Against the Grain

Lord, you always give me justice when I bring a case before you. So let me bring you this complaint: Why are the wicked so prosperous? Why are evil people so happy?” (Jeremiah 12:1, NLT)

That one verse right there might be the reason I’ve chosen to look at the life of Jeremiah, prophet to Judah in its last days as a kingdom. But let me share how I ended up getting to him.

We are in this series about the “with-ness” of God.

And my first thought was, “I want something that will speak to these times.” Or at the very least: “I want something that will speak to me during these times.” If God’s “with-ness” is true, if God’s “with-ness” is going to make a difference for us, it needs to speak to these times.

What do I mean by these times? I mean a time when the nation in which you live seems to be ruled by people who go against God’s concern for justice, and who get away with it. A time when the nation in which you live seems to be ruled by people who make bad decision after bad decision.

I also mean a time when the world in which we live seems dangerous and threatening, with nations threatening other nations all over the place.

Those are the times I feel like I am living in, the ones I need God to speak to.

And as soon as I said it like that, I thought of the Old Testament prophets. Many of them lived in eras and climates that very much feel like these times feel like to me. There’s Elijah, early in the kingdom of Israel, speaking against corrupt King Ahab. 

There’s Jonah, Amos, and Hosea, seeing the injustice of the kingdom of Israel and warning of its collapse under the threat of the Assyrian empire. There’s Isaiah, Micah, and Zephaniah, trying in vain to help the kingdom of Judah see how they, just like the now-conquered Israel, were following the same path of exploiting the poor and turning their backs on God.

There are hundreds of years of history where Israel and Judah are under threat of internal corruption and external enemies, with only a few little respites of goodness.

In fact, diving back into the history made me see one of my blind spots. I think because I grew up learning the stories of the bible and because I’ve spent so much of my life studying it—I’ve always thought of Israel and Judah as the ones with main character energy. 

But really, they are just bit players in an otherwise big drama between the true main characters.

Remember learning about the Fertile Crescent?

This is where the oldest civilizations in the world began. After humans wandered around as hunter/gatherers, getting food wherever they could, it was along the fertile river valleys of the Nile and between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers that humans first learned how to cultivate food, to plant and stay in one place and have enough to survive, to in fact have an abundance that allowed cities and civilizations to develop for the first time.

These civilizations coalesced into the first empires, which fit nicely over this crescent shape. Look at how things stood around 1200 BCE

These are the big fish.

That white area labeled “Arabs” is desert, and there are just a few nomadic groups that live there. It’s the fertile crescent where people live, the fertile crescent where empires emerge and fight. And the three big fish throughout most of what we call the Old Testament are Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon.

We’re going to put this map into motion through time in a moment. 

(I didn’t do that work, I stole it from YouTube, and all the credit goes to Ollie Bye.) On the freeze frame above, you can’t even see Israel and Judah because they don’t exist. This is during their captivity in Egypt before Moses leads them out. You can see Egypt has been a big player for a long time—they are already on the 19th dynasty of Pharaohs here in 1200 BCE. 

The tribes of Israel appear right after this, small little communities along the thin part of the crescent along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. They really aren’t the ones with main character energy. They are little minnows. They only get to exist because Egypt loses some of its power.

Click the movie below to send this map-movie moving forward from 1200 BCE, moving through time for a little more than 200 years (click the little arrows in the top left corner of the movie to go full screen).

As it goes through the years, watch how the big fish get bigger and smaller, fighting each other. Notice that it’s only when the big fish all have a down time at the same time that Saul is able to unify Israel and put them on the map. 

Now we go forward a few more decades, and the big fish all keep getting smaller.

The little fish only get to appear when the big fish struggle. And as more of these little kingdoms appear, King David comes along and aims for the big kid table, being kind of the biggest of the little fish. 

Here’s what’s fascinating when you step back and look at this big picture:

David and his son Solomon are only able to make Israel a big player on the world scene because this is the only period in almost a thousand years where the big three (Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon) all simultaneously go through weakness.

This is as good as it gets for Israel, as far as world power goes. Internally, after Solomon dies, they can’t stay united, and split into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. 

Watch as we go forward another 200 years and see Assyria become the dominant world power. Israel shrinks, and like with other empires before, the little fish re-emerge. 

The path toward the rich getting richer, which began under Solomon, deepens in Israel as time moves forward, and the world around them returns to a scarier and scarier place as empires grow again.

This movie stops in 722 BCE, right before Assyria destroys Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and sends the people there into exile. 

When you see this bird’s eye view, it’s not hard to see how the little kingdom of Judah felt like God had rescued them.

They were truly the littlest of the little fish, and they were right on the edge of ruin. The Assyrians were a threat to Judah for decades after the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed. King Hezekiah of Judah tried all kinds of negotiating and plotting and giving money in tribute, but it’s the prophet Isaiah who says none of your plotting will work, only God can save us. 

Judah is saved from the same fate as Israel because the Assyrian king’s sons seize power by taking the king’s life, and then in their own internal battle for power, Judah is saved. For a bit—and then time marches on.

Assyria becomes THE world power. 

They completely surround Judah, they even at one point take over Egypt. It’s right at this key point in history where Jeremiah, the one I want to look at, gives his first word of prophecy.

The world around them is a very dangerous place. Internally, things in the kingdom of Judah are not good. 

Jeremiah is from a family of priests who live in Anathoth, a little town a few miles from Jerusalem, Judah’s capital city. Jeremiah experiences the profound “with-ness” of God, but honestly, it’s not a real warm-and-fuzzy, “Chicken Soup for the Soul” kind of spirituality. 

God grabs hold of Jeremiah, and gives him a message and a mission that will lead to a life of conflict with those in power.

God is with Jeremiah, but he constantly is showing Jeremiah where Judah’s leaders and people are wrong, and the terrible consequences that are coming.

There are other prophets (false ones, as history proved) who are speaking the same message Isaiah did a hundred years before, saying, “God’s going to save us, I know it looks terrible but God is going to save us.” And in the middle of that false hope, God is giving Jeremiah the true message that this actually is the end.

The Lord gave me this message:

“I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.“

“O Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I can’t speak for you! I’m too young!“

The Lord replied, “Don’t say, ‘I’m too young,’ for you must go wherever I send you and say whatever I tell you. And don’t be afraid of the people, for I will be with you and will protect you. I, the Lord, have spoken!” Then the Lord reached out and touched my mouth and said,

“Look, I have put my words in your mouth! Today I appoint you to stand up against nations and kingdoms. Some you must uproot and tear down, destroy and overthrow. Others you must build up and plant.” (Jeremiah 1:4-10, NLT)

I’m so “with” you, God says, I formed you in your mother’s womb.

Don’t be afraid, Jeremiah, I’ll protect you, I’ll put words in your mouth. But make no mistake: you are going to stand up against nations and kingdoms. You’ll get to plant and build up a little bit, but mostly you are going to turn things on their head and tear things down.

Why? Because they’ve abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and built their own cracked and leaky barrels to drink from, but which can’t hold any water at all (2:13). 

Why? Because almost everyone in Judah is corrupt. “Look high and low, search throughout the city! If you can find even one just and honest person, I will not destroy the city.” (5:1) 

There are wicked people “who lie in wait for victims like a hunter hiding in a blind. They continually set traps to catch people. Like a cage filled with birds, their homes are filled with evil plots. And now they are great and rich. They are fat and sleek, and there is no limit to their wicked deeds. They refuse to provide justice to orphans and deny the rights of the poor.” (5:26-28)

Your only hope is to change and embrace justice. “…only if you stop your evil thoughts and deeds and start treating each other with justice; only if you stop exploiting foreigners, orphans, and widows; only if you stop your murdering…” (7:5-6)

This is all like what I see in our country today: injustice within our borders, and scary things outside them.

“My people bend their tongues like bows to shoot out lies. They refuse to stand up for the truth. They only go from bad to worse.” (9:3). “They speak friendly words to their neighbors while scheming in their heart to kill them.” (9:8) 

This is a hard path for Jeremiah, but the “with-ness” of God is so strong, and Jeremiah can’t help but obey.

When I speak, the words burst out. “Violence and destruction!” I shout. So these messages from the Lord have made me a household joke. But if I say I’ll never mention the Lord or speak in [Their] name, [Their] word burns in my heart like a fire. It’s like a fire in my bones! I am worn out trying to hold it in! I can’t do it!” (Jeremiah 20:8-9, NLT)

All this leads to where I started today, the heart of why I personally resonate with Jeremiah:

“Lord, you always give me justice when I bring a case before you. So let me bring you this complaint: why are the wicked so prosperous? Why are evil people so happy?” (Jeremiah 12:1, NLT)

This resonates with me, but I do want to be honest and say this isn’t the only way God works.

Remember Daniel in the bible? He’s a contemporary of Jeremiah, maybe a bit younger. He gets taken into exile, but he at least gets to thrive a bit and live out his life working with several enemy kings, earning their respect and finding a rewarding life of leadership within Babylon—at least for quite awhile. 

This is my disclaimer that one size doesn’t fit all, and Jeremiah is just who is connecting with me right now. 

But back to Jeremiah: people don’t like his negative message and don’t listen to him much.

He goes in and out of prison. Here’s something interesting to me, something that shows how his against-the-grain message had some things that proved him right. 

If you knew the power of the Assyrians over the last 100 years and knew this map…wouldn’t you try to make a deal with the Egyptians against the Assyrians?

That’s exactly the advice Judah’s king hears from his advisors, and it’s exactly what he tries to do. But Jeremiah is one who say, “It’s Babylon! Babylon is the problem.” Who would have guessed that with their weakness at the time? But Jeremiah sure was proved right.

Judah first makes a deal with Egypt, and it looks like things are going well against Assyria as they push north…but then King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon takes over everything, conquering Assyria and the Egyptians, conquering Judah and taking Daniel and other key leaders into exile in 597 BCE. 

Nebuchadnezzar installs Zedekiah as a puppet king in Judah, Zedekiah ignores Jeremiah and tries to rebel and align with Egypt, and Nebuchadnezzar exerts his power. By 587 BCE Jerusalem is conquered and almost all the people taken to Babylon.

That’s obviously way oversimplified, but all the words from God that to Jeremiah were “like a fire in my bones” were proven true.

Sometimes we live in times where the God’s justice and way of living goes so against what is happening around us that we feel very alone. Jeremiah chooses to cling tightly to what he hears from God, no matter the consequences.

I long for God to sustain us with that kind of courage and strength.

But there’s one other part of Jeremiah’s life and message I want to draw our attention to as well.

Right when the map looks like this, when Nebuchadnezzar’s armies are surrounding Jerusalem ready to conquer, God gives Jeremiah another message.

Jeremiah is imprisoned by puppet-king Zedekiah, because Jeremiah had spoken out against the ill-fated rebellion that led to this moment. This is a terrible time on a national scale! And what is this message Jeremiah receives from God?

Your cousin Hanamel is going to come with a real estate proposition. 

Who cares, right? Everything they knew was crashing down around them. Jerusalem itself would be rubble within a year. Why in the world would I buy a piece of land? I’m in jail, there’s an army at the gate, everyone hates me…and here’s my cousin trying to get me to buy his property in Anathoth THAT LITERALLY HAS THE BABYLONIAN ARMY SITTING ON TOP OF IT RIGHT NOW!

But when his cousin does show up, Jeremiah “knew that the message I had heard was from the Lord. So I bought the field at Anathoth.” (32:8-9)

I mean, this is a guy getting to the end and just cracking, right?

You think Nebuchadnezzar is going to honor a real estate transaction? On ground his army has already conquered? No way! This is cousin Hanamel trying to make a quick buck off his gullible cousin. 

But Jeremiah does it all, and he follows all the laws of Judah to a T. He pays seventeen pieces of silver, signs and seals the deed in front of witnesses. Then he gives it to his secretary and tells him to bury it and keep it safe.

Like it really matters! Babylon is about to turn the world upside down. 

But Jeremiah is doing something amazing here.

God’s “with-ness” with Jeremiah is leading to Jeremiah demonstrating “with-ness” to the people who have rejected him and his words for most of his life. Jeremiah chapter 32: beginning in verse 14:

This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Take both this sealed deed and the unsealed copy, and put them into a pottery jar to preserve them for a long time.” For this is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel says: “Someday people will again own property here in this land and will buy and sell houses and vineyards and fields.” (Jeremiah 32:14-15, NLT)

Jeremiah is saying: I am going to show my community that I am all-in with you.

It makes no sense. It’s not a good deal for me. But this is my home too. I have been holding out for justice and for treating each other right. I’ve been holding out for not using your money to exploit and take advantage of others.

And now, I’m showing you that I’m with you. Even with that army on the doorstep, even though it costs me money, I’m showing you that I am with you, I am one of you. I am invested in this land, come hell or high water.

Jeremiah is an incredible realist even as he demonstrates solidarity and hope. His words are recorded as if speaking to God, starting in chapter 32 verse 24:

See how the siege ramps have been built against the city walls! Through war, famine, and disease, the city will be handed over tot he Babylonians, who will conquer it. Everything has happened just as you said. And yet, O Sovereign Lord, you have told me to buy the field—paying good money for it before these witnesses—even though the city will soon be handed over to the Babylonians. (Jeremiah 32:24-25, NLT)

Then comes God’s response down in verse 42:

“Just as I have brought all these calamities on them, so I will do all the good I have promised them. Fields will again be bought and sold in this land…Yes, fields will once again be bought and sold-deeds signed and sealed and witnessed—in the land of Benjamin and here in Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the hill country, in the foothills of Judah and in the Negev, too. For someday I will restore prosperity to them.” (Jeremiah 32:42-44, NLT)

One thing I keep reading as advice in times like these is to do what’s right, and to build community locally, building a network of support right here.

And honestly, that’s what I see in the way “with-ness” plays out in Jeremiah’s story. God’s with-ness in Jeremiah gives him courage, direction, and strength to do right; and Jeremiah making a foolish real estate purchase is actually a way he’s demonstrating how he’s all-in locally. He identifies with and puts it all on the line for his local home and people.

Sometimes God’s with-ness isn’t easy to hear. Sometimes God will push us to go against the grain, to take risks to stand for truth. Doing right is always right. And taking steps to be all-in with our local community, with the people around us, is so important. 

May we experience God with us, even if it pushes us to uncomfortable places.

May we find courage and strength in God’s presence. And may we find ways to be all-in for the people around us.