Jeremiah 22:8-9 – Puncturing the Bubble of Mutual Idolatry
8 And many nations will pass by this city; and everyone will say to his neighbor, ‘Why has the Lord done so to this great city?’ 9 Then they will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshiped other gods and served them.’ ”
"Unity in itself is neutral," scores Matthew Sink in his devotional in Galatians 4:20. "Whether it is good or bad depends on what binds people together. When people unify around the wrong beliefs or ideals, the result is negative."
This tendency to reinforce the wrong conclusion even when life's most important questions the more often we hear our opinions echoed by our cultural cohort is, perhaps, while we get wide-angle shots like Jeremiah 22:8-9. Within our culture, even our church culture as Paul lamented in Galatians, we can acclimate to a cooling-off of the reverence Christ deserves.
If we see the same experience in the life of the person in the next pew, and perhaps can suppose that we are a little more reverent than he is, we are unlikely to willingly assume the dislocation of repentant change.
It's a privilege, then, to get the perspective of the traveler from outside the assumptions common in our culture's bubble. In Jeremiah 22:8-9, the people for whom God's Word is common currency are given this perspective in advance. They are allowed to eavesdrop on travelers passing by Jerusalem's coming destruction.
For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, this can be an opportunity to turn around, at least as individuals, as families, as a remnant enclave in a rotting culture. These passersby can expose where God's nominal people have united around the wrong beliefs.
Would we seek out the stranger for such a purpose? Abraham, fittingly as faith's forefather, did this in Genesis. He went beyond casual greetings to passersby and sought to break bread with them, offered a setting to learn what they had to show him.
In so doing, he learned the heart of God and had his friendship with God confirmed. Lest we relegate this to a bygone age of epiphanies in the Old Testament, Hebrews 13:2 says that many by offering hospitality to strangers have entertained angels unaware.
The word angel literally means messenger, and I suspect many potential messengers are circulating between enclaves of cultural self-certainty who are fully human. Would we listen to the belief systems outside of our own subset and compare them to what has been normalized in our community of faith, and perhaps be changed? Or will people pass through our lives, see the error no longer deemed worthy of our attention, and take the instruction they have gleaned elsewhere?
I tend to lurch from one extreme to the other. I tend to ignore a lot of relational avenues, a lot of casual conversation. Thus convicted, I can overcorrect. I can accost the passerby, then, to find out the most intimate ways in which he is treasuring Christ and expect instant candor as to how I might not be doing so. I, in the words of John Ortberg in Everybody's Normal Until You Get to Know Them, can try to microwave friendship.
Discerning the neighborhood's mutual idols Abraham's way takes more time and more faith. It takes inviting acquaintances into relationship gradually. It generally takes listening to small talk, seeing openings for neighborly action which build trust. It takes, as someone said of parenthood, being around for hours for the crucial few minutes.
The Earthly inefficiency is worth it. I wouldn't have someone take the lessons learned from the folly of my life home to his neighbor in a far country without learning from them myself. I would not shrink my concepts of God down to those areas in which I am comfortable that I adhered to His standard. I would welcome the passerby as His instrument of sanctification.
"Unity in itself is neutral," scores Matthew Sink in his devotional in Galatians 4:20. "Whether it is good or bad depends on what binds people together. When people unify around the wrong beliefs or ideals, the result is negative."
This tendency to reinforce the wrong conclusion even when life's most important questions the more often we hear our opinions echoed by our cultural cohort is, perhaps, while we get wide-angle shots like Jeremiah 22:8-9. Within our culture, even our church culture as Paul lamented in Galatians, we can acclimate to a cooling-off of the reverence Christ deserves.
If we see the same experience in the life of the person in the next pew, and perhaps can suppose that we are a little more reverent than he is, we are unlikely to willingly assume the dislocation of repentant change.
It's a privilege, then, to get the perspective of the traveler from outside the assumptions common in our culture's bubble. In Jeremiah 22:8-9, the people for whom God's Word is common currency are given this perspective in advance. They are allowed to eavesdrop on travelers passing by Jerusalem's coming destruction.
For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, this can be an opportunity to turn around, at least as individuals, as families, as a remnant enclave in a rotting culture. These passersby can expose where God's nominal people have united around the wrong beliefs.
Would we seek out the stranger for such a purpose? Abraham, fittingly as faith's forefather, did this in Genesis. He went beyond casual greetings to passersby and sought to break bread with them, offered a setting to learn what they had to show him.
In so doing, he learned the heart of God and had his friendship with God confirmed. Lest we relegate this to a bygone age of epiphanies in the Old Testament, Hebrews 13:2 says that many by offering hospitality to strangers have entertained angels unaware.
The word angel literally means messenger, and I suspect many potential messengers are circulating between enclaves of cultural self-certainty who are fully human. Would we listen to the belief systems outside of our own subset and compare them to what has been normalized in our community of faith, and perhaps be changed? Or will people pass through our lives, see the error no longer deemed worthy of our attention, and take the instruction they have gleaned elsewhere?
I tend to lurch from one extreme to the other. I tend to ignore a lot of relational avenues, a lot of casual conversation. Thus convicted, I can overcorrect. I can accost the passerby, then, to find out the most intimate ways in which he is treasuring Christ and expect instant candor as to how I might not be doing so. I, in the words of John Ortberg in Everybody's Normal Until You Get to Know Them, can try to microwave friendship.
Discerning the neighborhood's mutual idols Abraham's way takes more time and more faith. It takes inviting acquaintances into relationship gradually. It generally takes listening to small talk, seeing openings for neighborly action which build trust. It takes, as someone said of parenthood, being around for hours for the crucial few minutes.
The Earthly inefficiency is worth it. I wouldn't have someone take the lessons learned from the folly of my life home to his neighbor in a far country without learning from them myself. I would not shrink my concepts of God down to those areas in which I am comfortable that I adhered to His standard. I would welcome the passerby as His instrument of sanctification.
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