For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.
After all the trials and tribulations, after God sending the people out and letting them be captured by the Babylonians, God is providing a vision of hope and promise and faith. Despite everything being desolated, people will once again buy houses, fields and vineyards in their homeland.
I admit I’m struggling a bit through Jeremiah, what with the conflicting prophets and the angry, vindictive God. Every day, I struggle not to focus on things that don’t sound like the God I have been raised to know. After God’s covenants with Abraham and Noah, and whoever else I’m missing, God allows his chosen people to be captured. But THIS time, he promises that his people will be returned and God will make an everlasting covenant that God will never draw back from doing good again. Haven’t we read that before? So that’s what I don’t want to focus on, but it does perplex me.
Thanks to the reflection for this appointed section of Jeremiah, from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who focuses on God’s consistent mercy. Again, Bonhoeffer writes at a time when he’s jailed by the Nazis. He points to this section of Jeremiah, the idea that despite all of their trials people will once again buy houses and fields. That demonstrates a great sense of trust and faith in the future, and that’s where Bonhoeffer focuses.
He prays that this sense of faith and trust in tomorrow be granted daily from God, despite the sufferings of today. That was no small task for him, as he was awaiting execution from the Nazis. But as he points out, if we only have faith when things are easy today, that’s not really faith. If we don’t stand firmly in the world in which we find ourselves – in good and bad times – we have a fair weather faith. He writes, “I fear that Christians who stand with only one leg upon earth also stand with only one leg in heaven.” If the returning Israelites can plant vineyards, and Bonhoeffer can have faith in a merciful God, I should be able to. Even if I struggle with a God that’s seemingly wrathful. That’s my problem, not God’s.
God-made-man promises love, and mercy, and has made a covenant with me personally that supersedes all of my conflicted understanding of the God of Jeremiah. This morning, I’m thinking about God’s covenant and bond with me that’s indissoluble, and should provide me with all I need to buy that vineyard in the desolate land.
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