If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.
16 May. Jeremiah chapters 7-9
In these chapters, Jeremiah the prophet experiences some of the tensions that any minister, or particularly parish priest must feel as they go about their patch – for the parish system in the Catholic and Anglican churches means that our priests are given a responsibility for the spiritual care of everyone living there, not just those who attend church.
One of these tensions is that between proclamation and response (or lack of it). “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” (7:27). A prophet has visions, or hears voices, or otherwise understands the will of God, the love of God, the urgency of Gods call. He (or she, for there were and are many women with the gift of prophecy) cannot but tell people what they believe God is saying, and yet even the most eloquent prophet finds that there is little response. Only a small percentage of people ever get the idea, understand the message and turn to God.
The other is whether it is right to pray for the sinners around us. God tells Jeremiah, “As for you, do not pray for this people, do not raise a cry or prayer on their behalf, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you” (7:16). The message is, don’t bother asking me to forgive them for this time they have gone beyond forgiveness. Yet Jeremiah persists in praying for the people, for that is the burden God has laid on him. “My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land … For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me … O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!” (8:19,21; 9:1). But there is no response – this time not even a suggestion of a remnant. It must have weighed heavily on him.
The result is that Jeremiah wishes he could get away from it all: “O that I had in the desert a traveller’s lodging-place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a band of traitors” (9:2). Priests, prophets and other ministers are prone to burn-out and need time away from the demands of their ministry, whether it is a short retreat or an occasional longer ‘sabbatical’. Some churches expect this of their clergy, others at least allow it.