Jeremiah 20:7-13 (NRSV)
Read Jeremiah 20:7-13 on biblegateway.com
Verse 7O Lord, you have enticed me, and I was enticed; you have overpowered me, and you have prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me. Verse 8For whenever I speak, I must cry out, I must shout, "Violence and destruction!" For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. Verse 9If I say, "I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name," then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot. Verse 10For I hear many whispering: "Terror is all around! Denounce him! Let us denounce him!" All my close friends are watching for me to stumble. "Perhaps he can be enticed, and we can prevail against him, and take our revenge on him." Verse 11But the Lord is with me like a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, and they will not prevail. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten. Verse 12O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous, you see the heart and the mind; let me see your retribution upon them, for to you I have committed my cause. Verse 13Sing to the Lord; praise the Lord! For he has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.
Devotion
Faithfulness demands facing hard truths. We’re not only sin’s victims, we’re also its perpetrators. A night in the stocks didn’t stop Jeremiah from proclaiming the coming exile, another unwanted truth. In this his final “confession,” with his reputation and dignity in shambles, Jeremiah expresses doubt and misgivings about his calling as a prophet
The phone rang at a Nashville church. A South Carolina congregation asked for a photograph of a former associate pastor, Rev. Lucius Dubose. They wanted to confess and set the record straight. In 1961 the congregation had thrown their pastor out for supporting the civil rights movement. They acknowledged they were wrong about segregation. As an act of contrition and reconciliation, the church sought to correct a long-ago wrongdoing. “The time is always right to do what is right.”
What in our lives needs to be set right? “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it,” says the Lord.
Prayer
Lord God, who came in Jesus Christ to right the wrongs and redeem the world you love, help us to have the courage to follow you even when it means confronting what’s wrong in the world and within us. Amen.