Jeremiah 1: 4-10

Imagine the scene – a young man stands in the midst of the destroyed twin cities of Judah and Israel and proclaims that he was called and consecrated to be a prophet to the nations – even before he was formed in his mother’s womb!  Such presumption, such courage!  But then, he goes on to make a confession that he was in fact a reluctant prophet.  He says that he had complained to God that he was only a boy, he could not speak.  But God did not listen to his excuses – God tells him that he must go where God sends him.  God promises to be with Jeremiah and go with him.  God will touch Jeremiah’s lips and put the right words, God’s words, into his mouth.  And there is more – God tells Jeremiah that he has been appointed to lead not just the Jews but all the nations and kingdoms of the world.  Jeremiah is mandated to pluck up and pull down, to destroy and overthrow – but also to build and plant.  In other words, this young man is given the power to turn the world upside down!  Yes indeed, he is called and consecrated to serve God and the people.  He seems to have no choice but to obey.  “If not now, when, if not me, who?”

1.         There is the context of political upheaval – of militarization and of invasion.  In the year 605 BC, Judah becomes a vassal state of Babylon.  Historians point out that Babylon had begun extracting high taxes from the people of Judah.  A puppet king was placed on the throne and Babylon continued to interfere in the internal affairs of Judah.  When there were such levels of interference inevitably there was revolt in Judah.  Babylon invaded the country three times – several citizens from the upper classes were deported to Babylon from Judah.  In one of the invasions of Judah, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem – they breached the city walls, destroyed the palace and the temple, deported the king and his family and killed many of the nation’s leaders.  By the time of the third invasion – Judah is completely destroyed and anarchy reigns – life is totally disrupted.

 Does this not sound like a report on CNN – something from our present world – over the last two or so years we have seen on the news each day images of war, of invasion and of destruction?   Words such as “control”, “invasion”, “puppet rulers”, “interference in internal affairs”, “destroy” and “anarchy” words to describe the times of the prophet, are relevant for the present.  And as a corollary to all this, the additional and inevitable phrase, “and many were killed” – innocent people who will have to die in the midst of war games of men (and some women too!) who have the power to initiate these wars.

 2.               To go back to Jeremiah’s times.  The second aspect in the analysis is the context of injustice – economic and social.  The prophet Jeremiah describes God’s displeasure with the extent of economic injustice.  Biblical historians point out that Israel and Judah were living in times when the ruling classes were totally preoccupied with prosperity and material gain.  This was to be achieved at any cost - theft from each other, competition and deceit ruled the day.  Jeremiah condemns economic oppression.  With the condemnation was included judgement against wicked nations and people.  Jeremiah does not mince his words:  “For scoundrels are found among my people; they take over the goods of others.  Like fowlers they set a trap; they catch human beings.  Like a cage full of treachery; therefore they have become great and rich, they have grown fat and sleek.  They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy.”  (5:26-28).   A materialistic society must be a greedy one, according to Jeremiah,  “From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit.” (Jer. 6:13).

 This too rings with contemporary overtones.  We would today not find it difficult to acknowledge that poverty is sinful – but then so is ugly displays of wealth. What we need to acknowledge is that we cannot speak of poverty in our world without addressing wealth and consumption patterns.   Today, recognising who it is that contributes the most to atmospheric pollution and climate change is a good indicator of global systems of injustice – because climate change is an obvious offshoot of extravagant and callous lifestyles of the wealthy.  The top contributor to carbon dioxide emissions is the US, which has contributed 186.1 billion tons of this pollutant, since 1950.  The European Union follows with a contribution of 127.8 billion tons; much further down the line comes India having contributed 15.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions since 1950.[1]  While I do not wish to condone India for its contributions to the depletion of the ozone layer, we have to acknowledge that India with the second largest population in the world contributes just a tenth or so of US pollution levels.  What makes it even more unacceptable is the reluctance and sometimes refusal to change patterns of consumption.  We cannot forget that one of the first official actions of George Bush, when he became President of the US in 2001 was his refusal to sign the 1997, Kyoto Protocol (the Climate Change Convention to determine targets and timetables for reducing greenhouse gas emissions).  President Bush’s argument is that controlling carbon dioxide emissions does not make economic sense to the US – the impact this has on the world he tends to conveniently ignore!

According to the 2003 UN Development Programme Annual Report the economic situation of 54 countries are poorer today than they were in 1990; life expectancy fell in 34 countries and 21countries are hungrier than they were in 1990.  The bottom 25 places on the list are all countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Sierra Leone in the very last place. Liberia, which is so much in the news these days, also lies at the bottom of the pit. The UNDP report also records that 23% of the world’s population live on less than US one dollar a day.  More than 13 million children have died of communicable diseases and over half a million women, (one for every minute of the day), dies in pregnancy and childbirth. 800 million children suffer from malnutrition.

Regretfully the frame of occupation as an element to understand biblical history is not acknowledged as an injustice even by some feminist theologians.  Feminists would critique the book of Jeremiah for rendering women invisible, and this is true and needs to be said but they seem to be content to stop here. An analysis, on the basis of gender alone, is incomplete.  Women from dominant communities have to recognise their place of privilege in the world (even if undoubtedly, all women do face oppression each within their own social location). What of being occupied, of your land, your sovereignty being taken away from you, of being of an oppressed race and ethnicity - are these questions not to be addressed?  Musa Dube, feminist theologian from Botswana calls for a dialogue among women globally so that we can move to a new international, inter-textual reading so as to weave together more holistic understandings of the Bible and Biblical history – to make them meaningful to us today.  We need to challenge the way our faith has been used to legitimise occupation, colonialism and today the project of the imperialism and  of empire.[3]

What makes this third lens in our analysis important is because the agenda of imperialism continues today couched in the kind of “religious” language used by President George Bush in the so-called “war against terror” and in the tragic wars we have witnessed against Afghanistan and Iraq.  The language of occupation is being used again. Syria seems to be the next in line, even if there have been strong challenges to the evidence of so called threats of weapons of mass destruction.  The aggressive behaviour of the US and its allies has been couched under what could be termed “Christian language” - the language of Crusades, by what is perceived as a “Christian” United States (and implicitly in the name of the Christian God).  “The presumed need to defend Western civilisation against the barbarian other”[4] – is the ideology which has been revived to justify this new war, according to William K. Tabb, economist from the US.  He goes on to say that, “The legitimacy of the American actions is derived from its position of overwhelming superiority in the world, a dominance unrivalled since Imperial Rome and from its claim to good intentions, benevolence and the need to rid the world of evil ones.” The empire builder is the US ably supported by its allies of whom Britain, the country that knows well what colonising requires, takes the lead.   “Let us reorder this world around us”, is the slogan behind the plan for a II New World Order announced by Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1999 on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary celebrations of the NATO.  (In 1991, Bush senior, the then President of the US had called for a New World Order).

We recollect the rhetoric of “liberation” and “freedom” of the people of Afghanistan, particularly of Afghani women, that accompanied the bombing of that country last year.  It led to the killing of many civilians (nobody has counted how many!) as well as extensive loss of property and infrastructure.  The Revolutionary Women’s Association of Afghani Women, (RAWA) which identifies itself as the only feminist and anti-fundamentalist organisation in Afghanistan, had long before the invasion of Afghanistan, been struggling internally against the “forced misery and humiliation of the burqa (veil)”.  But RAWA had repeatedly warned then and they continue to say that freedom from the veil, “is in no way an indication of the attainment of women’s rights and liberties”.  It is only by the establishment of a secular and democratic government in Afghanistan that Afghani women will be able to “unburden the dead weight of centuries of oppression”[5] they have clearly stated.  They had also declared unequivocally that the bombing of their country would neither usher in democracy in Afghanistan nor freedom for the women.   And a brief look at what is happening in Afghanistan today is proof of how right they were!   

It is the language of a superior western “deliverer” that rends the air as bombs and missiles streak through the skies. And the war on the ever expanding “axis of evil” implies that the so-called “good” will overcome the so-called “evil”, whatever the price may be.  In 1996, Madeline Albright, the then US Secretary of State was asked on national television what she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US economic sanctions.  She replied that “it was a hard choice” but that, all things considered, “we think the price is worth it.”  Life goes on and even more children will die in continuing wars, even as economic sanctions continue.  Even more children die each day in many parts of the world due to the impoverishment of peoples because of the un-diminishing reality of injustice and exclusion in this globalised economic world order.  Whatever the price, the US and its allies will pursue their goal of bringing the world under their control.  The war on terrorism and the ways in which the US has refused to be governed by any international covenants and legal obligations can only be seen as “a crusade for the US to solidify world empire.”[6]

 It is in such a world that we are called to be prophets!  Let us go back to the text and to look at it more carefully.  Jeremiah was a priest – authorised and appointed to teach the people; but to that God added the extraordinary commission of a prophet.  Even before he was born he was given this huge responsibility – the power that gave him life was now going to use him for the purposes of restoring life.   Like Jeremiah,  St. Paul too says that he was called this way.  “But when God who had set me apart before I was born and called me through God’s grace…” (Galatians 1: 15).  In other words God knows each one of us before we are born and knows what use to make of each one of us – yes, we too have been formed in our mother’s wombs to do the work of God.

 In verse 6 we see Jeremiah, with modesty, refusing the honour being placed on him.  He is surprised that this great task is being placed on his young shoulders and he is ready with his excuses – “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a small boy.” (v.6).   How can he be expected to confront those with authority and be heard by them?  Will not his youth stand against him being accepted? Jeremiah tries to say all he can to avoid the responsibility being given to him.  But, he really has no choice.  Throughout the Bible we see God calling the most unlikely, those who do not count or who are told they do not count.  We see this in our lives as women – as women we so often do not trust ourselves nor do we trust our capabilities – we too give many excuses and try to withdraw from responding to God’s call. 

 But then in verse 7 and 8 we see God graciously giving Jeremiah the assurance that God will stand by him and to help him carry on his work.  Let him not object that he is just a child.  He will be a prophet, in spite of that.  And God will go with him and enable him to speak. Jeremiah objects that he will meet with many enemies and will have to face opposition.  Jeremiah objects that he cannot speak, as he should. But God takes care of this.  God will always empower us and give us the tools we need to be God’s missionaries in the world.  In verse 9, Jeremiah has a vision of God touching his lips and giving him the gift of speech, as was necessary for him.  God touched his mouth and the touch opened his lips and God’s words were put on his lips.  God’s touch inspires him to speak up for and to act for the sake of justice and peace.

 Jeremiah is now able to speak powerfully – he is called to speak to the Jews and to all the nations with an authority that comes from God. This sounds grand.  But then again, Jeremiah was just a priest – he had no political authority, he is not a king, he did not have in his hands a sword.  But he had a power greater than these.  He could speak as a prophet with the power of the word of God.

 In verse 10 we see that Jeremiah is placed in a position to transform all the nations – to root out and pull down to destroy and overthrow wickedness and injustice.  In other words he is called to deconstruct that which threatens the future of Judah and Jerusalem but also to plant and rebuild a future of hope.  Jeremiah has to expose all false prophets and place before the people the options they have between life and death.

 As prophets of today we too are in that position to confront false prophets who manipulate our minds and lives and make us believe they have our best interests at heart – when all the time their policies and practices distort life and distort the truth.  The true prophet has to tell those who continue to abuse their power and persist in their wicked and ruthless ways that they will be rooted out and destroyed.  As true prophets we have to offer hope, an ethic of care and compassion to those who repent of their sins so that they can be built up and planted.  Are we not, each one of us placed in such a position today?   God has the power to make each one of us God’s prophets – the text reminds us!   And  let us face it – we have no choice either - this is what God is consecrating each one of us to say with courage and deep humility: “If not now, when, if not me who?”.  So let us say it together loudly and clearly “If not now, when, if not me who?”.

Aruna Gnanadason

Co-ordinator

Justice, Peace & Creation Team/Women

World Council of Churches - Geneva

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