Jeremiah 20.7-13

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Jeremiah 20.7-13

• ". . . dare and dare, and dare, until I die."
  Bernard Shaw, Saint Joan

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Solitude Spirituality

• "Religion is what the individual does with his
  own solitariness."
• ". . . religion is solitariness and if you are
  never solitary, you are never religious.
  Collective enthusiasms, revivals, institutions,
  churches, rituals, bibles, codes of behaviour,
  are the trappings of religion, its passing
  forms."
• Religion in the Making

Alfred North Whitehead
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• O Yahweh, you have deceived me and I let myself
  be deceived
• You have seized me, and you have overpowered me.
• I have become a joke all day long everyone jeers
  at me.
• For every time I speak,
• I cry, "Violence!" and I shout, "Destruction!"
• For the word of Yahweh has caused me reproach and
  contempt all day long.

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• I decided, "I will not mention him nor speak
  again in his name,"
• But like a burning fire in my heart, confined in
  my bones
• I am tired of holding in and cannot overpower it.
• For I hear many defaming, "Terror all around!"
  "Announce!""Announce it!"
• All my well wishers are watching my fall.
• "Perhaps he will be deceived and we can overpower
  him and take our revenge on him."

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• But Yahweh is with me like a dread warrior
• Therefore my pursuers will stumble and not
  overpower
• They will be very shamed, for they will not
  succeed
• An ignominy never forgotten.
• O Yahweh Sabbaoth,
• the One Who Examines the righteous,
• the One Who Sees the kidney and the heart
• Let me see your vengeance on them,
• For I have revealed my case to you.

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• Sing to Yahweh!
• Give praise to Yahweh!
• For he has rescued the life of the needy from the
  hands of those who do evil!

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1. Dialogic Relationship with God

• Jeremiah 20.7-13 comes at the end of a series of
  laments and God's responses from chapter 11 to
  20. (11.2020.12)
• These laments function to
• 1) defend Jeremiah's ministry
• 2) announce Yahweh's judgment on the people
• 3) indite the people of Jerusalem for their sins
• 4) depict Jeremiah's relationship with Yahweh as
  a sign and symbol of Israel's relationship with
  Yahweh.
• Mark S. Smith, The Laments of Jeremiah and Their
  Contexts

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1. Dialogic Relationship with God

• "Life by its very nature is dialogic. To live
  means to participate in dialogue to ask
  questions, to heed, to respond, to agree, and so
  forth." Mikhail Bakhtin

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1. Dialogic Relationship with God

• David Brainerd
• Tue 04-27 "I retired pretty early for secret
  devotions, and in prayer God was please to pour
  such ineffable comforts into my soul . . . ."
• Wed 04-28 "I withdrew to my usual place of
  retirement in great peace and tranquillity, spent
  about two hours in secret duties . . . ."
• Thur 04-29 - "I was kept off a distance from
  God - but had some enlargement in intercession
  for precious souls."
• Fri 04-30 "I was somewhat dejected in spirit
  nothing grieves me so much, as that I cannot live
  constantly to God's glory. . . ."

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2. Transparency God as the Enemy

• Jer 20.7a "O Lord, Thou has seduced me, And I am
  seduced
• Thou has raped me and I am overcome.
• Abraham Heschel claimed, " the first denotes
  seduction or enticement the second rape."
  Heschel, The Prophets

• Jer 20.7a "O Yahweh, you have deceived me and I
  let myself be deceived
• You have seized me, and you have overpowered me.
• The words are scandalous and "well nigh
  blasphemous" Bright, AB Jeremiah

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2. Transparency God as the Enemy

• Jer 20.8b "For the word of Yahweh has caused me
  reproach and contempt all day long."
• Jer 20.9 "I decided, "I will not mention him nor
  speak again in his name," But like a burning fire
  in my heart, confined in my bones I am tired of
  holding in and cannot overpower it.

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3. God's People as the Enemies

• Jer 20.8a "I have become a joke all day long
  everyone jeers at me. For every time I speak, I
  cry, "Violence!" and I shout, "Destruction!"
• Jer 20.10 "For I hear many defaming, "Terror all
  around!" "Announce!""Announce it!" All my well
  wishers are watching my fall. "Perhaps he will be
  deceived and we can overpower him and take our
  revenge on him."

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3. God's People as the Enemies

• Jonathan Edwards A Farewell Sermon (July 1,
  1750)
• Disagreement over confession of faith witness
  of life-change as requirement for Holy Communion.
• ". . . ministers and people, between whom there
  has been the greatest mutual regard and strictest
  union, may not only differ in their judgments,
  and be alienated in affection, but one may rend
  from the other, and all relation between them be
  dissolved. The minister may be removed to a
  distant place, and they may never have any more
  to do one with another in this world. But if it
  be so, there is one meeting more that they must
  have, and that is in the last great day of
  accounts".

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4. God is

• Jer 20.11 "But Yahweh is with me like a dread
  warrior Therefore my pursuers will stumble and
  not overpower They will be very shamed, for they
  will not succeed An ignominy never forgotten."
• Jer 20.12 "O Yahweh Sabbaoth, the One Who
  Examines the righteous, the One Who Sees the
  kidney and the heart Let me see your vengeance
  on them, For I have revealed my case to you."

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• Yes I am alone on earth I have always been
  alone. . . . I thought France would have friends
  at the court of the king of France . . . . I
  thought God would have friends everywhere,
  because He is the friend of everyone . . . . But
  I am wiser now and nobody is any worse for being
  wiser. Do not think you can frighten me by
  telling me that I am alone. France is alone and
  God is alone and what is my loneliness before
  the loneliness of my country and my God?

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• I see now that the loneliness of God is His
  strength what would He be if He listened to your
  jealous little counsels? Well, my loneliness
  shall be my strength too it is better to be
  alone with God His friendship will not fail me,
  nor His counsel, nor His love. In His strength I
  will dare, and dare, and dare, until I die.

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Jeremiah 20.7-13

• ". . . dare and dare, and dare, until I die."
  Bernard Shaw, Saint Joan