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Stirring
Have you ever misplaced or lost something, and it stirs little worry? You just know that Read More
HiRho Park | Read Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
This week’s reading starts with a feeling of the Creator’s agitation and the image of creation being dismantled. The disappointment with human beings and our unfaithfulness reaches the point of an utterance of nothingness, “no light,” on God’s part. It almost sounds like a deconstruction of what God did in the beginning. Is God regretting the act of Creation?
It seems like all hope is lost in Israel. However, Jeremiah reminds us that “[God] will not make a full end.” God still calls Israel “my poor people.” God cannot stop being a loving parent. In spite of our abominations, God declares that we are God’s own. God never gives up on us even when we want to give up on ourselves; God waits and hopes for us.
We learn two lessons from Jeremiah’s prophecy. First, God is the God of compassion. The heart of God is always open regardless of our circumstance. A mother of a missing child left her front door unlocked for nineteen years just in case her daughter returned. The fear of a stranger entering the house could not overcome the love she had for her child. Likewise, God waits for us to return just as the father of the prodigal son waited. (See Luke 15:11-32.)
Second, God intends not only individual salvation but also creation’s salvation. Sinfulness impacts the entire creation. The earth “was waste,” “the birds of the air had fled,” and “the fruitful land was a desert” all because of “foolish” people who did not have any understanding of doing good.
The love of God stands alone. Return to God, return to home, and respond to God’s love.
Help me, O God, to be a steward of your creation. Help me start by being in tune with your Spirit. Amen.
Jeremiah’s warning of coming judgment continues. The children of Israel have become foolish, have ignored God, and have become good mainly at doing evil. God is going to respond to this situation. The psalmist describes the state of all who are foolish: they deny God and follow their own corrupt desires, including the oppression of the poor. The author of First Timothy, traditionally Paul, says that this was also his former way of life. He has been foolish and ignorant, a persecutor of the followers of Christ. In fact, he had been the worst of all sinners; yet Christ has shown him mercy, not judgment. Jesus tells two parables to reveal God’s heart. Rather than neglecting the ignorant, the foolish, and the lost, God searches to find each one of us.
Read Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28. How do your actions show others that you know God?
Read Psalm 14. When have you, like the psalmist, felt that no one knows God? How did you have faith that God would restore God’s people?
Read 1 Timothy 1:12-17. Recall a time when you felt unworthy of Christ Jesus’ full acceptance. How has that experience made you more grateful for Christ’s mercy?
Read Luke 15:1-10. In a world full of death and violence, how do you rejoice when God finds one lost person?
Respond by posting a prayer.
I join many of those who will pray for you as you seek to discern what you are called to be at this moment. May God grant you the courage to fulfill that calling. May we all open our eyes and see the misery, open our ears and hear the cries of God’s people, and, like God through the Lord Jesus Christ, be incarnate amongst them.”
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