Jeremiah 7:21–34
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.” Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but, in the stubbornness of their evil will, they walked in their own counsels and looked backward rather than forward. From the day that your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day, yet they did not listen to me or pay attention, but they stiffened their necks. They did worse than their ancestors did.
So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. You shall say to them: This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.
Devotion
Early one recent Saturday morning, it was my turn to lead the discussion of my Christ Care group (Men’s Square). In looking for how I might link it to our themes Journey into the Heart of God, and Journey to the Cross, I found a meditation (https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-journey-to-the-heart-of-god-2023-01-02/) by Fr. Richard Rohr entitled A Journey to the Heart of God, suggesting that the explanation for the powerlessness of much of modern Christianity has been that it has lost touch with the prophets. Concretely, Fr. Rohr suggests the following:
The prophets give us a sense of the possible. They give us a sense of the impossible, too. That’s why, frankly, they are so hard to listen to—because they explode our minds and push back the limits of our imagination. They increase our capacity to feel. They intensify our capacity for suffering. That’s why people don’t want to listen to them, because prophets increase our ability to feel what God is feeling. To feel God’s pain, God’s desire, God’s longing, and even God’s anger, if you’ll allow.
That is certainly a bone to chew on. And chew we did, that that Saturday morning. It was tasty and nourishing. (Come join us sometime.) In the meantime, check out the website for the whole first week of this year where Fr. Rohr focuses on the prophets and the possibility of exploding the imagination.
Prayer
Lord our teacher, help us to explode our minds and to feel what you feel through our reading of and discussion of the prophets, including your Son, Jesus.
David Jessee