Resistance III
Bearing Witness: Jeremiah and Baruch
by the Rev. AJ Ochart
This week we continue the August Sermon Series on Resistance with a story from the book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a Prophet called near the end of the kingdom of Judah. He warned of the coming destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian Empire, saw the events that he foretold, and spoke words of comfort and hope to the survivors. This story is set around twenty years into his prophetic ministry, when the Babylonian victory was imminent. He is charged by God to do something crazy with his prophetic oracles, write them down using the cutting edge technology of the written word. It is such a specialized skill, that he has to employ Baruch as a scribe. Jeremiah sends Baruch to the Temple to read his sermons and oracles (since he himself was barred from the Temple), so that the people would have some context for the coming destruction (and to counter the pro-Jerusalem crowd who believed that nothing bad could possible happen to them). This weeks’ story is what happens to Baruch and those words.
We live in a world full of the written word, of pictures, and videos. Yet sometimes the approach to truth is exactly the same: whatever is inconvenient, challenging, or deemed un-patriotic is popped into the memory hole. Those with power work to hide, to overwhelm, and to ‘thoughts and prayers’ these warnings away. Sometimes the challenges are bigger than we can change, but sometimes we are simply called to do is to bear witness, to remember, and to hold those in power to account.
Questions to Consider
– How is truth obscured in our world?
– What is the purpose of standing in witness?
