Jeremiah 27:16-17 – Beholding More of Mercy's Spectrum

16 Also I spoke to the priests and to all this people, saying, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Do not listen to the words of your prophets who prophesy to you, saying, “Behold, the vessels of the Lord’s house will now shortly be brought back from Babylon”; for they prophesy a lie to you. 17 Do not listen to them; serve the king of Babylon, and live! Why should this city be laid waste? Jeremiah 27:16-17, New King James Version

In Boys of Summer, Roger Kahn is looking back on the era in the middle of the 20th century from 30 years after the events he describes. What made the newspaper he worked for quaint and quirky in the midst of the cyclical daily deadlines, he now sees as the systemic weaknesses that led to its demise. In praising this history major can appreciate, Kahn decrees, "As in Hadrianic Roman, existing glories obscured the onrushing dark."

It's ironic who can be subject to distraction, whom can fixate on certain singular measures of well-being and miss the dire indicators of impending collapse. In Kahn's profession, the journalists should have been the first to see the seismic shift coming, right? They have their antennae out. They are at the prow of the culture's ship. They can since the winds change, and see the iceberg. Yet, these scribes didn't see their own demise coming.

Something like this myopia, only more damning, is warned against in Jeremiah 27:16-17. The Lord cries, almost pleads, "Why should the city be laid waste?" He is looking for a champion, an intercessor, someone with the heart of Noah, a preacher of righteousness in a depraved age, or Abraham, a brave intercessor to bargain that destruction be staved off for the sake of the remnant. He is looking for even a minority with the sense of the momentous, the momentous destruction for which the wider culture is on course and a sense of the momentous opportunity He is holding out to avert that.

What holds the hearts of God's people, those with the most chance of beholding the bigger patterns of His work, of being honest about men's unmoved malaise and His insistent, almost chasing mercy? Their breadth of view is willfully narrowed. With the whole culture for which they are positioned to intercede on the verge of collapse, what they prick each other's deepest emotions over are the vessels they want returned to the Lord's Temple.

What?! The whole foundation on which the Temple stands is about to collapse, and God's people cannot be moved to back up their perspective and to plead beyond the religious routines they envision. Moving from specific boldness to picayune preoccupation, the whole of well-being they can envision and ask for is contained in the state of the Temple artifacts they want returned.

They aren't responsive to the signs of the times, to the needs of their neighbors should complete cultural upheaval come. They will simply ask for the return of the Temple vessels from God's menu they envision and go on about their way.

There is a certain pride about this narrowing, as though the other aspects of stability we take for granted can afford to be ignored in our prayers as we zero in on the few things we think God is withholding waiting for our magic words. Rightly, CS Lewis reminds us in The Pilgrim's Regress, "You come from a race that cannot afford to be proud."

The system that delivers our daily bread continues to function solely by the grace of God. The reliability of the ground we walk on is held in place by God's specific forbearance. Have we lately considered the scope of God's already extant mercy before we recite our personal shopping list?

We plead to plead better, more tenderly, with more awareness. Even in this, Christians, we would inhabit the righteousness already exhibited by Christ. Jerusalem, the same Jerusalem which is to reject Him viscerally, was on His mind and His lips. He would have been just to call down imprecations on the whole system. Yet, He can see individual vulnerability. His thoughts are on the fate of material treasure representing righteousness. They are on the hardship pregnant women will face when Jerusalem falls.

May He broaden our view, Christians, allowing us to see what He sees, plead with Him as He ever makes intercession for His own. May we plead for material things in their place, daily bread to fuel our efforts, and, perhaps, the equivalent of Temple vessels to help our eyes turn our heart's true reflections to Him.

But may these prayer particulars not serve as a willful distraction from the bigger pattern, the more desperate need. Come quickly, Lord Jesus. Save souls. For without that, the most steady, splendid religious services could go on without interruption, and without their true Purpose.