Who will love a little sparrow?

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals. And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. In those days they shall no longer say: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

- Jeremiah 31:27-34

Jeremiah spoke hopefully of a new era—of a time when God would not seem distant and removed, but present right in the hearts of each one of us. As Christians, we see Jesus as the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s hope: God became a human and lived among us, demonstrating a love so deep and internal that we can never run away from it.

Yet we still have trouble understanding how the God who created the universe could also be the God whose light shines in our hearts—the God of galaxies and the God of quarks—the God of grand concepts and the God of vulnerable feelings—macrocosmic and microcosmic at the same time. We get stuck in childish notions that imagine God merely as a powerful old man, or merely as a vague energy field, or merely as a harsh judge, or merely as an embracing parent. God is all of these things and infinitely more. We are who we are because of who God is—not the other way around.

We cannot know God completely, and yet, God wants to be known. And God will keep finding new ways to be known in each of us. Are we listening?

Brace yourself: it’s going to be a big week. Jesus has arrived in Bethany and is getting ready to launch a demonstration tomorrow: a demonstration of the power of humility, of rightful indignation at injustice, and of courage in the face of certain death. What will happen when that death finally comes?

On this last day before Holy Week begins, let’s go back to Ash Wednesday for a moment, where our whole Lenten journey began. God’s eye is on the sparrow, Jesus has told us. Really? Every sparrow? The mystery of death is deep and wide, and Jesus is about to plumb those depths.

I'm not dead and I'm not for sale

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Stand in the gate of the Lord's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: "This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord."

For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever. Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, "We are safe!"—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? You know, I too am watching, says the Lord.

Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel. And now, because you have done all these things, says the Lord, and when I spoke to you persistently, you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors, just what I did to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, just as I cast out all your kinsfolk, all the offspring of Ephraim.

– Jeremiah 7:1-15

Centuries later, when Jesus was overturning the tables of the money changers in the Temple, he would quote Jeremiah’s line about making God’s house “a den of robbers.” I’d never noticed this connection before! Jesus drops a lot of Scripture references that we aren’t knowledgeable enough to catch. Every time I find one, it deepens my understanding of Jesus that much more.

Jesus was passionate about the Temple. He had come there since at least his 12th birthday to pray, like all the other Jews in the vicinity of Jerusalem. But he also saw that it was being used to oppress the poor, and this was one of the things in life that made him angriest.

I’ve always loved this song by Stone Temple Pilots, “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart.” While I’m sure the band didn’t intend it for this purpose (I guess it’s actually about a bad acid trip), I hear Jesus raging and foaming as he tears around the Temple:

I am, I am, I said, I'm not myself
I'm not dead and I'm not for sale
So keep your bankroll lottery
Just have your deathbed motorcade

I am, I am, I said, I'm not myself
I'm not dead and I'm not for sale
Hold me closer, closer, let me go
Let me be, just let me be

“I’m not dead,” shouts Jesus, standing in the place of God. “I’m not dead and I’m not for sale!” He predicts not the destruction of the Israelites, as Jeremiah had done, but the destruction of the Temple—this was new! We might imagine him continuing, “Don’t you see the path you’re on? You just keep riding your moneyed procession all the way into the grave. As for me, I’m not dead.” And in the second chorus, we hear two contradictory things Jesus asked of his disciples after his resurrection: “Touch my wounds,” and “Don’t touch me.”

We can see Jesus' entire ministry as standing in stark contrast to the Temple—since the Temple wasn’t doing its job, he himself became the Temple. Both Temples were destroyed by the Romans— Jesus around the year 30, and the building in the year 79. Nobody has ever rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem. But Jesus, the living icon of God, could not stay dead.

What would Jeremiah and Jesus say to us today? What Temples do we erect to try to control God, only to give in to human nature and do things God would never have us do? What idols stand between us and genuine relationships with “the alien, the orphan, and the widow”? What innocent blood do we shed simply by being part of an unjust system? And what will we do to make such a system irrelevant and unnecessary?

When popular icons failed

Declare this in the house of Jacob, proclaim it in Judah: Hear this, O foolish and senseless people, who have eyes, but do not see, who have ears, but do not hear. Do you not fear me? says the Lord; Do you not tremble before me? I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail, though they roar, they cannot pass over it.

But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart; they have turned aside and gone away. They do not say in their hearts, "Let us fear the Lord our God, who gives the rain in its season, the autumn rain and the spring rain, and keeps for us the weeks appointed for the harvest." Your iniquities have turned these away, and your sins have deprived you of good.

For scoundrels are found among my people; they take over the goods of others. Like fowlers they set a trap; they catch human beings. Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of treachery; therefore they have become great and rich, they have grown fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy.

Shall I not punish them for these things? says the Lord, and shall I not bring retribution on a nation such as this? An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule as the prophets direct; my people love to have it so, but what will you do when the end comes?

- Jeremiah 5:20-31

We’ve been reading through Jeremiah lately in the daily lectionary. Here he has God speaking of limits to what humans can do, and humans striving to transcend those limits wherever possible.

I just finished reading a book by Brian McLaren called Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. McLaren is one of my favorite Christian authors. Here, he outlines the major crises facing our world and comes to the conclusion that we have created a “suicide machine.” We are still doing the very kinds of things Jeremiah warned against, but the problem is that we’ve created systems to bear the blame so individuals don’t have to.

The “suicide machine” operates only because we believe in it. From a young age, we are taught lessons through a sort of invisible curriculum. One of the lessons we learn is that we are entitled to have anything we want right now, and not worry about the consequences until later.

What will we do to dismantle the suicide machine? Let’s follow the lead of Jesus, who was neither pro-Caesar nor anti-Caesar. Rather, he regarded Caesar as irrelevant to his purposes and God’s. Jesus’ disinterest in the dominant paradigm of the Roman Empire allowed him to draw the wolves of “the system” out of the shadows so they could be exposed for the killers they are.  Jesus’ resurrection went unnoticed but by a few, and from that few, seeds were planted that would begin the revolution. We are still carrying out that meek revolution that says, “Thanks, world, but I know myself better than that. I’ll follow God’s way instead.”

The Kingdom of God is breaking in among us—it’s already here, though not yet fully realized—and it just takes our participation to make it real. When we participate in the Kingdom of God, we don’t rush to exceed our limits—what McLaren calls “the overconsumption crisis.” We don’t live at the expense of others, but look for opportunities to share from our bounty instead. When the Kingdom comes—and it comes every day in places all over the world—we are saved from fear and death.

Here’s Sting with “Jeremiah Blues,” originally from his 1991 album The Soul Cages.

And He takes and He takes and He takes ...

I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light.
I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro.
I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled.
I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger.
For thus says the Lord: The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.

- Jeremiah 4:23-27

In one part of the world, war rages. In another, people struggle from day to day in the wake of a devastating earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster. What sufferings do we have that can possibly compare with these?

Just this: we’re alive, but we won’t be forever. All around us, people are suffering death and loss. Though the lawns are still neatly manicured and commerce goes on unimpeded, it feels like their world is coming to an end.

“The mountains are quaking, and the hills are moving to and fro, because the one I love is gone. There is no one at all, and even the birds have left me alone, because the one I love is gone. The fruitful land is a desert, because it cannot feed me the one I love. The cities are laid in ruins, because I would give them away to get back the one I love.”

The sufferings of individuals cannot really be compared to each other. It feels like God is singling us out for punishment. Yet does God punish in this way? Does God send death and loss in order to attack us? Despite the preponderance of scripture that might claim to support this view, I think not. But I do think it feels like this very, very often in our lives.

Yet, says God, “I will not make a full end.” Nothing is ever really destroyed; it just changes into a new form. And that also goes for the people we love but see no longer. But it still feels sometimes like God just takes and takes and takes.

From his album Illinois, here’s Sufjan Stevens with a story song about losing a young friend to cancer. It’s called “Casimir Pulaski Day,” a holiday that doesn’t really have much to do with the song except as a date marker. (But in case you’re curious, look here.)