Only in pretense

Jeremiah 3:1-11 TNIV

“If a man divorces his wife

and she leaves him and marries another man,

should he return to her again?

Would not the land be completely defiled?

But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers—

would you now return to me?”

declares the Lord.

“Look up to the barren heights and see.

Is there any place where you have not been ravished?

By the roadside you sat waiting for lovers,

sat like a nomad in the desert.

You have defiled the land

with your prostitution and wickedness.

Therefore the showers have been withheld,

and no spring rains have fallen.

Yet you have the brazen look of a prostitute;

you refuse to blush with shame.

Have you not just called to me:

‘My Father, my friend from my youth,

will you always be angry?

Will your wrath continue forever?’

This is how you talk,

but you do all the evil you can.”

During the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there. I thought that after she had done all this she would return to me but she did not, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it. I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. Yet I saw that her unfaithful sister Judah had no fear; she also went out and committed adultery. Because Israel’s immorality mattered so little to her, she defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood. In spite of all this, her unfaithful sister Judah did not return to me with all her heart, but only in pretense,” declares the Lord.

The Lord said to me, “Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah.


My thoughts -

Here we have the relationship between God and God's people described as a marriage. Unfortunately this particular marriage does not appear to be doing well. One party has been unfaithful.

I'm not sure how I feel about the language here of worship as sex. It makes sense but our culture views sex as something taboo. Sure, people have sex, but that's their business. We don't want to talk about it. If we do talk about it we will do so salaciously but in hushed tones and with implied judgement. Sex sells but is scandalous.

Sex, though, binds two parties together. Two become one flesh. They are joined. They form a union. In worship we bind ourselves together with God. We merge. We share, or try to at least, one will.

When Israel and Judah bound themselves to other gods they broke their bond with the Lord. They created distance. They no longer shared God's will. They no longer acted in union with God.

Judah was the kingdom that came from the house of David. Even after Israel fell and followed the ways of other nations and worshipped other gods Judah remained faithful. Well, for a while. But they, too, strayed. Their unfaithfulness though still had some of the trappings of faithfulness. They still paid lip service to God and to their former ways.

As far as Israel fell, as much as they betrayed their relationship with God (and they did betray - to the point of sacrificing their own children in burnt offerings to Baal, even) theirs was an "honest" betrayal, if there is such a thing. It lacked pretense. They fell, they fell hard, and they fell all the way. They hit rock bottom.

Here Jeremiah says that Judah's pretense is a greater offense than Israel's complete betrayal. Here Jeremiah argues that giving your heart to another while paying lip service to the former is a greater betrayal than just going all the way.

The question for us, then, is this: Is our worship lip service? Have we given our hearts to another but are still paying lip service to the Lord? Are we joined to God in a faithful union fully devoted and only doing God's will or is our attention divided? Are we distracted by the gods of this life? Are we distracted by worthless idols made with our own hands? Are we distracted by shiny junk?

Are we faithful or do we just go through the motions committing a greater betrayal than those who stopped even paying lip service quite some time ago?

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