When All Else Fails

Jeremiah 14:7-9

Robert M Watkins

August 19, 2007

 

The heat wave of the last couple of weeks brings us fully into the context of the prophet Jeremiah. At one point during his ministry, a terrible drought descended on Jerusalem, bringing the city to its knees and sending the people into fits of penance, even participating in a community day of repentance—anything to bring an end to the heat that was frying the world. Our text for the morning comes as Jeremiah listens as the people pray and records their words.

 

As the people suffer through the heat that consumes the land, they wonder where God has gone. Jeremiah knows that the calamity is a visible sign of God’s displeasure with his people, but remains silent as they complain, offering no answer for God’s absence. Within their prayers comes a series of similes for God that are astounding.

The people wonder if God is:

1.      a stranger;

2.      a traveler who has turned aside for the night, abandoning the trip;

3.      confused;

4.      or simply refusing to help like a warrior who refuses to fight.

 

It is those middle two analogies that caught my attention.

 

First, the traveler.

 

Life is a journey. We move through our days, stepping from one experience to another. Along that journey, we encounter moments that challenge us deeply. There are crises that we see no way of enduring. There are conflicts we see no way of resolving. There moments when we wonder if we have gotten lost without map or even a sense of place. We are faced with decisions we feel we have no business making. We are faced with circumstances that threaten to undo us. We simply do not have the resources within ourselves to deal with them.

 

However, one of the things we cling to within the faith is that we are never alone on the journey. God is eternally present, neither slumbering nor sleeping, as Psalm 121 declares. We are sure that God abides, and that as God abides nothing can overwhelm us.

 

Then comes the crisis. All of those bold pronouncements vanish like the mists of a summer morning, for they really are no more substantial. Suffering drives us to the limits of our endurance. We are suddenly confronted with the truth that our faith is nowhere near as deep as we thought it was.

 

The people of Jerusalem are lost. Their food is literally drying up in the fields. The livestock are dropping in the pens. Rivers become trickles from a leaky spigot. The people can do nothing about any of it, either. Another hot night dawning into still another scorching day only brings doom one step closer. Worse still, a constant companion on the journey has gone missing. There is no sense of God’s presence. His voice is silent. The steady rhythm of God’s footfalls has dropped away. Somewhere God stopped moving.

 

There is no word that captures what that absence feels like. It is not something we like to consider or reflect on—it is simply too overwhelming to do so. But suddenly we are alone. Loneliness drills within us to the depth of our souls. Emptiness and hollowness become the only feelings we are sure of.

 

Where is God?

 

When such a moment hits us, we draw at straws—anything at hand that will somehow make our experience something we can understand. We will suddenly babble nonsense sure it is the greatest statement of logic we have ever voiced.

 

Such is that simile we find in Verse 9—God is confused, cry the people.

 

God confused?

 

In all of the explications of the being of God and all of the descriptions of God’s holiness and wonder, one sure thing is that God is never confused. God’s will is omnipotent. God’s focus is unbroken and unbreakable. God is never uncertain.

 

At this point in the communal prayer, the people have reached that moment when all else has indeed failed. We despise that moment. It is the moment when we have to face the truth of who and what we are. It is the moment when we realize that we can no longer brush off our own problems on someone else. In short, it is the moment of reckoning. All options are exhausted. There is only one choice left to make.

 

We are the culprits.

 

A seeming hobby of the national press of late has been to chronicle the very public debacles so many current celebrities find themselves within—football players, any number of starlets, public officials, and so on. A step in the process that eventually happens--except with those few bound and determined to implode completely—is the recognition that the only option left is the Mea Culpa—I did it! Let’s just get this over with!

 

As the people pray to God, Jeremiah sees the moment when all else will fail coming as they declare God confused. Now is the moment to spring the truth on them. If one reads a few verses further along in our story, God responds to the people’s prayer. There is indeed confusion running rampant through the situation, but it has nothing to do with God. God will wait until recognition dawns within the community. Then, they will see.

 

When all else fails, look in the mirror.

An old farmer reminded me of that in suburban Charlotte one sultry afternoon. We were having a lively discussion about all the problems the city faced with rampant development, crowded schools, jammed roadways, and all the other problems that come with living in a city that is growing too fast for the people to keep up. Blame was flying all over the place, fingers pointing indiscriminately in the air to nab the guilty, and then he spoke his eight words—when all else fails, look in the mirror.

 

There was nothing else to say.

 

Now we understand why the prophet remained silent as he listened to the prayer offered by the people. There was nothing for him to say. He had to wait and see if the people would make their own discovery of what was actually upon them.

 

There are times when we feel out of step within our own lives, when the world seems strange and alien. We feel a sense of weight and oppression like the wall of heat and humidity just beyond the door. We cannot find comfort or release. We feel abandoned. We look for someone to blame.

 

There are times, though, when there will be no one there. There will be times when we will only find the mirror with that all too familiar face within it.

 

In those times, can we see what is before us? Can we take the necessary step we need to take? Can we see ourselves?

 

Then all will become clear and salvation will be at hand, thanks be to God.

 

Amen.