The Land Mourns

Read Jeremiah 23:9–15

The prophet Jeremiah had a bone to pick with his fellow prophets. During the time of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, there were those among them who preached that God was about to deliver the people, saving them at the last moment just as God did for the fleeing Hebrews at the Red Sea. The people of Judah were backed into a corner again, and there seemed to be no hope. “Just hang on,” these prophets preached. “God will come to our rescue once again.” This advice resembled what Moses had told the people on that earlier occasion of dire need: “Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today” (Exod 14:13).

Despite the seeming piety of the prophets’ advice, Jeremiah was having none of it. He had come by his reputation as a doomsayer honestly, and in this instance he rejected the prophecies of hope, insisting instead that the Babylonians would defeat Judah. Furthermore, he laid the blame for this punishment at the feet of the very prophets who were predicting deliverance. He writes, “Both prophet and priest are ungodly; even in my house I have found their wickedness, says the Lord” (v. 11). He goes on to read a stinging indictment of the foul practices of these spiritual leaders, concluding with this zinger: “I am going to make them eat wormwood, and give them poisoned water to drink; for from the prophets of Jerusalem ungodliness has spread throughout the land” (v. 15).

This is quite a wake-up call for those of us who aspire to be leaders in the church. We must be prepared to shoulder a heavy load of responsibility. We will be judged not only on our own account but also for the effect of our teaching and leadership on others. (I am especially mindful of this as I prepare to read your evaluations of my work for the past year.) We can lead folks on the right path, or we can lead them astray, and we will answer for either outcome.

But there is something else in these verses that merits remark. It comes in verse 10, where Jeremiah says, “The land is full of adulterers; because of the curse the land mourns, and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up.” When he says adulterers he probably means it metaphorically; he’s talking about idolaters. Those who have gone after other gods have caused the land to mourn and the pastures to dry up. I don’t know how he made that connection in his time, but the implications are inescapable in our day. We live in a culture of idolatry and addiction. We have made deities of money and acquisition and the free market, and we are addicted to the comforts our wealth brings us and to the petroleum and coal that drive the technology we find indispensable.

And look what we have done: we have brought our environment to the brink of ruin. We have clear-cut the rain forests, driving species to the brink of extinction (and beyond), causing erosion of the topsoil, flash floods and desertification. We have pumped so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from our power plants and internal combustion engines that the world has heated up at an alarming rate. This has made storms more furious, wildfires more destructive, heat waves more deadly. We are living on borrowed time, and too many of our political and, yes, religious leaders have perpetuated the lie that climate change is some kind of hoax, causing unconscionable delays in taking the necessary actions. Truly, the many curses we have introduced have made the land mourn.

It is time—in fact, it’s well past time—for us to recognize that we are part of the great web of life and to act accordingly. Let us repent of our idolatry and our greed, and let us redouble our efforts to preserve the planet that sustains us before it is too late. That is how we will honor the Creator in our time. By our obedience and faithfulness may the land revive and the seas rejoice.

Grace and peace,
bob