Second Sunday in Lent: Old Testament, Jeremiah 26:8-15                 

Jeremiah 26:8-15

Seems truth doesn’t have much place in public discourse these days. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place to speak or that no one is listening. But what my mom used to accuse me of, that is “selective listening” has infected the crowds of the world. And it is always crowds that are best at drowning out the more singular voices who tell the truth. In our Old Testament reading this week, God’s people are called by Jeremiah to return to the Law spoken by Moses, and the faithful prophets through Israel’s generations. It’s that old issue of having the Word of God “gifted” to His people and them turning a deaf ear.

Several centuries after Jeremiah, the quiet but fiery Savior had come, lived and spoke truth that aligned perfectly with the message of His weeping predecessor (see the Book of Lamentations). Death had slowed but not stopped Him. And when it was time for Him to go away for a while, He left His message in good and “gifted” hands. Funny, but all these met with the same opposition that smacked Jeremiah square in the face. Just listen to St. Paul as he exhorts young pastor Timothy: “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:2-4).

Those who heard Jeremiah were precursors of the very folks Paul alluded to. Following faithful Jeremiah’s proclamations, “...the priests and the prophets and all the people seized him, saying, ‘You will surely die! Why have you prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying, “This house shall be like Shiloh, and the city shall be desolate, without an inhabitant?”’” (Jeremiah 26:8b-9a). Things don’t change because people don’t. Hearts don’t. And men and women void of the Spirit of the Lord who speaks to His people, really have no place for the Word of God no matter how we try to style and dress it. Read the passage above. In fact, cheat and go back to verse one to get the entire flow. Unless the Lord opens hearts and ears to hear, we have no hope.

Thanks be to God, He wants a hearing people. And He has one.