Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Listen to the word of the Lord, people of Jacob—all you families of Israel! This is what the Lord says: “What did your ancestors find wrong with me that led them to stray so far from me? They worshiped worthless idols, only to become worthless themselves…. “Go west and look in the land of Cyprus; go east and search through the land of Kedar. Has anyone ever heard of anything as strange as this? Has any nation ever traded its gods for new ones, even though they are not gods at all? Yet my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols! The heavens are shocked at such a thing and shrink back in horror and dismay,” says the Lord. “For my people have done two evil things: They have abandoned me—the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all! Jeremiah 2:4-5, 10-13
The term “crackpot” may have outlived its usefulness. It was a great debating vilification of the
other side’s position some centuries ago when pottery was in daily use in the
average household. Everyone then knew a cracked
pot wouldn’t do what it was created to do…hold milk, wine, or
water. So a crackpot idea
was one that wouldn’t hold anything valuable, thereby making it a worthless
position. Jeremiah’s whole point about
Israel’s cracked pot decision-making was that they’d made
worthless decisions about their God and had, accordingly, become worthless
cracked pots themselves. The scathing rebuke
for Israel is that, in the same way you get up covered in fleas if you lie down
with the yard dogs, you also become whatever you worship. They had exchanged the glory of Almighty God
for the worthlessness of carved idols of stone; they’d gone from riches to rags.
It’s not an easy ride reading the words of a prophet like Jeremiah. Day after day his finger points loudly at our
decisions gone wrong. What is so
annoying about Jeremiah is that he is simply right; the choices didn’t have to
go so wrong had the leaders and followers simply chosen to use the unfailing
vessel of Godliness, rather than the cracked pot of selfishness. They had accepted God’s gracious covenant,
only to then (strangely enough) return to idols and superstition. It was like the sign-then-drive
events at car dealerships; they signed the deal, rode away in the convertible,
forgot about their part in the bargain, and were never heard from again. When the car of their
cracked pot theology began to break down, they’d come back to the altar and
point to the covenant terms as if God were the one breaking the deal. Jeremiah called that strange;
indeed!
Whether or not our country was founded intentionally as a Christian
nation, or not, is a debate I’m not willing to explore today. However, it is hardly debatable that we are
anything but that today. From the pornography
on TV screens and theatres, to price-gouging in a Covid-19
crisis, and the selfish posturing of politicians, and
justifying sexually-perverted alternative lifestyles, we
can proclaim Christianity as a national profile until blue in the face from
holding our breath against the stench of sin…we, as a nation, have abandoned whatever
humility we may once have owned toward the God of grace and glory – and we have
done it in favor of the idols of self-gratification, money, power, and
prestige.
In answer to Jeremiah’s question
Has anyone ever heard of anything as strange as this? Has any nation ever traded its gods for new ones, even though they are not gods at all?
Yup!
You chew on
that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!
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