Jeremiah 6 Change: Why is it so Hard?

 

Chapter 8  

Jeremiah spent his life warning the people of the coming disaster and the cause of it, but it seemed that no one would listen.  Thirty years ago my children were in a music performance at school called, “Driving Miss Lazy”.  We were concerned about fossil fuels, plastics, forest destruction, excess consumerism and income disparity back then in 1990.  Why has it gotten worse and not better?  What keeps you working for change when it just doesn’t seem to be happening?  Like Jeremiah, those of us who hear the call of God and the see the pain in the world just can’t help speaking out.  There is balm in Gilead and we can and will sooth our wounds. I do believe that God hasn’t deserted us. The question for me is: how bad does it need to get before we really take action?  

photo by Ksenia Makagonova (unsplash)

The Blind Perversity of the Whole Nation

⁴ You shall say to them, Thus says the Lord:
When people fall, do they not get up again? If they go astray, do they not turn back?
⁵ Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding?
They have held fast to deceit, they have refused to return.
⁶ I have given heed and listened, but they do not speak honestly;
no one repents of wickedness, saying, “What have I done!”
All of them turn to their own course, like a horse plunging headlong into battle.
⁷ Even the stork in the heavens knows its times;
and the turtledove, swallow, and crane observe the time of their coming;
but my people do not know the ordinance of the Lord.

⁸ How can you say, “We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us,”
when, in fact, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie?
⁹ The wise shall be put to shame, they shall be dismayed and taken;
since they have rejected the word of the Lord, what wisdom is in them?
¹⁰ Therefore I will give their wives to others and their fields to conquerors,
because from the least to the greatest everyone is greedy for unjust gain;
from prophet to priest everyone deals falsely.
¹¹ They have treated the wound of my people carelessly,
    saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.

The Prophet Mourns for the People

¹⁴ Why do we sit still?
¹⁵ We look for peace, but find no good, for a time of healing, but there is terror instead.

¹⁸ My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick.
¹⁹ Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land:
²⁰ “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”
²¹ For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
    I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.

²² Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people not been restored?