Jeremiah 31:7-14
Christmas 2 - Years A, B, C
The remnant:
Watch, I shall bring them back
from the land of the north
and gather them in from the far ends of the earth.
With them, the blind and the lame,
women with child, women in labour,
all together: a mighty throng will return here!
In tears they will return,
in prayer I shall lead them. [Jer. 31:8-9a NJB]
There seems to be some question about how to deal with what here is translated as "prayer."
Will we be consoled as we are led from exile to return? [NRSV]
Will we be filled with supplications for repentance during this time? [NRSV note]
Will we be weeping for joy and have our hands held? [The Message]
Will this be a time of joy after great sorrow? [CCB]
My suspicion is that we find our ministry in an area that corresponds with how we envisage homecoming. Do we need to pay attention to grief separation issues? If so that will set some of our agenda in life. Does repentance come before consolation? If so that moves us in a different direction. Perhaps the matter before you is simply having presence, a being withness? Might the key be a matter of joy (first, second and last)? So our eyes and witness are attuned to that part of reality.
What are the dynamics of coming home that speak to you?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/january2003.html
Here is the prophet's vision. Here is a vision worthy to challenge us and call us to repeat it again and again and again.
The prophet can see G*D at work calling exiles home, turning mourning into joy, and sorrow to comfort.
If we do not have this larger vision of satisfaction, we are only prophets in training who have passed courses in gloom-and-doom, but not in reconciliation-and-restoration.
Happy New Year! Lift up your hearts.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/january2004.html
Jeremiah 31:7-14 or Sirach 24:1-12
Faultlines in the earth's crust hold much power even though they are hidden far beyond our sight and measurement. Should a time come when we can see and measure them, they will still hold much power that will have to be accounted for. Until then folks will continue to periodically experience longer or shorter times of exile from their desire for the comfort and continuance of their particular way of life. (My own sense is that we will not arrive at a time when all will be predictable. Tsunamis will continue come in all manner of appearances, including Dust Bowls.)
My sense aside, a promise is that those who have been swept away will be brought back with consolations. From there we will use the wisdom given to develop an early warning process based on a traversing the depths of chaotic abysses that will be installed and work to warn folks to back off from their usual routines during Tsunami moments.
Questions abound about our response to warnings, whether geophysical or theological. Will we listen to warnings or return to exile? Our current list of warning issues can go on and on but three quickly coming Tsunamis on the radar screen might be: the consequence of moving toward legitimizing preemptive war, delaying for false economic reasons a response to global warming, and continuing discriminations between us on such minutiae as another's sexual orientation.
A disconnect between the light and praise and wisdom language and our experiences in the world continues at a significantly high level. This may have something to do with the fragility of current religious stability. While I have a yearning to more closely follow a non-regimented Spirit I am aware of a grieving over so many ways in which religious sensibilities are reality denying. All this eternal praise talk seems at some remove from our daily sense of danger, insecurity, and exile. What a way to start a new calendar year (though we are well into the liturgical year).
- - -
Dave (Reader)
Wesley, your comments on fault lines got me to thinking of other kinds of fault lines. War breaking over peace, Propaganda breaking over truth. Greed breaking over compassion.
We live in the ruins of this kind of thinking and living, so how will we bring healing, aid, compassion, order and justice out of this chaos?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/january2005.html
We do like underdogs to pull out a win at the end. Jeremiah's tale is similar to other parts of a larger story. There is a lot of praise when the tables are turned and refugees return home.
As we continue on we might expect that praise will go to our heads and we will think that God is on our side, no matter what. Our praise and pride will falter and fall. Off we go to experience another lesson, whether learning eventuates or not. Hopefully, as part of a larger group story, we'll figuratively return.
There is nothing in the praise that helps us with the practical business of living day-to-day. In many ways it distracts us.
Let's presume a new start is being made. Block out the congratulations for a moment. What is a practical step that might help. This coming Sunday I'm preaching off-lectionary at a UU Fellowship about "One and All: A Consensus Approach". Might intentionality in this arena help get us out of the boom and bust cycles we have had through religious history? I wouldn't and couldn't claim it to be a guarantee as consensus processes can be blocked, but it is a helpful tool that needs more attention.
What would a consensus process look like between G*D and you and yours and others? How would it differ from the praise emphasis of this pericope? It's not too late in the week to get some input to me. Thanks.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_12_01_archive.html
Feel like you are part of a remnant? I suppose there are plenty of reasons that could be given for such an interpretation of your experience. The surrounding bounty doesn't seem to translate into bringing folks back together but has been used by those in power to further divide creation from itself and the rich from the poor.
Feel like you are part of a remnant? Recalculate. A gathering beyond our ken is already begun. We are asked to live as though this gathering is more real than our fears that we are spinning apart, never to return.
Let's return to a translation of yore - KJV.
9 They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble:
12 Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all.
Track the parallels - weeping to singing, the water (rivers and gardens), and souls (no stumbling, sorrow). Choices here make a significant difference in how we engage opportunities.
Feel like you are part of a remnant? Get over it.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/12/jeremiah-317.html
Do those exiled still have honor? It is so easy to discount them. Often we act as though they are dishonorable, lazy, guilty, and sinful even as we mouth that they are of sacred worth.
From Jeremiah, hear that the exiles shall return under the banner of “Together”. This is not just about “them” returning, but that we are also exiled in place without their presence. It is “together” that we find a return, a redemption, and a promise to be together. If this is to come to pass we cannot languish by refusing to honor one another.
From Sirach, hear that G*D takes root in “an honored people”. Wherever you are, ask who is not being honored. There is your work for the moment. It may be to disclose your own worth and to claim it. It may be to advocate for another whose worth has been devalued and to affirm it.
These passages bring light in their enfleshing qualities of “together” and “honor”. When we are not about the business of togethering and honoring, we are slowly and surely dimming hope and abandoning a common-wealth.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/12/jeremiah-317-14-or-sirach-241-12.html