For the next week or so, we’re reading the Prophet Jeremiah from our lectionary. Born about 650 BC, Jeremiah spoke to a nation in its final days before the Babylonians captured Jerusalem and took away its leading citizens into exile in Babylon in 598 BC. He looks downcast in Michelangelo’s portrait. He was.
Jeremiah wasn’t accepted during his lifetime. Discredited, arrested and imprisoned by his enemies, he urged religious reform and wise political alliances to Judea’s kings and leaders. His influence grew only after his death as the exiled Jewish community in Babylon reflected on his words and actions.
Jeremiah influenced the prophets Ezekiel, Daniel, Isaiah 40-66, and some of the psalms. He remained in Jerusalem after its destruction and later was forced into exile in Egypt where he died, but there is no information about his death.
Our reading for Thursday from Jeremiah is a good summary of his message to Israel:
You were “as a bride following me in the desert…I brought you to a ‘garden land’ which you defiled,” the Lord says to the people of Jerusalem. “Two evils have my people done: they have forsaken me, the source of living waters. They have dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that hold no water. “ (Jeremiah 2:1-3, 7-8, 12-13)
A “garden land” — symbol for Jeremiah of God’s promise — comes from the Book of Genesis. God first gave humanity life in a garden. Now it’s offered again, but the “garden land” can be refused.
“Living waters” also is a favorite symbol of prophets like Jeremiah. The person who is just is like a tree planted by living waters, Psalm 1 says. A just people grow by God’s living waters.
“With you is the fountain of life, O Lord”, our responsorial psalm says today.
Jeremiah is mentioned in Matthew’s gospel when Jesus asks Peter “Who do people say I am?” They say you are Jeremiah or one of the prophets, Peter responds. (Matthew 16:14) Selections from Jeremiah are read in the lectionary in the 16th to the 18th weeks of the church year, year 2, as the readings from Matthew describe Jesus facing opposition as he begins his ministry in Galilee.
In lent and Holy Week we read Jeremiah as Jesus faces betrayal and death at the hands of his enemies.
Readings from Jeremiah occur in our Sunday readings, usually in the same context. He’s found also in the church’s morning prayers: Jeremiah weeps over a desolate land after Jerusalem’s destruction by the Babylonians. ( Jeremiah 3 10-14, Friday Morning, 3) The prophet proclaims God’s promise of a “garden land” . (Jeremiah 14 17-21, Thursday Morning 1)