May 19th, 2011
Today’s reading from Encounter with God

Listen for Your Life

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Opening Prayer

Father, many pulsing messages press in on me every day. Help me to tune to Your frequency, to hear Your voice.

Read JEREMIAH 19:1-15

[1] This is what the LORD says: “Go and buy a clay jar from a potter. Take along some of the elders of the people and of the priests [2] and go out to the Valley of Ben Hinnom, near the entrance of the Potsherd Gate. There proclaim the words I tell you, [3] and say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and people of Jerusalem. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Listen! I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it tingle. [4] For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned sacrifices in it to gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. [5] They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal-something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind. [6] So beware, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when people will no longer call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter. [7] “‘In this place I will ruin the plans of Judah and Jerusalem. I will make them fall by the sword before their enemies, at the hands of those who seek their lives, and I will give their carcasses as food to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth. [8] I will devastate this city and make it an object of scorn; all who pass by will be appalled and will scoff because of all its wounds. [9] I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh during the stress of the siege imposed on them by the enemies who seek their lives.’ [10] “Then break the jar while those who go with you are watching, [11] and say to them, ‘This is what the LORD Almighty says: I will smash this nation and this city just as this potter’s jar is smashed and cannot be repaired. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. [12] This is what I will do to this place and to those who live here, declares the LORD. I will make this city like Topheth. [13] The houses in Jerusalem and those of the kings of Judah will be defiled like this place, Topheth-all the houses where they burned incense on the roofs to all the starry hosts and poured out drink offerings to other gods.'” [14] Jeremiah then returned from Topheth, where the LORD had sent him to prophesy, and stood in the court of the LORD’s temple and said to all the people, [15] “This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘Listen! I am going to bring on this city and the villages around it every disaster I pronounced against them, because they were stiff-necked and would not listen to my words.'”

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. All rights reserved throughout the world. Used by permission of International Bible Society.

Meditate

“If you are religious, it is easier to read some pious books other than the Bible. The Bible treats you like human life does, roughly” (Oswald Chambers).

Think Further

Comrade Duch was responsible for the deaths of about 16,000 people in the infamous Tuol Sleng prison in Phnom Penh. To walk round this nondescript building is to be overwhelmed by the suffering. On the day of writing this note, a news report says that Duch has sorrowfully asked the Cambodian people “for the harshest punishment” for his crimes.

Walk through today’s reading in similar awed silence. Observe the verbs: what society has done (from top to bottom—elders, priests, kings, people); and what Jeremiah announces that God will do. Be appalled. What is there to say? The smashed pot is beyond repair (11). Jerusalem is to become Slaughter Vale. The people’s evil (ra’ah in Hebrew) is to feel the full weight of God’s ra’ah (disaster, v. 3). Unspeakable rites will be matched with cannibalism; the city will become a rubbish dump, a cemetery. The judgment is final, enormous, decisive, unchallenged.

Reflect on the words “will not listen” and “disaster” which resound like mournful gongs through chapter after chapter of Jeremiah. Right down to the very end of Jeremiah’s ministry, when everything he has predicted has come true and he has been dragged down to Egypt, the people are still not listening (44:16). I use this chapter, not to sit in judgment, but to reflect on my own listening, my attentiveness to the voice of God. Obedience has its root in the Latin verb audire, to listen. An eagle’s freedom lies in the air, a whale’s in the ocean. My freedom lies in the will of God as an expression of his love.

Apply

From a young age we become experts in “tuning out” sounds which we do not want to hear. Ask for God’s help to pay attention to his voice.

Closing prayer

Lord, my life can get so easily skewed. My relationships become messy. I have pressing obligations, and endless demands. Help me to seek Your will above everything else.

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