Friday, March 26, 2021

Friday in the Fifth Week of Lent

John Stromgren

The Collect

O Lord, you relieve our necessity out of the abundance of your great riches: Grant that we may accept with joy the salvation you bestow, and manifest it to all the world by the quality of our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings: Jeremiah 20:7–13, John 10:31–42 & Psalm 18:1–7

Prophet is not a job you want. But Jeremiah was stuck with it. He was compelled to speak out, and for that he was ridiculed, clamped in the stocks at the public gate, and plotted against. He would much rather have kept his mouth shut, and he tried to, but the truth burned inside him until he had to let it out. He had to refute the falsehoods that were being spread by others.

Boy, does that sound familiar. We’ve got prophecies and false prophecies flying about, ridicule, treachery – we’re the same people! We’ve got some people telling us things we want to hear and others telling us things we don’t want to hear, and we’re ready to rise up against them. And we have.

In between our time and Jeremiah’s is Jesus’ time, and in today’s reading from John, he’s confronting the same thing – he’s been doing good works, but he’s about to get stoned for his words. He tells his would-be attackers to look for the truth in what he’s doing, even if they can’t see it in what he’s saying.

Jeremiah had to cry out because the people had neglected the commandments and pursued their selfish interests. They think they’re just fine, and take umbrage at anyone who suggests otherwise. Jesus confronts people who know the law and commandments down to the letter but still can’t tell good from evil. Worse than that, they’re confusing the two.

And here we are. Still stubbornly going our own way? Righteously indignant and fundamentally mistaken?

O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous,

you see the heart and the mind . . .