LONELY, WEEPING PROPHETS
by Bishop David Chislett SSC

We know more about Jeremiah (647? - 582 BC) as a person than we know about any of the other Hebrew prophets. Chosen by God for a forty year ministry during which he was consistently rejected and opposed by the people to whom he was sent, he spent much of his time in loneliness and despair. He faithfully obeyed the Lord and remained unmarried for the sake of his ministry; he had very few close friends.

Jeremiah's opponents did everything they could to silence him. He was arrested, tried in court on trumped up charges. He was beaten up and imprisoned. He was even lowered into a stinking sewer and left to die, until the king was persuaded to get him out. There were a number of attempts to assassinate him.

So it's not surprising that from time to time in Jeremiah's writings we find truly terrifying outbursts of spiritual anguish. For example, look at these words from Chapter 15:

"Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me, a man of strife and contention to the whole land . . . all of them curse me." (v. 10) "Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? [O God] wilt thou be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail? (v. 18)

We don't always expect this kind of thing from the heroes of the Bible. We are surprised to find them struggling just as we do when things get tough. But I love the way that God lets us see them when they're not doing so well! Of course this great man who loved God and the people of God emerges from his times of torment and depression - and that should encourage us, too.

If there is anything for us to learn from the people's rejection of Jeremiah's message, it is that because God seeks above all else a RELATIONSHIP with his people he has given them the prerogative of saying "no" to his love. How else can a relationship of love exist except in the context of that freedom? That's why God lets his people - as individuals and as communities - keep control of their own lives if they really want to, in spite of the promises he makes to them, in spite of the blessing he says will be theirs if they live his way, and in spite of the predicted unhappy consequences of their wilful rebellion.

God speaks to his people through the prophets. He cajoles them, he warns them, he declares his love for them, he tries to woo them back to himself. But they nearly always harden their hearts and turn away.

Last Sunday's Gospel reading took us to the synagogue at Nazareth where Jesus reads from Isaiah 61 and says to the people, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

You would think, given that the news of his wonderful teaching and healing ministry had already drifted back to Nazareth, these people would have at least half expected him to do in their midst what he had reportedly done in the surrounding towns. Well, there is a moment of admiration. But soon after that, a whole lot of negative talk gets going among them. (Furthermore, we know from Mark's parallel account of this incident that Jesus wants to do wonderful things for his own townspeople, but "he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands upon a few sick people and healed them. And he marvelled because of their unbelief." - Mark 6:5-6)

The problem for the citizens of Nazareth is twofold. First, Jesus had grown up there. Who did he think he was, saying that the Scriptures find their fulfilment in him! He replies: "no prophet is acceptable in his own country." Jeremiah would be in hearty agreement with that statement!

Secondly, in his conversation with them, Jesus speaks of gentiles who seemed to have shown more faith in God than the "cchosen ones" of Israel. The Jewish people didn't think much of gentiles - in fact some of them were even known to teach that God had created gentiles to be "fuel for the fires of hell." So they are offended when Jesus acknowledges the faith of these "outsiders."

"Offended" is an understatement! St Luke says that they are "filled with wrath" and decide to get rid of Jesus. They take him out of town in order to hurl him down the cliff face and kill him. St Luke tells us, however, that Jesus passes through the midst of them and leaves Nazareth.

Imagine the sorrow in the heart of Jesus that day! He knew these people. He had grown up with them. How he must have longed to minister to them, to love them, to heal them, and to free them from the emptiness of their lives and their poverty of spirit. Deep within he must have felt as he does in Luke 19:41 when he weeps for the people of Jerusalem who rejected him. Or as he yearns for the city in Luke 13:34-35: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!"

Jeremiah and Jesus were mocked and persecuted when they spoke God's truth. And we will be, too, at least some of the time. God has called us to lovingly witness to those around us by deed and word in such a way that they will be inspired to respond to the Gospel. But they just might not. God gives them the choice not to respond, and as heartbreaking as it is, we must respect that and continue to love them as God does - with the kind of love described in today's second reading.

At a more public level, our Christian witness means standing uncompromisingly for justice and peace, the rights of the unborn and the elderly, and Christian principles on bioethical issues such as the mistreatment of human embryos in scientific research.

In modern Australia our friends are not really offended when we have our say - they are more likely to be amused, dismissing us with feint praise or a good-natured joke! Of course, that can be hurtful, too. But today's Mass readings challenge us to recall Jesus and the weeping prophets like Jeremiah, and to join with them in their loneliness and rejection if that is what it costs to bear witness to God's Word.

A reflection on the Mass Readings from the Patmos House Pew Bulletin, 28.1.2007
Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19
1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13
Luke 4:21-30