When God Speaks and Humans Find it Difficult to Listen

Monday, September 19, 2022

This is what the Lord says:  “Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom, or the powerful boast in their power, or the rich boast in their riches.  But those who wish to boast should boast in this alone:  that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord who demonstrates unfailing love and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth, and that I delight in these things.  I, the Lord, have spoken!  “A time is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will punish all those who are circumcised in body but not in spirit—the Egyptians, Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites, the people who live in the desert in remote places, and yes, even the people of Judah.  And like all these pagan nations, the people of Israel also have uncircumcised hearts.”  Jeremiah 9:23-26

Our grandson, Christopher, is getting (alarmingly) close to 30.  He serves in the Air Force, stationed nearly 7,000 miles from home.  He’s a big guy (over 6’), with a big heart, and a ready wit.  As with most parents and grandparents, I tend to think of him as a young boy, riding bicycles, full of giggles and goofiness.  

I have this one scene embedded in my brain from his childhood (and replayed almost every time we talk), where he does his best Robert DeNiro imitation, turning to look at me, and intoning a very New York Taxi-driver[1] personna:  You talkin’ to ME?

God gave a message to Jeremiah that would not have placed him on the top-10 favorite people list in Jerusalem, or anywhere in our current culture.  Whenever God begins a sentence with there is a time coming, eyerolls and choruses of not this again fill the room.  I can just see the words rolling off Jeremiah’s lips on the steps of Jerusalem’s crumbling Temple, as he warns all the religious leaders and the crowd assembled for worship.  They’re right with him when he talks of punishment for Egypt, Amonites, and Moabites….Oh, yeah, God, put the hot irons to those heathen barbarians!  

But then Jeremiah quits preaching, and goes to meddling; he faces the crowd, squints a little like Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry character, and says:  uh….yes, even the people of Judah.  And wide-eyed, furious, the people yell:  You talkin’ to ME?

And Jeremiah (still squinting ominiously) says:  Yep…even you, Jerusalem high-brows, have uncircumcised hearts.  (Circumcision was a ritual with which they were quite familiar, a telltale physical sign they’d been born into the right family.)  Jerusalem’s elite imagined themselves as somewhat grandfathered-in when it came to being spiritually correct, and therefore accepted by God.  Jeremiah warned them a physical mark, and all the rituals in the world, didn’t get you any gold stars from heaven, unless a softened, obedient, generous, gracious heart, made your walk line-up with all your talk!

The problem with an “uncircumcised heart” is spiritual blindness.  And that is a hallmark of 21^st-Century culture.  In todays live-and-let-me-do-my-thing world, I may tolerate your racist, gender-insensitive, non-wokeness, as long as you stay out of my face with it….but when you start talking about how I might be included in your God’s torture parade…You BETTER NOT be talkin’ to ME! 

The residents of Jerusalem disliked what the prophet said, and it eventually landed him in prison.  The downturn of events for Jeremiah was painful for him, but the day IS most certainly coming when God will balance those scales!

For You Today

One question the church never has to ask of God is:  Are YOU talkin’ to US?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,000 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper on today’s topic, explore some of these: 

An Empty Lament and Stumbling in Broad Daylight

[1] Images:  via Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] From the 1976 Movie Taxi Driver starring Robert DeNiro