we’re in God’s presence all our problems disappear; we’re walking in faith and victory; and there’s no guilt nor fear when we draw near – that kind of thing. Well Jeremiah could never be accused of such triumphalism!

In today’s OT reading we see an incredible outpouring of emotion by the prophet. Just have another look at what he’s saying about his relationship with God. The first, and most damning critique is that God has deceived him – we mentioned this a couple of weeks ago. God has played a nasty trick on him, lied to him in effect. As a result he is ridiculed, insulted, has become a reproach to all, especially his so-called friends, and what he wants to do above all is to run away. But even then he’s got no choice, because his prophetic calling burns like a fire within him, and he simply has no option but to keep on saying the very things which got him into this mess.

Some of us know the feeling. You try and do the right thing, and you get stick for it. I was bullied out of one parish in which I served, partly because I refused to collude with the ‘niceness’ which covered up problems and swept difficult issues under the carpet. Some of us have tried to maintain standards at work and got in trouble for it. Some of us may have blown whistles on wrong behaviour. And none of us has skin as thick or shoulders as broad as we’d like to think we have. And it hurts. Jeremiah moves on in v.11 but even then he is hardly an example of Christian charity – what keeps him going is the hope that one day God will raise his hand against his enemies, and they’ll stumble, fall and be completely and eternally shamed. No loving forgiveness there then.

Note also the amazing mood swings which Jeremiah exhibits. In v.7-10 he’s moaning about how awful he feels, then he’s holding out for the vengeance of God, then v.13 is a song of praise for the God who rescues him, and then in v.14, once again conveniently missed out by our lectionary, he’s cursing the day he was born. Hardly a picture of stability, and not often words which find their way into charismatic worship songs.

So what about us? How can this passage help us? Well, the liturgist in me recognises a form called ‘lament’, a well-known formula used often, for example in the Psalms, to get things off our chests. The formula is pretty standard: you complain against God, you explain why, but then you express your trust in him anyway, whether you feel it or not, as a way of defying what’s going on in the face of what you actually believe (or want to believe) about God. It’s raw, it’s painful and it’s real, and we don’t do nearly enough of it in Christian worship. We might be telling the truth when we sing about our wonderful lives of faith and victory, but we’re almost certainly not telling the whole truth. Or alternatively our worship is constantly so grovelly and miserable that we never break through to the praise: both are equally destructive. Today Jeremiah gives us permission to be miserable, to experience mental health issues, to feel abandoned and ashamed, but he also points us to the God who is, believe it or not, faithful and who will, in the end, vindicate us.