Don’t for a Minute Believe the Lies
The Message from GOD to Jeremiah: “Stand in the gate of GOD’s Temple and preach this Message.
“Say, ‘Listen, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship GOD. GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies, Israel’s God, has this to say to you:
“ ‘Clean up your act—the way you live, the things you do—so I can make my home with you in this place. Don’t for a minute believe the lies being spoken here—“This is GOD’s Temple, GOD’s Temple, GOD’s Temple!” ’ ”
Jeremiah 7:1-4
Jesus today has many who love his heavenly kingdom, but few who carry his cross; many who yearn for comfort, few who long for distress. Plenty of people he finds to share his banquet, few to share his fast. Everyone desires to take part in his rejoicing, but few are willing to suffer anything for his sake. There are many that follow Jesus as far as the breaking of bread, few as far as drinking the cup of suffering; many that revere his miracles, few that follow him in the indignity of his cross.
Thomas à Kempis[1]
Manasseh was the worst king the Hebrews ever had. He was a thoroughly bad man presiding over a totally corrupt government. He reigned in Jerusalem for fifty-five years, a dark and evil half century.
He encouraged a pagan worship that involved whole communities in sexual orgies. He installed cult prostitutes at shrines throughout the countryside. He imported wizards and sorcerers who enslaved the people in superstitions and manipulated them with their magic. The man could not do enough evil. There seemed to be no end to his barbarous cruelties. His capacity for inventing new forms of evil seemed bottomless. His appetite for the sordid was insatiable. One day he placed his son on the altar in some black and terrible ritual of witchcraft and burned him as an offering (2 Kings 21).
The great Solomonic temple in Jerusalem, resplendent in its holy simplicity, empty of any form of god so that the invisible God could be attended to in worship, swarmed with magicians and prostitutes. Idols shaped as beasts and monsters defiled the holy place. Lust and greed were deified. Murders were commonplace. Manasseh dragged the people into a mire far more stinking than anything the world had yet seen. The sacred historian’s judgment was blunt: “Manasseh led them off the beaten path into practices of evil even exceeding the evil of the pagan nations that GOD had earlier destroyed” (2 Kings 21:9).[2]
Jeremiah was born in the last decade of Manasseh’s rule. This is the world in which Jeremiah learned to walk and talk and play. No worse environment in which to raise a child can be imagined. It was a slum society: “From the wicked who stalk us with lies, from the wicked who collect honors for their wonderful lies” (Ps 12:8).
Fifty-five years of such misrule brought the faith close to oblivion. Some old people remembered prophetic oracles and acts of true worship. Rumors of holiness were no doubt whispered about. Hidden pockets of faithful people maintained a fugitive existence. Then Manasseh died. His son Amon succeeded him. The people watched to see if things would change. They didn’t. The evil continued. But the people had their stomachs full. They had reached the breaking point and could take no more. Amon was murdered. His eight-year-old son, Josiah, was put on the throne.
Now begins one of the most remarkable chapters in the story of these people who are our ancestors. Somehow in this boy king there was an innocence and uncorrupt spirit that God was able to use to bring new life to the land.
We wonder how Josiah got started, for he had no models to work from. Goodness originates at some deep level inaccessible to our investigations. When I see a large expanse of black asphalt parking lot, I sometimes think of Manasseh and Josiah. The asphalt is ugly and forbidding. A fresh green creation has been bulldozed into oblivion to make way for this sterile, monotonous surface. A harsh and brutal technology has obliterated a delicately nuanced life for the convenience of the worshipers of the god Mammon. But before long, cracks appear and grasses, wildflowers, even sprouting trees, push their way through. The underground forces of life break through the surface patina of death. Maintenance engineers patch and fill and seal to keep their surface intact and smooth. If they are inattentive for so much as a season or two, seemingly fragile but in fact formidable life reasserts itself.
I speak of the unremarked
Forces that split the heart
And make the pavement toss—
Forces concealed in quiet
People and plants[3]
Mannasseh had covered the Holy Land with Sodom-and- Gomorrah asphalt. But the holy was not gone, only invisible. Josiah was one of the first shoots to break through the black bitumen. Out of some deep, intuitive longing for God that corrupt parents had not been able to quash, that an evil environment had not been able to annihilate, he asked questions: How could a better rule be established? What could he do as king to recover health and goodness in the garbage dump that was Jerusalem? He had to start someplace. He started at the place of worship.
A people’s lives are only as good as their worship. The temple in Jerusalem was the architectural evidence of the importance of God in the life of the people. All the lines of life crisscrossed in the temple. Meaning was established there. Values were created there. Worship defines life. If worship is corrupt, life will be corrupt. For fifty-five years lust and violence in the temple had percolated into the streets and homes and villages of the nation. Josiah began by cleaning up the temple.
As the temple was being renovated and repaired, Hilkiah the priest found an old book there. The book was brought to Josiah and read aloud to him. It was the book of Deuteronomy. Imagine the impact of that reading. Here is Josiah, disgusted with the evil of his father and grandfather and determined to do something about it, but not knowing quite how. He had no blueprint, no direction, no counsel. The only thing he had inherited from his father and grandfather was fifty-five years of evil. Now he had this powerful document about the love of God and worship of him, clear definitions of right and wrong, and explicit directions on how to make moral decisions and conduct intelligent worship. In Josiah’s ears the reading was “a thunderclap of conscience.”[4]
The young king’s response was swift and commanding. He immediately put into action everything that he read. Now that he knew what true worship was, he banished every vestige of false worship. The government-subsidized immorality was wiped out. The cult prostitutes who had special housing in the temple were turned out. The magicians and sorcerers who had set up shop in the temple precincts were scattered. Josiah dispersed his agents throughout the land announcing what was discovered in this scroll. Old altars were torn down and people were taught the way of faith. It was exciting, dramatic and glorious. “Never had there been a reform so sweeping in its aims and so consistent in execution!”[5]
The muck of a half century of corruption was shoveled out of the city, out of the land. The place had been a religious zoo. At the old places of worship you could get any loathsome desire gratified, any murderous ambition licensed. There was a ritual and god or goddess for every whim. Under Manasseh religion was centered in what William James, in a memorable phrase, called the “convulsive little ego.”[6] Religion was supernatural assistance to do whatever you wished: make money, insure a good harvest, feel good, murder the person you hate, get ahead of your neighbor. Now, under Josiah, religion centered in one holy God. Religion became what it must be but often is not—a way of discovering the meaning of life, of ordering justice in society, of finding direction toward goals of excellence, of acquiring the discipline to live with integrity, of realizing how God loves and of learning how to love God in return.
Jeremiah had a ringside seat in the arena of this reform. It is hardly conceivable, though, that he remained a spectator. He was not the sort of person to stand on the sidelines. He helped. He participated in the reform with his preaching. We have fragments of his sermons.
“You’ve solicited many lover-gods, like a streetwalking whore chasing after other gods” (Jer 3:2). The people had abandoned the God who loved and called them into being and had given themselves in reckless prodigality to every god and goddess they met. Moral pollution works the same way as environmental pollution. The waste products of careless living work insidiously into the soil of thought and the streams of language, poisoning every part of society.
Jeremiah pleaded with them: “Plow your unplowed fields” (Jer 4:3). Superstition and idolatry form a tough crust that makes us insensitive and unreceptive to the word that God speaks in mercy and salvation. Plowing is a metaphor for the repentance that prepares the ground of our hearts to receive what God has for us.
Jeremiah was scathing and sarcastic: “And you, what do you think you’re up to? Dressing up in party clothes, . . . putting on lipstick and rouge and mascara! Your primping goes for nothing” (Jer 4:30).
Through it all Jeremiah conveyed hope: “Go stand at the crossroads and look around. Ask for directions to the old road, the tried-and-true road. Then take it. Discover the right route for your souls” (Jer 6:16). There are old paths, well-trodden and clearly marked, that lead to goodness and to God. The Scriptures—in this case the Deuteronomy scroll—map the roads. If we ignore them, we stumble over obstacles. Jeremiah’s preaching was tireless in insisting on the plain, obvious truth: that God is among us, that we can and must live in faithful love with him.
The reform was accomplished. Everything that a king’s commands could do was done: conspicuous crime was stopped; superstitious religion was sent packing; immoral worship was banned. But getting rid of evil does not make people good. It didn’t take Jeremiah long to realize that the reform was only skin-deep. Everything had changed, but nothing had changed. The outward changes had been enormous; the inward changes were imperceptible.
It isn’t long before we find Jeremiah standing in the gates of the Jerusalem temple preaching an odd sermon. This is the very temple that had been the focus for the impressive and successful reform. We would expect a note of congratulation, praising the people for cleaning up the place, getting rid of the wizards, banishing the cult prostitutes, making it safe to walk the street again without getting mugged or murdered. But we hear nothing like that. Everybody is coming to church, arriving at the temple to offer sacrifices just as they are commanded to do in the new best-selling book of Deuteronomy. Worship of the Lord is popular and enthusiastic. The throngs were euphoric: “This is GOD’s Temple, GOD’s Temple, GOD’s Temple!”
And what is Jeremiah saying? This: “Don’t for a minute believe the lies being spoken here—‘This is God’s Temple, God’s Temple, God’s Temple.’ ” The people stood in the holy place and spoke the current religious cliché and supposed that everything was just fine. They were in the right place, and they said the right words—but they were not right. The reform was necessary, but it was not enough. For religion is not a matter of arrangements or places or words, but of life and love, of mercy and obedience, of persons in a passion of faith.
Just when Jeremiah expected the people, free from the corruption of Manasseh, to launch into a life of faith using their energy in love, venturing into justice and peace, he arrives at the temple, and what does he find? He finds the people stupidly pleased with themselves and repeating the reform slogan “God’s Temple, God’s Temple, God’s Temple.” Jeremiah is irate.
Places are important—immensely important. Sites and buildings are places where we gather ourselves for fresh action and assemble ourselves for new endeavor. But standing in a church singing a hymn doesn’t make us holy any more than standing in a barn and neighing makes us a horse.
And words are important—immensely important. What we say and the way we say it expresses what is most personal and intimate in us. But mindlessly repeating holy words no more creates a relationship than saying “I love you” twenty times a day makes us skilled lovers.
Only because the reform was successful could this kind of thing happen. The temple was now clearly the Lord’s temple and not a pagan shrine. When the people came they did not buy amulets, or visit the cult prostitute, or pay to get their fortune told—they worshiped the way they had been commanded by Moses. They were in the right place, saying the right thing. Yet Jeremiah calls their presence and the words there a lie.
This sermon by Jeremiah is so important to us. It is especially important in times of success, when everything is going well, when the church is admired and church attendance swells. We think everything is fine because the appearances are fine and the statistics are impressive. The church is never in so much danger as when it is popular and millions of people are saying “I’m born again, born again, born again.”
Jeremiah is as concerned with the right place and the right words as anyone. He, after all, fought hard for this reform. But the right place and the right words are not the life of faith but only the opportunity for the life of faith. They can just as easily be used as a respectable front for a corrupt self. Jeremiah accused the people of just this, using God’s temple as a front for a cave full of criminals (Jer 7:11).
A criminal’s cave is a secure place to hide between forays into the countryside to pillage weak and unprotected travelers. After these raids for plunder the robbers go back to the cave where they are safe. That is Jeremiah’s accusation: “You have found a safe place, haven’t you! This nice, clean temple. You spend all week out in the world doing what you want to do, taking advantage of others, exploiting the weak, cursing the person who isn’t pliable to your plans, and then you repair to this place where everything is in order and protected and right.” Six hundred and fifty years later Jesus used Jeremiah’s text in his “spring cleaning” temple sermon (Mk 11:15-19) and Paul similarly warned Timothy of those who were making “a show of religion, but behind the scenes they’re animals” (2 Tim 3:5).
Jeremiah is specific in his arraignment: “Do you think you can rob and murder, have sex with the neighborhood wives, tell lies nonstop, worship the local gods, and buy every novel religious commodity on the market—and then march into this Temple, set apart for my worship, and say, ‘We’re safe!’ thinking that the place itself gives you a license to go on with all this outrageous sacrilege?” (Jer 7:9-10) Their religious performance was impeccable; their everyday life was rotten.
The outside is a lot easier to reform than the inside. Going to the right church and saying the right words is a lot easier than working out a life of justice and love among the people you work and live with. Showing up at church once a week and saying a hearty Amen is a lot easier than engaging in a life of daily prayer and Scripture meditation that develops into concern for poverty and injustice, hunger and war.
Are the people who do this deliberately trying to pull the wool over the eyes of their neighbors and fake God into blessing them? Some are, but for most I don’t think so. I don’t think they are trying to get by with anything. I think they have lived for so long on the basis of outward appearances that they have no feel for inward reality. I think they were so impressed with the success of the reform that they thought that was all there was to it. We live in a culture where image is everything and substance nothing. We live in a culture where a new beginning is far more attractive than a long follow-through. Images are important. Beginnings are important. But an image without substance is a lie. A beginning without a continuation is a lie.
Jeremiah attempted to shock his people into a recognition of this obvious but avoided truth by sending them on a field trip to Shiloh: “Take a trip down to the place that was once in Shiloh, where I met my people in the early days. Take a look at those ruins, what I did to it because of the evil ways of my people Israel” (Jer 7:12).
Shiloh was one of the most famous holy places in Hebrew history. Located at the center of the country, it had been the earliest focus for worship and consultation in Israel. When Joshua brought the people into the land after their deliverance from Egypt and forty years of wilderness wandering, Shiloh was where they assembled, set up the tabernacle and divided up the land among the twelve tribes. The revered ark of the covenant was kept at Shiloh. The great prophet Samuel spoke his words of counsel there. Shiloh was a magnificent beginning. Shiloh was a glorious image. But all Shiloh was now was a few piles of rocks in a field of weeds, as every traveler from Galilee to Jerusalem could see. Shiloh was the right place; at Shiloh the right words were spoken. But when the right place no longer launched a walk with God and when the right words no longer expressed love and faith, Shiloh was destroyed.
If it could happen to Shiloh, it can happen to Jerusalem—and any other place where people gather to worship God.
It is not enough to be in the right place; it is not enough to say the right words; it is never enough until we are walking with God twenty-four hours a day everywhere we go, with everything we say an expression of love and faith.
When I talk with people who come to me in preparation for marriage I often say, “Weddings are easy; marriages are difficult.” The couple wants to plan a wedding; I want to plan a marriage. They want to know where the bridesmaids will stand; I want to develop a plan for forgiveness. They want to discuss the music of the wedding; I want to talk about the emotions of the marriage. I can do a wedding in twenty minutes with my eyes shut; a marriage takes year after year after year of alert, wide-eyed attention.
Weddings are important. They are beautiful; they are impressive; they are emotional; sometimes they are expensive. We weep at weddings and we laugh at weddings. We take care to be at the right place at the right time and say the right words. Where people stand is important. The way people dress is significant. Every detail—this flower, that candle—is memorable. All the same, weddings are easy.
But marriages are complex and difficult. In marriage we work out in every detail of life the promises and commitments spoken at the wedding. In marriage we develop the long and rich life of faithful love that the wedding announces. The event of the wedding without the life of marriage doesn’t amount to much. It hardly matters if the man and woman dress up in their wedding clothes and re-enact the ceremony every anniversary and say “I’m married, I’m married, I’m married” if there is no daily love shared, if there is no continuing tenderness, no attentive listening, no inventive giving, no creative blessing.
Josiah’s reform was like a wedding. Jeremiah’s concern was with a marriage. It was a great achievement to repudiate Manasseh and establish the people in covenant with their God; but it was a lifelong career to embrace God’s love and walk in his ways. The people celebrated Josiah’s reform; they ignored Jeremiah’s preaching. It is Jeremiah’s lifelong achievement that the soggy religious mush of the masses never dulled his perceptions nor muted his insistent witness.