If I hadn’t had a similar, though less lethal, experience, I probably wouldn’t relate to that scene in “The Godfather” where the old Mafioso tells the young boss how the traitor would try to kill him after his death. With me, we were in a nice restaurant in San Francisco (my executive editor and I) instead of the garden of a guarded fortress, and I wasn’t about to die literally (I’m still here), but I was going to be in Paris and London for a little over a week and I needed to prepare my colleague for some of the changes my publisher might try to institute during my absence and the arguments that might work to stave off changes that we both saw as counter-productive.
When I returned from London, my executive editor said, “It all happened just like you said it would. I gave him our rationale and some data I put together after our conversation, and they held off on all the changes but one.” I ducked my head. The one change they implemented would be the one that would cost the company the most. “I know,” he said, “but as soon as I protested, they said, ‘That’s Johnny talking. He’s always said that and we just don’t believe it.’”
I was exactly right. And when the executive who had made the bad decision tried to make me the scapegoat, I protested to another executive in New York who recognized that I had warned against this policy change and I survived a little longer. But I started looking for a new position! When I left, they replaced me with a “Yes man” who did everything they wanted. He didn’t last a year. The next replacement was one of the persons I had trained. He heard me. One year into the job, he came to me and said, “Everything you told me has come true. And every time I have tried to tell them it won’t work, they accuse me of being brainwashed by you—and they just won’t hear it, even when your predictions keep coming true.”
Now, my predictions as Editor-in-Chief of a national magazine (Computer Gaming World) didn’t come about due to supernatural knowledge. They came about from experienced observation. But even if I’d been able to tell them that I had a Word from the Lord, the old corporate warriors wouldn’t have listened to me. They only heard what they wanted to hear.
So, I can identify with Jeremiah even though I admit that my predictions weren’t on the same level. While the other prophets were saying that God would have to step in and protect Jerusalem because the temple was there, Jeremiah was saying that the temple didn’t matter at all if they weren’t obeying God who commanded them to built that temple. While the other prophets were saying that God wouldn’t allow the last two tribes of His special people to be sent into captivity, Jeremiah was prophesying the certainty of that captivity. But now, King Jehoiachin was taken into exile in Babylon and his uncle, Zedekiah, had been installed as a puppet by the King of Babylon.
But was Jeremiah honored for his prescience, his ability to predict what would happen, his integrity in presenting an authentic word while others were lying, and his faithfulness to God, the country’s only hope? No, he wasn’t. These people hated Jeremiah because he told them uncomfortable truths that they didn’t want to hear, but needed to hear. Unfortunately, no one likes the one who bears bad news.
13) And it happened that he was in the Gate of Benjamin and there was a captain (literally, lord) of the guards, and his name was Irijah (“Yahweh sees”), son of Shelemiah (“Yahweh restored”), son of Hananiah (“Yahweh is gracious”), and he then grabbed Jeremiah (“Yahweh lifts up”) the Prophet saying: “You’re going over to [literally, falling to] the Chaldeans.”
14) And Jeremiah immediately said, “That’s fraudulent [saying] that I am going over to [falling to] the Chaldeans.” But Irijah wouldn’t listen to him and he grabbed Jeremiah and he brought him to the officials [literally, the princes].
15) And the princes were hostile toward Jeremiah and, as a result, gave him into the prison [literally “house of bonds”], the house of Jonathan (“Yahweh gave”) the Scribe, BECAUSE they had made it a house of restraint.
16) Because Jeremiah came to the House of the Cistern and a vaulted room [perhaps, an underground cave/dungeon?] and Jeremiah stayed there many days.
In this chapter, Jeremiah is accused of being a deserter. In the next chapter (38:4), he is accused of being a traitor. Isn’t it ironic that all of these people with names that suggest they are devoted to Yahweh God are unanimously against Yahweh’s prophet? I think it is, but I also consider it a warning to those of us who want to be God’s witnesses in the modern age. Many times, even those we think of as believers, will fail to stand with us when we speak God’s Truth. Many times, co-workers or fellow-students will give in to an unethical policy at work or participate in outright blasphemy and Christianity-bashing at school. Sometimes, it leaves us feeling lonely or vulnerable. I think this passage ought to help us realize that we aren’t the first who tried to be true to God’s message and, as a result, find ourselves feeling isolated and vulnerable.
It’s also interesting to note the accusation. Jeremiah is accused of going over to the enemy. The Hebrew verb used is “falling to” and has the idea of someone who has lost heart in the battle and decided to serve the enemy by default. In terms of the political accusation, it’s a lot like those right-wing talk-show hosts in the early days of this latest Iraqi war who accused everyone who questioned the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq of being traitors, conciliators of our enemies.
For those of us in the church, the New Israel, we face an enemy who spreads lies about the gospel, the essence of our faith, and our history as believers. When we try to suggest an ethical standard, a promise of life beyond the earthly limits of space and time, or the existence of a definite path to salvation (Jesus), we are accused as falsely as Jeremiah. We are accused of being deserters to science, society, and sensibility. We are accused of being so “superstitious” that we are roadblocks to progress and understanding. We are accused of being so hostile to sinners and other faiths that we are like hydroelectric dams, keeping the flow of diversity and good will from the rest of our society. We are accused of abandoning rationality and blindly (or even blithely) following a demented hierarchy of religious authorities. And it isn’t just the antichristian message of Dawkins and Hitchens that makes these accusations. Everyone who has ever suggested that heaven is real, sin causes destruction, and Jesus is the way to salvation has faced mockery, hostility, and the accusation of being narrow- or closed-minded.
Jeremiah was placed in a scribe’s household where the house had been refurbished as a prison. The first time the place is mentioned, it is described as a house of bonds and the next two times as a house of restraint. They amount to the same thing, of course, however the use of the two different words suggests that there may have been degrees of confinement within that institution and that Jeremiah must have been taken to a deeper level. In fact, the idea that he was taken to the location of the cistern and that there was a curved or vaulted ceiling suggests an underground cell or dungeon to me (as does his later request to the “king” not to send him back there to die).
I hear you protesting that modern believers aren’t usually placed in prison for sharing God’s Word unless they live in the former or current Communist countries. To be sure, some of my students from Belarus have faced prison from the authorities (and the charges were pretty trumped up like meeting in a place not zoned for public meetings [in this case, a restaurant’s banquet room before it opened for business on Sunday] or having a service in an apartment) and some of the pastors in Europe and Canada have faced jail time or fines for “hate speech” when they spoke against homosexuality. Still, you are probably saying to yourself that we live in the “land of the free” and don’t face that kind of persecution.
But there are “dungeons” or “houses of restraint” in our society, too! Many believers have been passed over for promotion or harassed at work because they were too overtly Christian. Many believing scientists have been ostracized by their colleagues because their belief in intelligent design is perceived as “unscientific.” Some believers are uninvited to group gatherings because they are perceived as “party poopers.” And, let’s not get too complacent about how free our country is, with all of the uptight, reactionary negativism to Christian symbolism in public buildings and in Christmas celebration, don’t think that there isn’t a sizeable minority who would like to see church steeples outlawed as safety hazards and public nuisances, public prayer of any kind outlawed, or churches required to pay taxes on property that has been set aside to God (and that presumably performs a public service without the requirement of bigger government to oversee it). Many believers are in the dungeon of a stunted career or broken relationships because they stood up for God’s Truth in a world of relativism.
17) And then, Zedekiah (“Yah is my righteousness”) the King sent and they took him and the king sought counsel of him in his house in secret; and he then said, “Is there a word from Yahweh?” And then, Jeremiah said, “There is. And He said, ‘You shall be given into the hand of the King of Babylon.’”
18) And then, Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, “How have I sinned against you or against your servants or against this people because you gave me to them to [put in] prison [literally, house of restraint]?
19) Where are your prophets who prophesied to you saying, ‘The King of Babylon won’t come to you and to this land’?
Now, it’s interesting that the Bible keeps referring to KING Zedekiah. The first verse of Jeremiah 37 makes it clear that the “real” king has been carried off into captivity and that Zedekiah rules at the whim of King Nebuchadnezzar (outside the Bible, usually written as King Nebuchadrezzar). Yes, Zedekiah’s claim to legitimacy in power is not tied to God’s approval as when, in Psalm 2, the king is referred to as God’s adopted son. Rather, Zedekiah’s claim is based on the same tyrant who threw three young Hebrew men (Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah) into a furnace of fire. Yet, Jeremiah is the one who has supposed to have gone over to the Babylonians? Jeremiah is the deserter and traitor? Once again, the guys at the top aren’t held to the same standard as those more ordinary.
Yet, Jeremiah is the more legitimate authority in this situation. That boggles our human understanding. We’re used to thinking that success, trappings of power, human accreditation or certification, or titles guarantee authority. One of my deans in Atlanta used to introduce me as the instructor who “wrote the book” on the subject I was teaching (History of Games and Game Design was the course and High Score: An Illustrated History of Electronic Games was the book—don’t ask if you don’t want a long story!). Yet, I am often humbled by students who know more about certain aspects of that history than I do. Just writing the book didn’t always make me “the authority” on the subject.
So, as Walter Brueggemann makes clear in his The Creative Word: Canon as a Model for Biblical Education, “We are accustomed to thinking there is some match-up between the substance of truth and the structures of authority.” (p. 44) However, he goes on to say that in this case (Jeremiah 37), “The leader of the authority structure no longer has access to the truth.” (p. 44) The old structure now has to admit that its old answers aren’t good enough, the old ways aren’t sufficient. Judah needs a new word from the Lord.
Imagine, if you will, a king in his fine robes surrounded by his royal guards and all of the magnificent furnishings usually present in a royal palace. But this king is as desperate as Richard III when he cries, “My kingdom for a horse!” He’s reaching out for whatever he can get in order to succeed and survive. He knows Jeremiah by reputation. He knows that Jeremiah has a clear channel with God. He knows that Jeremiah will be a straight shooter with him and that if there is any word of hope, Jeremiah will share it regardless of past grievances.
One who has been hostile to the message now comes as a beggar for that word that might pronounce rescue and salvation, that word from the Lord such as King Hezekiah had received when the Assyrian general, Sennacherib, had Jerusalem under siege. “Is there any word from the Lord, from Yahweh, from God Whom We Know Personally?” is his question.
Here’s why this message is burning inside me! I believe that if we are faithful to God’s Word, if we strive to live it, and if we allow ourselves to be both blessed and chastened by it, even those who are hostile to God’s message will know where to come when they need it. They will come to those of us who have been faithful to God’s message and we will have the opportunity to share. BUT, we have to be faithful before that happens and ready when it does.
I think it was G. Campbell Morgan who said, “God puts you in a FIX to FIX you; and if you get out of the FIX before you get FIXED, God has to FIX another FIX to FIX you.” I usually use that in my Jonah sermon with regard to the belly of the great fish. It means that God will put us in circumstances so we have an opportunity to listen and respond. If we don’t respond or, in this case, respond falsely or prematurely, we end up in another circumstance nearly as bad or worse. Read that Campbell quotation again. Don’t we all have situations in our lives where we see that God used difficult situations as a FIX to FIX us?
Well, here’s the alleged King of God’s People asserting that he wanted a message from God. What he really wanted was the message that he wanted to hear from God. He wanted God to say that deliverance was at hand. Instead, Jeremiah tells him the truth. He hasn’t been FIXED, so God has another FIX (Babylonian Captivity and the fall of Judah) to FIX him.
Some of you are asking how I know that Zedekiah wasn’t FIXED? Well, he keeps Jeremiah in captivity, doesn’t he? And Jeremiah asks him where the prophets of the prosperity gospel, the “cheap grace” gospel, the “no life after being born again” gospel, or the ones who said that there was nothing to worry about because God HAD to save Jerusalem gospel were? Zedekiah doesn’t say, but I have a pretty good idea.
The corporate yes men, the toadies of the royal court, the sycophants of power, the posses of celebrity, and the backslappers of sales are survivors. They are the cockroaches who surprise us by being able to scurry into the cracks and crevasses of life when we are certain they should have been stomped and exterminated. I think they were still hanging on. Even though Zedekiah would have known that they were unreliable and merely tickling his ears with false assurances, I think he preferred hearing the propaganda of self-interest than the truth. After all, Jeremiah 38 shows Zedekiah giving Jeremiah over to some of those false prophets and sycophantic priests rather than listening to the unpleasant truth.
Yes, we have to be faithful and ready to share the Word of God and demonstrate the Word of God whenever those who were once hostile to the Word and even persecutors of us come to us for guidance. But no, that doesn’t guarantee that we’ll get out of the dungeon. They might actually have a deeper hole to throw us in. But in spite of what it seems, let me ask a question—whose life had more impact—Zedekiah’s or Jeremiah’s? Are you willing to trade your witness that will outlive you for the mere trappings of power for a short time? Jeremiah wasn’t offered that trade, but he must have felt that he could have compromised, hedged the message a little, and been a little more comfortable as a result. He must have questioned whether “Honesty is the best policy.” I know, because I’ve been there, and I’ll wager that you have been there, too. You might even be there as you hear (or read) this sermon.
20) But now, please listen, my lord the king, let me please place my petition before you and don’t return me to the House of Jonathan the Scribe and, as a result, I would not die there.”
21) And then, King Zedekiah answered and they caused Jeremiah to stay [visit] in the court of the guard and they gave him a loaf of bread daily from the street of the bakers until the end of the bread in the city. And Jeremiah stayed in the court of the guard.
God wasn’t finished with Jeremiah, yet. He had been faithful. He had spoken the Truth, even to those who had abused him and accused him. He had shared God’s Word, even when it wasn’t popular and people were hostile to him. But God didn’t give him an immediate reward. He may never have seen the result of the “New Covenant” he prophesied and he may have judged his life and ministry to be a failure. [Strangely, I’ve always felt an affinity toward Jeremiah.] Yet, with all the sadness, disappointment, and depression he experienced, God provided for him.
You know, a lot of pulpits are full of a “prosperity gospel” that tells you that God will guarantee success, fulfillment, satisfaction, love, happiness, and prosperity if you’ll only be faithful. If it’s that cut and dried, Joseph, Hosea, Jeremiah, Stephen, Peter, and Paul weren’t all that faithful. Of course, we know otherwise. Instead, let’s be faithful and ready to share the Word, even when those who are hostile come to us. We may not be able to count on what we would measure as success, but at least we can have our daily bread—at least until our words of judgment come true, until the end of the bread in the city. Let’s just be certain we’re sharing the Truth.
