Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 (New Living Translation) as the CONTEXT for reading Psalm 14
The time is coming when the LORD will say to the people of Jerusalem, “My dear people, a burning wind is blowing in from the desert, and it’s not a gentle breeze useful for winnowing grain. It is a roaring blast sent by me! Now I will pronounce your destruction!” “My people are foolish and do not know me,” says the LORD. “They are stupid children who have no understanding. They are clever enough at doing wrong, but they have no idea how to do right!” I looked at the earth, and it was empty and formless. I looked at the heavens, and there was no light. I looked at the mountains and hills, and they trembled and shook. I looked, and all the people were gone. All the birds of the sky had flown away. I looked, and the fertile fields had become a wilderness. The towns lay in ruins, crushed by the LORD’s fierce anger. This is what the LORD says: “The whole land will be ruined, but I will not destroy it completely. The earth will mourn and the heavens will be draped in black because of my decree against my people. I have made up my mind and will not change it.”
Jeremiah says “The time is coming …” The increasing strength of the Babylonians to the north looms over Judah. Coupled with the fading sense of a community living in obedience to God, Jeremiah was called to speak. He really had no choice but to prophecy doom and gloom for the future of his people. And he does it with such vivid imagery!
In this striking passage of judgment, we once again find a remarkably apt metaphor around which Jeremiah wraps his message. In verse 11, he uses the visual and tactile image of a sirocco wind. As I contemplate what I have learned about the sirocco wind, it reminds me of an Oklahoma wind storm that can rip you to shreds with the tiniest particles of sand that feel like mini shards of glass cutting into the skin. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the sirocco wind is “a warm, humid wind occurring over the northern Mediterranean Sea and southern Europe, where it blows from the south or southeast and brings uncomfortably humid air. The sirocco is produced on the east side of low-pressure centers that travel eastward over the southern Mediterranean. It originates over North Africa as a dry wind and picks up moisture as it crosses the Mediterranean.”
Jeremiah contrasts this “burning” sirocco wind with the “gentle” breeze that grain growers pray for … the wind that acts as a winnowing instrument. Have you ever heard the expression, winnowing the chaff? Ancient cultures used an agricultural technique called “wind winnowing” to separate the grain, which was edible, from the chaff, which was the inedible dry husk. The grain was heavier than the chaff, so the gentle breezes picked up and carried away the chaff leaving the grain. A more proactive technique was to throw it all into the wind so that the grain fell to the ground and the chaff blew away. If the wind was too violent, this technique didn’t work for it would all blow away! Winnowing forks, fans, and utensils were developed by later cultures. Jeremiah contrasts the winnowing wind which had meaning or purpose with the scattering wind (the sirocco) which had no meaning or purpose to make a point about the current events of his time.
Have you ever heard Bob Dylan's song ... Blowin in the Wind?
Check out this youtube video my little attempt at humor:)
Jeremiah seeks to provide an answer to the question “why?” Why is this happening? Why is Babylon coming our way? What have we done? The questions are countless, yet the basic answer for Jeremiah is one: The people do not know God! In prophetic literature there is an undeniable connection between our knowledge of God and our ability to follow God. If we do not follow God (do the right thing) it is because we do not know God. Perhaps one of the most “prophetic” sayings of Jesus emerges in John 13:35, “If you love each other, everyone will know that you are my disciples.” We are not judged by what we say, we are judged by what we do which is a result of who we are!
What happens in the world … what happens to the world when the people of God refuse to know God, to love God, and to follow God … destruction runs rampant, not just through the community but through the world. The community, those descendants of Abraham as numerous as stars in the sky, is no longer blessed because the community is no longer a blessing! In the later part of this passage, we see the final destruction through Jeremiah’s eyes as he takes us back to creation. In his vision the earth becomes a vast wasteland … in my mind’s eye I see something like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome! Yet … the land will not be destroyed completely. Even in our darkest hour, God is merciful to fools …
GOING DEEPER through the reading of
Psalm 14 (New Revised Standard Version) To the leader. Of David.
Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is no one who does good.
The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind
to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God.
They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse;
there is no one who does good, no, not one.
Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread,
and do not call upon the Lord?
There they shall be in great terror, for God is with the company of the righteous.
You would confound the plans of the poor, but the Lord is their refuge.
O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion!
When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people, Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.
Into the dismal deep void of the world of Jeremiah 4 … we hear the echoing lament of Psalm 14 speaking into the darkness. “Fools say … there is no God.” This is not an expression of atheism in the sense that modern people think of atheism. Have you ever gazed upon the sunrise or the sunset? Have you ever looked deeply at a flower or listened to a bird sing? What does it take to be a true atheist? Do you know anyone who declares themselves an atheist? How do you receive them and their beliefs? What would you share with them if you could? Could you be a “Jeremiah?”
Consider the news last week that, according to his new book The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking now believes that God has no role in the universe. In all fairness I have not read the book. I simply read an article by Theunis Bates who is a London-based reporter. He quotes and sums up Hawkings argument, “"That makes the coincidences of our planetary conditions -- the single Sun, the lucky combination of Earth-Sun distance and solar mass, far less remarkable, and far less compelling evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings." Hawking believes that other universes, as well as other solar systems, are also likely to exist. But if God's purpose was to create mankind, he wonders, why would He make these redundant and out-of-reach worlds?” Wow! Hawking may be a brilliant scientist but he doesn’t understand the creative spirit … God creates because God is Creator. Perhaps God simply can’t “not” create. Personally, my belief in God and my love for God grows stronger with each universe that is discovered!
For the hearers of Psalm 14 in Jeremiah’s world, “fools” are people who did not know the God they knew. They were people whose minds and hearts were hardened and who were not open to Spirit. They were people who were skeptical in a God who cares. They were people who believed that God was not relevant. Have you ever been in that dark corner? What was it like to sit in such (metaphorical) darkness? So … The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind to see if there are any who are wise, who seek after God. What do you think God sees when looking upon humanity today? Are there any who are wise? Are we any different that the people with whom Jeremiah shared community? There are various authors today who talk and write about “practical atheism.” How often do we say we trust God, but then act as if God is an absent acquaintance … so we can take care of our struggles all by ourselves? How much do you trust God?
PONDERING Life in the Connections between Jeremiah 4 and Psalm 14
See how the words of Psalm 14 respond to and dance with the words of Jeremiah? The message is strikingly similar. If we believe in God we must seek God continually and for all times so that we grow in our knowledge of God … so that we grow intimately enmeshed in God’s presence … so that we know how we are being called to respond to God’s call upon our lives. Psalm 46:10 says “Be still and know that I am God!” Have you ever sought God in the stillness? What did that time of passive seeking teach you about God? Jeremiah 29:12-14 says, “Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. 13When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart, 14I will let you find me, says the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”
Have you ever sought God “with all of your being?” What were some of the things you did when you were seeking so intently? What did that active seeking teach you about God? Which is more comfortable for you, active or passive seeking?
PRAYING: Seek God in the stillness …
Use Psalm 46:10 as a meditative prayer … after each line sit in the silence for 2-5 minutes
Be still and know that I am God
Be still and know that I am
Be still and know
Be still
Be
Amen
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