The impossible task: Homily for Tuesday, July 30, 2024

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The impossible task

Jeremiah had an almost impossible task, convincing the people of the southern kingdom that they had gone astray when they simply didn’t see it. In fact, they saw the opposite. Their world got upside down, their priorities mixed up. The good seemed bad and the bad seemed good. And they chose the bad. And the consequence of their abandoning God was the exile.

Now, the exile wasn’t a single event, it was a multiple event. There was more than one where people were gathered up and sent into exile. The last part of the exile, the last to be sent, were those who were the least able to provide for society. They were cripples, they were old widows, they were people that didn’t get originally sent out in exile because they didn’t appear to have any value. And Jeremiah stays with them as the prophet. He is completely dedicated to providing every opportunity for people to hear the word of God and to change their lives.

And Jeremiah goes not to Babylon, where the other exiles have taken place, but to Egypt. He tries so much, and he’s probably struggling as he writes these words, because things are looking so bad. I have to wonder if he felt like he was kind of a failure because he didn’t convert hardly anybody.

And he looked around, and there was so much suffering and so much hardship. But as the gospel reminds us, everything depends on God. Everything depends on God. And just as the people of Jeremiah’s day had the challenge of listening to the word of God and making choices, so too do we.

We are given the opportunity to be righteous children or children of the enemy, children who choose evil and sin. Or we can choose to cooperate with God’s grace that takes us often in directions we might not have chosen for ourselves. And yet, as Jesus tells us, “If in fact we are faithful to him, great things await. We will shine like the sun.” And he tells us, just as we see in the prophet Jeremiah, that if we have ears, we ought to hear.

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