Just Going Through the Motions
This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Stand at the gate of the LORD’s house and there proclaim this message:
“‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD. This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!” If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.
“‘Will you steal and murder, commit adultery and perjury, burn incense to Baal and follow other gods you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which bears my Name, and say, “We are safe”—safe to do all these detestable things? Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 7:1-11)
The prophets of God, like Jeremiah, were the annoying bill collectors of their day. Israel had failed to make their latest car payment and God sent the prophets to remind his people that the payment was due. God’s agreement with the people stipulated that they must love God and love one another. Instead, the powerful and wealthy took advantage of the poor and disadvantaged. God had told them specifically that the aliens in their midst were to be protected as if they were fellow Israelites, imploring them to remember how bad it had been for them as aliens in Egypt and not to become like the Egyptians.
Instead, the Israelites failed utterly to love other people, breaking all those commandments that affected human beings. Likewise, they failed to love God, instead adopting the religious practices and gods of their pagan neighbors.
But they found the rituals of God worship easy to maintain: it took no thought to visit the temple, to perform a sacrifice, to wave some incense, to sing a hymn, to drop some money in the coffer—as if that’s all worshiping God meant. God disagreed. To him, true worship meant loving other people and loving God. But that got in the way of how they wanted to live.
Send to Kindle
