A Wound Incurable: The Laments of Jeremiah as a Resource for Ministers in Crisis
By Jeph Holloway, Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics
East Texas Baptist University
The laments of Jeremiah bring to light some of the darkest expressions of agony, and pathos found in Scripture of a man struggling on all fronts. They reveal "a spirit locked in life-and-death combat with Yahweh, with the worldly powers, [and] with his own volcanic moods."[1] The value of these laments for negotiating ministerial crisis can best be seen when we understand them for what they are. While sometimes called "The Confessions of Jeremiah," these passages, interspersed between Jeremiah 11-20, are better recognized as laments, in many cases following the form and style of the laments found in the Psalms. I stress this comparison to the Psalms of lament in order to highlight features of laments that can be of help in times of crisis in the life of the minister.
Claus Westermann describes a three-dimensional character of conflict and distress reflected in the Psalms of lament: there is a social dimension-trouble from some outside source; there is a theological dimension-complaint is made against God; and there is a personal dimension-the internal crisis of the lamenter. "Whatever the suffering lamented, the whole of one`s being comes into expression in these three dimensions"-social, theological, and personal.[2] These dimensions are clearly present in the Laments of Jeremiah as he makes use of an important resource for negotiating crisis-the lament form made available from his own heritage and participation in the worship of Israel. In what follows I want to describe the character of the crisis Jeremiah faced in terms of these three dimensions, and then to see how it was that Jeremiah endured. For endure he did. As bitter as are these laments, as shattered of a man as these laments reveal, one of the last scenes we have from the Book of Jeremiah concerning the prophet is of someone still faithful to his task (chapter 42). How do we get from "O Lord, you have deceived me and I was deceived" (20:7) to the life of on-going faithfulness and service?
What forces were at work spelling crisis for the prophet? The social dimension of lament for Jeremiah includes a wide variety of figures and groups arrayed against the prophet. God informs Jeremiah of the identities of some of his antagonists. To his dismay Jeremiah learns of plots against his life on the part of those of his home village Anathoth (11:21-23). Worse yet, God warns Jeremiah, "Even your brothers and the household of your father, even they have dealt treacherously with you" (12:6). Theories vary as to why those of his hometown and family turned against him. One issue is clear, the antagonism arose in response to Jeremiah`s prophetic ministry: those in Anathoth were saying, "Do not prophesy in the name of the LORD, that you might not die at our hand" (11:21).
God warns Jeremiah not to trust those of his own household: "Do not believe them, although they may say nice things to you" (12:6). Jeremiah will extend this counsel further when he discovers that not just family, but also those who present themselves as friends were not to be trusted: "All my familiar friends, watching for my fall, say, `Perhaps he will be deceived so that we may prevail against him`" (20:10).
In 15:17 Jeremiah speaks of "the circle of merrymakers," from which he was excluded. The passage does not merely indicate that Jeremiah had become a social leper, left off the guest list of routine social gatherings. The likely reference is to a group familiar to village life in the Mediterranean world-"the circle of men of standing in the community . . . who discuss the affairs of the community, and gossip, and make decisions, and who carry on the traditions of the community."[3] The merrymaking in this circle was not simply good-natured fellowship and amusement. "One senses that the merrymakers . . . were making merry at Jeremiah`s expense, or at the expense of his message."[4] Jeremiah speaks of those who mock him, denounce him, deride him, and see him as the fool (20:7-10). One could visit Jeremiah`s hometown and hear the gossip, the jokes, the outrage, and the plots of family, friends, and community leaders united in the common effort of ending, in whatever way necessary, the prophetic ministry of Jeremiah.
Matters were not any better in Jerusalem. For instance, after his temple sermon (7:1-12), "the priests, the prophets, and all the people," demanded the death sentence for his challenge to the most sacred symbol of God`s favor toward Judah (26:7-11). King Jehoiakim made the point nicely that prophets of Jeremiah`s ilk would not be tolerated in Jerusalem when he had Uriah son of Shemaiah extradited from Egypt and executed by the sword (26:20-24). He made the point personal when, having had the scroll of Jeremiah`s preaching read to him, the king cut it in pieces, pitched the fragments into the fireplace, and ordered Jeremiah`s arrest (Jeremiah 36).
Jeremiah`s challenge to the religious and political establishment meant that all those who wielded power in Jerusalem saw the prophet as a threat to be nullified: "They said, `Come and let us devise plans against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest, nor counsel to the sage, nor the divine word to the prophet! Come and let us strike at him with our tongue, and let us give no heed to any of his words`" (18:18).
Brothers, cousins, uncles, neighbors, village elders, priests, wise men, prophets, princes, officers, rulers, kings-all saw Jeremiah as a threat; all did what they could to circumvent his impact on Judah. While the intent was common, the strategies were various. There was whispering, mockery, and derision. There were plots, traps, and accusations. Their devices ranged from ostracization to threats on his life. The hostility was total: "Every one curses me" (15:10). The onslaught was comprehensive: the phrases "everyone" and "all day long," name the parameters of his conflict (20:7). I am reminded of an old blues tune: "Nobody loves me but my mamma, and she might be jivin` too."
What accounts for this antagonism? The explanation is simple as far as Jeremiah was concerned: "For me the word of the LORD has resulted in reproach and derision all day long (20:8). The men of Anathoth confirm the connection: "Do not prophesy in the name of the LORD that you might not die at our hand" (11:21). What word did Jeremiah speak that evoked such a response? A brief description of features of contemporary American Christianity might provide a window into circumstances addressed by Jeremiah.
In their recent work, Heal Thyself, Joel Shuman and Keith Meador discuss what they say is the distortion of the Christian faith into a device for personal benefit.[5] Christian faith is recommended, not because it is true, but because when practiced surgery recovery accelerates, cancer remission rates improve, and life expectancy increases. In this environment Christianity has absorbed features of a wider cultural context characteristic of late modernity: radical individualism, narcissism, and the therapeutic quest.
I suggest that this account of contemporary American sheds light on the conflict between Jeremiah and his contemporaries. The breakdown of the social demands of the covenant between God and Israel illustrates the rampant individualism of Jeremiah`s day. The prophet searched the streets of Jerusalem in vain in his attempts to find one person doing justice. Instead, he discovers a dysfunctional society in which the wealthy live by deceit and enjoy their advantage at the expense of the vulnerable (chapter 5). In his Temple sermon he calls for self-satisfied worshipers to "practice justice between a man and his neighbor" (7:5) and warns that oppression of the alien, the orphan, the widow will eventually bring ruin on the house called by God`s name (7:6-11). The fragmentation of social relations can be seen in the violation of the basic social demands of the Law of Moses. Temple devotees "steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely" (7:9), all the while confident that the Temple serves as a prophylactic against any disaster.
The admission of 18:12 provides almost a classic expression of narcissism: "It is no use!" the people of Jerusalem will say to Jeremiah, "For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart." Parallels between 18:12 and 18:18 suggest that the plans of evil hearts and the plans of priests, sages, and prophets to silence Jeremiah reveal a relationship between the pursuit of unbridled self-interest and a religious, institutional framework that provided ideological support. J. David Pleins relates social decay and corrupt religious practices, arguing that at the heart of Jeremiah`s "prophetic critique stood fierce opposition to the cherished beliefs and ritual practices that functioned to support the exploitative lifestyle of the urban establishment."[6] As in our own day an individualistic, narcissistic lifestyle sanctioned by a religion of self-fulfillment threatened the calling and task of the people of God. Jeremiah`s calling was to confront such a state of affairs with the word of judgment.
Matters were not helped by the apparent lack of fulfillment of Jeremiah`s threats of judgment. Decades passed between his initial warnings of divine judgment and eventual fulfillment in the destruction of Jerusalem and Babylonian exile. His antagonists delighted in taunting Jeremiah on the issue of his credibility (17:15; 20:7, 10). Given the test for the validity of a prophet and its prescription for false prophets (Deut. 18:20-22), challenges to Jeremiah`s credibility were tantamount to threats on his life.
Jeremiah confronted the moral decay of the covenant people. He insisted their worship had been compromised. He challenged the corruption of the guardians of the religious status quo. He threatened a judgment that seemed to be only a phantom menace. And he has to ask, "Why is my pain unceasing and my wound incurable?"
But this is not the whole story and his anguished questions require fairer treatment. Yes, he is surrounded by threats on every side. The social dimension of lament comes through loud and clear. But it is the theological dimension that is really the great source of confusion and crisis for the prophet. Jeremiah`s bigger problem is with God.
Certainly Jeremiah`s God is the God to whom Israel prays, whom Israel is to serve and worship, and before whom Israel lives. Jeremiah makes use of the lament form from Israel`s common worship, and in doing so voices basic convictions maintained by Israel concerning the character of God. God is "Yahweh of hosts, who judges righteously" and the one who "tries the mind and heart" (11:20). God knows and evaluates the intent of every heart in light of God`s own standards of righteousness and exercises divine sovereignty in upholding that righteousness (20:12). Jeremiah believes God hears prayers, promises deliverance, and is the defender and champion of those who rely on him in trust (11:18; 15:20; 20:11). These convictions reflect many of the traditional beliefs of Israel as expressed in the Psalms of Lament.
Jeremiah also believes he has a peculiar relationship with God as God`s prophet. God reveals crucial information to him about enemies (11:18, 21-23). Yes, God knows and tries every mind and heart, but Jeremiah prays specifically, "Thou knowest me, O LORD, and Thou seest me; and Thou dost examine my heart toward Thee" (12:3). Jeremiah has known a call as prophet that sets him apart from others and provides him with delight and joy as he feeds on God`s word; as a bride is known by the name of her husband, so Jeremiah says, "I have been called by Thy name, O LORD God of hosts" (15:16).
Jeremiah`s web of beliefs was formed by a tradition he had inherited and personalized. Tradition and experience provided the framework through which he read the world and God`s actions within it. And yet at this intersection between affirmed tradition and experience stands an intolerable contradiction. For Jeremiah also experiences the hatred of family, the enmity of strangers, the opposition of religious power-brokers, and the apparent lack of fulfillment of God`s word of judgment on those who have despised the prophetic word. In light of deeply held convictions about God as righteous and just, and in the face of fierce hostility, Jeremiah raises the obvious questions: "Why has the way of the wicked prospered? Why are all those who deal treacherously at ease" (12:1)? Why, indeed? If God "presides over a morally coherent creation," then the prosperity of the wicked can only be at God`s discretion.[7] Or so Jeremiah thinks (cf.12:2).
While these questions sound like the abstract questions of theodicy, for Jeremiah the theoretical had become personal. The personal investment Jeremiah has in these questions surfaces as we note the intensity with which he raises these issues. The laments contain some of the most troubling language with reference to God found in Scripture. If Jeremiah believes God is just and righteous, he is more than confused that the violence of his attackers seems to slip past God`s attention unchecked. As James Crenshaw puts it, "It is apparent to the prophet that the righteous judge is not keeping proper hours."[8]
Jeremiah is haunted by the suspicion that God cannot be trusted. "Wilt Thou indeed be to me like a deceptive stream, with water that is unreliable" (15:18)? In his preaching Jeremiah had scolded his contemporaries for having forsaken "the fountain of living waters to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water" (2:13). Judah had rejected Yahweh as the faithful and steadfast source of life and sustaining care for the illusory security promised by the fertility religions. But now Jeremiah accuses God of being for him "like a brook to which the thirsty traveler comes in search of life-giving water, only to find it has run dry. . . . If Jeremiah had said in so many words, `God you have failed me,` he could have said no more."[9]
The accusatory tone is even more direct in 20:7: "O LORD, Thou hast deceived me and I was deceived; Thou hast overcome me and prevailed." Interpretations differ on the character of the deception Jeremiah believes God to have perpetrated. Some hear sexual overtones and think Jeremiah basically accuses God of rape.[10] Others note parallels with the account in 1 Kings 17 of God`s commissioning a "spirit of deception" via false prophets to send King Ahab to his demise.[11] Does Jeremiah think he is a false prophet as some accused him of being? One wonders if there were occasions when in mid-oracle Jeremiah ever thought to himself, "Do I really believe half of what I am preaching?"
Another interpretation suggests that Jeremiah gives voice here to "his sense of entrapment between a compelling word from an insistent God and a stubborn and derisive people."[12] On the one hand is an overpowering word that Jeremiah cannot evade. On the other hand is a resistant people incapable of positive response. The dual use of the verbs patah ("deceive") and yakol ("prevail") in 20:7 and 20:10, with God first as the subject of the verbs and then Jeremiah`s opponents, suggests for Terence Fretheim that Jeremiah unexpectedly finds himself between a rock and a hard place. "Whether or not God intended to dupe him, Jeremiah feels that he has been drawn into a vocation that is much more intense and difficult than God had led him to believe."[13]
Whatever the interpretation, it is clear that Jeremiah is in a bad place. Yes, Jeremiah casts his fortune into the hands of God, and yet he expresses uncertainty concerning God`s reliability. His confidence based on personally affirmed traditions collides with God`s apparent failure to keep his end of the bargain. I believe this is a crisis far more troubling to Jeremiah than any opposition he faced from his contemporaries. As Robert Davidson puts it, "What happens if you reach the point where what you have been most confidently preaching to others about the reality of God, no longer makes sense in your own experience? Accept cognitive collapse, pack [it] in . . . or what?"[14]
Between the rock of an insistent God and the hard place of a resistant people stands a prophet in turmoil. The social and theological dimensions bear heavily on the prophet and issue forth in laments that reveal the personal dimension of conflict. In viewing the personal dimension of Jeremiah`s lament we better understand the nature of the wound incurable these laments describe.
An overriding theme of lament in general and of the laments of Jeremiah in particular is that the suffering lamented is unjust. Jeremiah insists that he does not deserve the treatment he receives. His opponents are "those who deal treacherously" with him (12:1), not justly. "Should good be repaid with evil?" he asks God, contrasting his beneficent ministry of proclamation and prayer to the evil plans devised by his antagonists (18:20). Jeremiah has acted with integrity toward others: "I have neither lent, nor have men lent money to me, yet everyone curses me" (15:10). He has done nothing that merits contempt, though contempt is what he gets.
If anyone should understand that Jeremiah is getting the shaft, it should be God. God is the one who knows and tries the prophet`s heart (12:3). Jeremiah has responded faithfully to the prophetic task; and while not delighting in proclaiming a word of judgment and destruction, Jeremiah has nevertheless fulfilled his responsibilities in ways fully open to divine review (17:16). Indeed, God knows that it is precisely because of Jeremiah`s faithfulness and integrity that he suffers insult and disgrace. If God`s focus has wandered, Jeremiah is bold enough in his innocence to reclaim God`s attention: "Thou who knowest, O LORD . . . know that for Thy sake I endure reproach" (15:15). These are not the words of someone attempting to discover where he went wrong in his ministry. Jeremiah insists that he faces treatment that he does not deserve.
Along with protestations of innocence, we also see in the laments a prophet totally immersed in his calling. His conflict is so fully embracing because Jeremiah is fully embraced by his task. Jeremiah knows that he has been called from birth to the prophetic role (1:4-5), a call that could be avoided only if he had never been born (20:14-18). To be called from birth means that there is no Jeremiah apart from his role as a prophet.
But since his calling is to proclaim an insistent word that meets only with stubborn resistance, he is immersed not only in his role as a prophet, but in conflict as well. Indeed, he sees his life as defined by conflict. His mother bore him "as a man of strife and a man of contention to all the land" (15:10). As far as Jeremiah is concerned, he came forth from the womb, not only as a prophet, but also "to look upon trouble and sorrow, so that my days have been spent in shame" (20:18). So identified with his task is Jeremiah that the fate of the word-reproach and derision-is the fate of the prophet.
Will Willimon cites the wisdom once given a group of ministers. "You don`t have to be courageous as a preacher. All you have to do is get down behind the text. You can say, `This is not necessarily me saying this-but I do think the text says it.`"[15] Jeremiah was not afforded this luxury. There is no distance between Jeremiah and the word preached-no gap between prophet and message. For Jeremiah the word preached has become as part of him as his evening meal (15:16). Jeremiah is fully immersed in a prophetic task that places him between an insistent God and a resistant people. Because of this immersion, he suffers an incurable wound.
Further, the space between God and people is a lonely one. Jeremiah is immersed in a task that brings him isolation. Davidson suggests we should expect nothing else for such a prophet: "You do not openly attack the temple . . . and get invited to the priests` fraternal; you do not walk through the streets of Jerusalem advocating desertion to the enemy and then go for a drink in the officers` mess."[16] But Jeremiah`s isolation is more than just the end result of an abrasive message. It is not just occasional; it is vocational.
Called by God to avoid all the normal activities of village life (e.g., marriage) as an indication of the end of normalcy for Judah (16:1-9), Jeremiah complains, "Because of Thy hand I sat alone, for Thou didst fill me with indignation" (15:17). His isolation is a feature of his immersion in his message. The prophet`s life correlates with the prophetic word. If God has become estranged from Israel, as a husband divorced from his wife (3:1) or as a stranger in the land (14:8), Jeremiah`s life "was shaped in such a way as to conform to the shape of the life of God toward Israel at this particular moment."[17] His isolation stems directly from a call that claimed his entire existence.
Jeremiah complains of an incurable wound and ceaseless pain (15:18). What are his injuries? A prophet offers a burdensome but truthful word to a people who respond with fierce antagonism. In the face of undeserved suffering that consumes his life he feels God has failed to sustain and uphold him in the task. Thorough immersion in his task means personal embodiment of a word of anguish and travail. His ministry has left him lonely and isolated, cut off from family and friend. And, most disturbing of all, even though God is fully aware of his situation and hears his prayers, Jeremiah struggles with whether or not God offers any resolution to his trouble. The social, theological, and personal dimensions of Jeremiah`s complaints reveal what Berrigan calls "a trinity of anguish and lamentation."[18] Is there any palliative care for the ceaseless pain of a conflicted prophet? Does it even make sense to speak of a remedy for an incurable wound?
As bitter as are these laments, though, and as shattered of a man as these laments reveal, one of the last scenes we have from the Book of Jeremiah concerning the prophet is of someone still faithful to his task, still a person of prayer, still someone of conviction and courage, and still a prophet unalterably committed to the will of God (chapter 42). How do we get from "O Lord, you have deceived me and I was deceived" (20:7) to the life of on-going faithfulness and service? By what means did Jeremiah endure his incurable wound? But first, what remedies were forbidden?
James Dittes observes, "There are two ways to swallow grief dumbly, both ways making it more poisonous than nutritious. One can deny the life that was lived . . . or one can deny the death. . . . The minister can swallow grief either way: death triumphant or death denied. . . . That is, the minister can flee the ministry, either by actually resigning from the church payroll or by becoming resigned to a visionless, partnerless occupation, by becoming jaded and `professional,` mechanically going through the motions."[19]
Both of these options pulled at Jeremiah. First, Jeremiah, at least on certain occasions, wanted out. He attempted a retreat from the prophetic task and discovered instead the presence of "an inner compulsion that will not allow him to give up the enterprise" (20:9).[20] There is no escape for a prophet called from the womb. Awareness of this leads him to lament his birth (20:14-18). Jeremiah knows that the only way he could have avoided the prophetic task is if he had never been born at all. He wants out; but the only way that could have happened was if there had been no Jeremiah to begin with.
An alternative to the total abandonment of costly ministry is its domestication. How can this happen? "When vocational identity-call-is uncertain or under challenge, then it is especially tempting to don the role expectations of others, especially when these are . . . firmly entrenched in habit and culture."[21] Examination of one of God`s responses to Jeremiah`s laments suggests that Jeremiah was at least subtly tempted in this direction.
After his implicit accusation concerning God`s faithfulness, God calls Jeremiah to repent and gives a conditional reaffirmation of Jeremiah`s call: "If you return, then I will restore you-Before me you will stand. And if you extract the precious from the worthless, you will become my spokesman" (15:19). Many detect here a rebuke of the prophet for "having transgressed the mysterious boundaries of divine sovereignty."[22] The worthless words would be those that question God`s dependability. But, "If Jeremiah ever heeded the admonition to muzzle his festering complaints, at any point in his life, these prayers offer no evidence of it."[23]
That Jeremiah continues to raise serious issues with God, and that God continues to use him as a prophet, indicates that the conventional interpretation is inadequate. The last bit of 15:19 clarifies the situation. "They for their part may turn to you," God says, "But as for you, you must not turn to them." To "turn to them" would mean for Jeremiah to "back off from the word he is called to speak."[24] It would mean for Jeremiah to adapt the content of his prophetic message to the expectations of his contemporaries. Was this actually an issue for Jeremiah? "Is it possible that when opposition and misunderstanding were at their fiercest, he was tempted to ease his troubles by trimming his message to make it slightly more palatable?"[25]
Jeremiah preached to a people who saw religion in utilitarian terms (see 44:15-19). Do his laments hint at a Jeremiah struggling with his obedience to God in terms of a cost-benefit relationship? I believe this is the focus of the warning that Jeremiah receives in 15:19. The prophet is warned not to allow prevailing views on what counts for a successful prophet to shape his preaching. Jeremiah cannot escape his prophetic task by failing to speak the divine word. Neither, however, can he avoid the cost of ministry by conforming that word to the expectations of others; even, or perhaps especially, those expectations firmly entrenched in habit and culture.
How, then, does Jeremiah negotiate his crisis? If the laments reveal the character of Jeremiah`s crisis, they also indicate the means by which he endured. What they indicate is that in making use of the lament form 1) Jeremiah avails himself of an identifiable tradition of Israel`s worship that includes him in the heritage of a contested but resolute faith. If he cannot sit in the circle of the merrymakers, and because of the hand of Yahweh has to sit alone, at least Jeremiah knows that he participates in a fellowship that has long taken the issues of costly obedience seriously.
But it is not simply that misery loves company that makes this participation significant. Participation in the lament tradition is participation in a mode of faith that 2) gives permission for intense and candid prayer that exhibits true and vigorous partnership with God. Lament enables Jeremiah to engage God in arenas of life beyond those that simply evoke praise and thanksgiving. "Where lament is absent, covenant comes into being only as a celebration of joy and well-being."[26] If Jeremiah is permitted only praise, then God is refused admittance to much of his life, or simply becomes a projection of Jeremiah`s immature narcissism, Feuerbach`s deity of wish-fulfillment.
Jeremiah`s use of lament actually testifies to an integrity and depth of faith that is willing to take risks with a God who seeks genuineness in relationship. While the sharp questions and accusations of his laments illustrate profound disturbance, they also illustrate profound confidence. Miller insists, "It is the one who trusts God who complains to God. . . . It is only the person who truly believes that God can and will help who dares to challenge the Lord so forthrightly."[27]
Can protest and faith exist together? Or better put, is protest integral to faith? In his Wounds Not Healed By Time Solomon Schimmel refers to the teachings of Rabbi Kalonymous Kalmon Shapira, the Hassidic rabbi of the Warsaw Ghetto. In the rabbi`s teaching concerning the biblical and rabbinic tradition of protest to God, "We find . . . two apparently different responses to catastrophe: an attitude of radical and unconditional acceptance on the one hand, and a spirit of protest, confrontation, even outrage on the other. . . . Expressions of protest and challenge are quite proper when directed toward God as part of an ongoing relationship with him. . . . the two attitudes-submission and challenge-are in no way contradictory; they are two complementary aspects of a full and healthy relationship between human being and God." Schimmel notes that it was difficult to find an atheist in the Warsaw Ghetto.[28] Jeremiah endures because he practices in lament a vibrant faith that sees all of life in relation to God.
In appealing to the lament tradition, Jeremiah also appeals to 3) a strategy for world-making. The content of his laments indicates great disorientation, the collapse of coherent boundaries between good and evil, and bewilderment at God`s indifference. Jeremiah repeatedly asks "Why?" "Why has the way of the wicked prospered" (12:1)? "Why is my pain unceasing" (15:18)? "Why did I ever come forth from the womb" (20:18)? These questions are never answered and God seems inattentive to their seriousness; but they suggest that Jeremiah is now working without a net. He himself had warned of the cosmic consequences of Israel`s refusal to embrace the ways of the Creator. "I looked on the earth and it was formless and void" (4:23). Things do fall apart when the Center does not hold. And now Jeremiah`s own center has been shaken. Lament, however, provides a means for finding formfulness in the context of formlessness.[29]
Walter Brueggemann helps us understand the significance of having available the lament form for expressing grief. With the possibility of prayer that includes complaint, petition, and expression of trust there is a means for voicing how a prior perception of reality, one`s basic orientation, has been displaced (complaint), how in a situation of disorientation God must be at work (petition), and how there is anticipated the gift of a new world in place of what has been lost (expression of trust).[30] Brueggemann argues that use of the lament form is vital in the experience of disorientation as it "serves to maintain and reassert the life-world of Israel as a valid symbolic context in which experience can be healingly experienced." It is a means by which "the community asserts that life in all its parts is formful and therefore meaningful."[31]
Jeremiah`s adaptation of the lament form raises the question of whether he achieved the sense of meaning and healing that Brueggemann suggests the form promises. The last lament moves from petition to praise as an expression of confidence (20:12-13). But the Book of Jeremiah then moves to the darkest expressions of despair found in Jeremiah`s laments (20:14-18). Perhaps the use and break with inherited form here indicates the extremity of Jeremiah`s situation. His appeal to the lament form demonstrates his search for order as a bearer of the faith of Israel. By his adaptation of the form, he demonstrates his struggle with the possibility that that faith will have to find new ways of endurance. The content of his laments indicates experience of great disorientation; that he employs the form of lament indicates that his effort, however incomplete at achieving a new orientation, is a vital strategy for survival in his chaotic world.
One final feature of Jeremiah`s use of lament is important for understanding how he negotiated his vocational crisis. Jeremiah`s use of the lament suggests 4) his awareness that the issues at stake were larger than those merely of his own personal well-being. Clearly he is concerned for his own well-being; but Jeremiah is at least as concerned with the larger issue of the justice of God. Lament articulates the issue of justice, pressing the point that life is not the way it should be and pressing the point with the only One who can make a difference.[32]
The language of justice appears regularly in the laments and Jeremiah is bold enough to state to God, "Indeed, I would discuss matters of justice with Thee" (12:1). And it is the concern for justice that drives what are for many the most unpalatable features of Jeremiah`s laments-the pleas for divine wrath on his opponents. The language of 18:21 is most shocking: "Give their children over to famine, and deliver them up to the power of the sword; and let their wives become childless and widowed. Let their men also be smitten to death, their young men struck down by the sword in battle." Jeremiah has grown weary of God`s patience with his people and wants him to get on with the job: "Deal with them in the time of Thine anger" (18:23).
There are hardly any more violent words than these in the Bible. And I am not at all suggesting that we duplicate these prayers in the context of our own crises. But it is important for us to note two things. First, Jeremiah brings the issue of justice to God and does not seek to take matters into his own hands. "The crucial thing," Miller states, "is that the prayer is lifted up to God. The predicament is placed in God`s hands."[33]
Second, we must note that Jeremiah here simply echoes the language of God (see 6:11-12; 15:7-9) and that "Jeremiah`s strong language against his adversaries is precisely correspondent to God`s announcement of judgment."[34] Jeremiah`s laments are driven by his mission to announce the judgment of God and his perception that God was slack in executing God`s own program. The delay of judgment raises the legitimate question of God`s justice, particularly when the delay occasions contempt for the divine word (17:15; 20:7-8). Jeremiah`s participation in lament expresses his concern for the larger issue of God`s justice among God`s people and in God`s world. Commitment to a concern larger than himself is the occasion for Jeremiah`s lament as well as a driving force that sustains him when lament seems unanswered.
Jeremiah`s use of lament demonstrates the availability to him of at least four crucial strategies for negotiating his vocational crisis. It joins him to a tradition that taught him to pray in specific ways. It permits and gives display to a vigorous and profound faith. It provides a way to at least attempt to find some measure of order amidst chaos. And it places his life and crisis in the larger setting of wider concerns and issues.
There is one more feature of the laments, however, that is apparent in reading the Book of Jeremiah that Jeremiah might not himself have perceived. The question of the function of the laments in the present form of the book has been the subject of much scholarly discussion. A widely held conclusion is that the laments presently serve, not a biographical interest, but the book`s argument justifying God`s judgment of Judah. By highlighting the authenticity of the prophetic message rejected by the people in their rejection of the prophet, the laments reinforce the occasion for God`s judgment. One important feature of this emphasis, however, is the presentation of Jeremiah as one who embodies in his own person the troubled relationship between Yahweh and Israel. Jeremiah is presented as one who both knows the suffering of God`s people and knows the suffering of God, so that "in and through the prophet, the people should be able to see how God has entered into the anguish of their situation and made it his very own."[35]
The Book of Jeremiah makes clear the connections between Jeremiah`s laments, a people who face anguish, and a God who suffers the anguish of his people. In the laments themselves Jeremiah nowhere indicates that he recognizes that his suffering is, shall we say, representative. The laments testify to his suffering but fail to yield any measure of meaning in it. "There is no `however` remaining, no consoling postscript, no final redeeming victory."[36] We wish that Jeremiah could have heard, "Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). We wish Jeremiah could have said, "Always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body" (2 Cor. 4:10).
But we err if we believe that we are sustained only by those truths of which we are conscious. Whether he understood it as such or not, Jeremiah knows the suffering of the people of God, and he knows the anguish of a God who suffers with his people. But as his suffering arises from his immersion into this covenanted world, so will his endurance. Jeremiah suffers "as sign and symbol of Israel`s relationship with Yahweh."[37] Because that relationship is troubled, Jeremiah suffers an incurable wound. But because even that troubled relationship will endure, so will Jeremiah; whether he knows it or not.
Endnotes
——————————————————————————–
[1] Daniel Berrigan, Jeremiah: The World, The Wound of God, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 60.
[2] Claus Westermann, Praise and Lament in the Psalms, trans. by Keith Crim and Richard Soulen ( Atlanta: John Knox, 1981), 267-68.
[3] William L. Holladay, Jeremiah 1, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 459.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Joel James Shuman and Keith G. Meador, Heal Thyself: Spirituality, Medicine, and the Distortion of Christianity, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
[6] J. David Pleins, The Social Visions of the Hebrew Bible, (Louisville: WJKP, 2001), 289.
[7] Walter Brueggemann, Jeremiah 1-25, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988), 113.
[8] James Crenshaw, A Whirlpool of Torment, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 43.
[9] John Bright, "A Prophet`s Lament and Its Answer," in A Prophet to the Nations, L. G. Perdue and B. W. Kovacs, eds. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1984), 330.
[10]E.g., Samuel E. Balentine, Prayer in the Hebrew Bible, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 165.
[11]E.g., Patrick D. Miller, "The Book of Jeremiah: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections," in The New Interpreter`s Bible, ed. Leander Keck (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001), 726.
[12] Terence E. Fretheim, "Caught in the Middle: Jeremiah`s Vocational Crisis," Word and World 42/4 (Fall 2002): 353.
[13] Ibid., 354.
[14] Robert Davidson, The Courage to Doubt, (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1983), 132.
[15] William H. Willimon, Calling and Character, (Nashville: Abingdon, 2000), 26.
[16] Davidson, Courage to Doubt, 124.
[17] Terence E. Fretheim, Jeremiah, (Macon. GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2002), 239.
[18] Berrigan, Jeremiah, 72.
[19] Dittes, Re-Calling Ministry, edited by Donald Capps (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 1999), 20.
[20] Miller, "Jeremiah," 727.
[21] Dittes, Re-Calling Ministry, 55.
[22] Balentine, Prayer, 159. See, e.g., Bright, "A Prophet`s Lament," 336 and Miller, "Jeremiah," 698.
[23] Ibid., 161.
[24] Fretheim, Jeremiah, 242.
[25] Davidson, Courage to Doubt, 134.
[26] Walter Brueggemann, "The Costly Lost of Lament," chapter in The Psalms and the Life of Faith, edited by Patrick D. Miller (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 102.
[27] Miller, "Jeremiah," 730.
[28] Solomon Schimmel, Wounds Not Healed By Time: The Power of Repentance and Forgiveness, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 135.
[29] Walter Brueggemann, "The Formfulness of Grief," chapter in The Psalms and the Life of Faith, edited by Patrick D. Miller (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 84-97.
[30] See his essay, "Psalms and the Life of Faith: A Suggested Typology of Function," chapter in The Psalms and the Life of Faith, edited by Patrick D. Miller (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 11-13.
[31] Brueggemann, "The Formfulness of Grief," 96.
[32] Brueggemann, "The Costly Loss of Lament," 104-07.
[33] Miller, "Jeremiah," 718.
[34] Fretheim, Jeremiah, 276-77.
[35] Terence E. Fretheim, The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective, (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 160.
[36] Gerhard von Rad, "The Confessions of Jeremiah," in A Prophet to the Nations, L. G. Perdue and B. W. Kovacs, eds. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1984), 347.
[37] Smith, The Laments of Jeremiah and Their Contexts, SBLMS 42 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 64.
