Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann
Jeremiah 28:5-9
July 2, 2017 4th Sunday after Pentecost
The quest for truth is no easy task, and it takes on many forms. A search for the truth can be as ordinary and routine as a mother faced with one broken window but two very different accounts of which child is to blame. Seeking the truth can lead jurors into long arduous debates and sometimes to the conclusion that there is no verdict; that jury knows how hard it is to find truth. And the pursuit of truth can become even more mysterious and elusive when it is undertaken by philosophers who ponder what they can know and how they can know it, and what is and is not actually real and true. People yearn for the truth, but it is often hard to find. This was precisely the problem the people of Judah had a few millennia ago when two prophets were proclaiming two very different versions of reality. Who was telling the truth, the prophet Hananiah or the prophet Jeremiah?
Ok, so maybe you’re not especially familiar with the story of Hananiah and Jeremiah. We read an excerpt in our short text. And at the time that it happened, it was a big deal. Jeremiah was the melancholy prophet of doom, chosen by God to speak warnings and threats to the apostate people of Judah. His ministry peaked right at the end of the kingdom of Judah; exile in Babylon was just around the corner. Of course, no one at the time knew this. They were just going about their business as usual. Certainly, the people of Judah knew that the Babylonians were a strong and fierce people. They knew that Babylon was poised to scoop up Judah as the next prize in their conquest of the Middle East. But, in spite of Babylon’s strength, the people weren’t too concerned. After all, they were the heirs of David, God’s chosen people. They were special. They had survived the Assyrians hadn’t they? They were golden. God would not let them down. He would not allow Babylon to conquer Jerusalem—at least that’s what they thought.
So, when Jeremiah appeared and started predicting that Babylon would not only enter and sack Jerusalem, but also force the people into exile, it was not only upsetting, it was confusing. He seemed to be speaking heresy. Jeremiah was adamant about his prophecy. He’d been preaching the same message for his entire prophetic career: God was done with Judah’s idolatry. God was tired of their sinful rebellion and sin. God had rejected Judah, and David’s line had reached the end—at least for now. Jeremiah did not relish his job. But, he was God’s prophet. And he said what God wanted said—even if no one, not even Jeremiah himself liked it. As God’s obedient prophet, Jeremiah said and did some tough things. As a vivid object lesson, Jeremiah even walked around the city of Jerusalem wearing a wooden yoke across his shoulders as a warning of the slavery and exile that was soon to come. Jeremiah preached what God told him to preach. He preached siege and dread and invasion and death and destruction. It was a hard message.
It was not the only message. There was another prophet active at the time who was decidedly more popular. Hananiah did not like Jeremiah’s message. He offered his own prophetic oracle: in just two years, he said, Babylon would no longer be a threat to Judah. He promised that peace and prosperity were just ahead. He claimed to speak for God. So, two prophets with two messages, both claimed to speak for God. Both could not be right. So, which one was? Obviously, there’s not much drama here. You know the answer—who’s ever heard of a book of the Bible called “Hananiah”? But, Jeremiah we recognize. You can even find his book in the Old Testament. You know that Jeremiah was God’s prophet and Hananiah was a liar. But, the people at the time did not know it. And the occasion described in our text when the two prophets met face-to-face must have raised a lot of questions for the people. Jeremiah was there, decked out as usual with the familiar yoke around his neck. His message was bondage and misery. Hananiah promised freedom and prosperity. While it hurt him to say so, Jeremiah insisted that Hananiah was dead wrong. Jeremiah truly wished that the other prophet could be right, that God would again spare his people, but Jeremiah knew the truth. Hananiah was wrong. Jerusalem would fall. Hananiah responded to the dire warning by smashing Jeremiah’s yoke, promising that God would do the same with Babylon’s power. Jeremiah could only shake his head, sadly walk away, and wait for God’s direction. Which prophet do you think the people believed?
The people did not have long to wait to learn the truth. Jeremiah was soon preaching again—declaring that Babylon’s yoke would be made of iron that no man could break. And Hananiah? Well in less than two months he was dead. Just seven years after that, Jerusalem had been smashed by the marauding Babylonians and the people had been marched into exile. Jeremiah had spoken truth. He’d been right all along. His words had been true whether anyone believed them or not because they were God’s truth. Jeremiah spoke for God. He spoke truth. Hananiah spoke for himself and for the praise of the people. He spoke lies. Jeremiah had the hard road—wearing a yoke around town was not exactly easy, and being universally hated and mocked was tough to take. But, Jeremiah was committed to the truth, no matter what. He stuck with the truth.
How do you know the truth? How do you know who is speaking God’s words, and who is spouting lies? And how do you discern truth when you must choose not between two competing prophets, but from an exploding number of ideas all claiming to be truth? How do you know the truth? Obviously, weighing the popularity of a message is not the way to tell. No matter what our fellow Americans may think and no matter what our Constitution may say, a majority vote does not determine truth. Judah learned this, the hard way. So, if it’s not a majority vote that will decide truth, then surely it must be the sacrosanct standard of personal feelings. To determine the truth about something, you are routinely directed to do a “gut check” to decide how you feel about it. And, if you feel good about something, that settles it. It’s true. Feelings are the sacred idol of our culture.
There are so many other possible sources of truth we can add to the list. Various experts are consulted and quoted to tell us what is true. Scientists and physicians are counted on to speak the hard truth—truth based only on empirical, provable data, and so irrefutable. Others reject the false comfort of the data-driven world of hard facts and find their source of truth in great thinkers and philosophers. Ideas are judged as true or false to the degree that they cohere with great systems of thought. And there are even some who count on the media to bring them the truth about events in the world and the meaning of those events and life itself. Still others turn to trusted friends or family members to give them the truth. While it appears, then, that there is an array of options one might choose in the pursuit of truth, they actually boil down to three. A person finds truth either by relying on himself, other people, or God. These are the only options.
So, which one do you believe? What is your truth-source? A flip of the coin does not cut it. Don’t let chance decide truth. And don’t let other people determine it, either. Truth does not result from a majority vote—one hundred million unseeing, ignorant people have no more wisdom than one unseeing ignorant person. Mass popular ignorance is still ignorance. Feelings cannot be trusted either. They are too inconsistent and too subjective. Truth is neither. The greatest experts are all nothing but human beings with the same limitations and failings of every other human being. Not one of them can claim to know the truth any more than any other person. Enthusiasm, charisma, and popularity do not equal truth. Where do you find truth? Not in yourself, and not in others. You find it only in God. Truth is what God says and does. God’s truth is not always pleasant and happy. It is not always exactly what you want to hear. It is rarely greeted with cheers from the masses. It doesn’t enjoy majority support or affirmation. It is decided by God, period. I suspect Jeremiah was tempted from time to time to change his message or nuance the truth to make it sting a little less. But, he couldn’t, of course. He had to speak God’s truth. So must you. You may be tempted to desert God’s truth, and embrace something more popular and more palatable. It would be delightful if everyone really could just believe and do what they liked so long as it didn’t hurt anyone else. It would be so affirming and so comfortable if everyone could pick whatever truth they liked and then follow it to a happy eternity. It would be wonderful if we could all just live and let live. But, that’s not how truth works.
Jeremiah may have worn a yoke when he prophesied, but the reality is that it was Hananiah and all who believed him who were under the yoke. They were the ones in bondage. They were bound by falsehood and lies. And in seven years, they were bound literally when the Babylonians shackled and chained them and herded them into exile. The yoke of falsehood, sin, and death was clamped on the necks of the gullible, the foolish, and the arrogant who rejected God’s truth. It still is.
Many people in the world have this idea that Christians live prudish, constrained, and restrictive lives. They accuse us of living under a severe yoke that limits our freedom and removes all the fun, happiness, and joy from life. I suppose that to the ignorant, Christians sometimes do look that way—and there are some Christians who manage to reduce our faith to a list of rules. It is quite true that faithful followers of Christ do not join in with the depravity and sin the rest of the world considers to be normal and fun. But, the reality of course, is that in Christ we know the true freedom of God’s grace, forgiveness, and promises—and we delight to live according to his will, that is his truth which we know simply as his law. And when we do that, we are in sync with all of creation instead of at odds with it. Those who live without Christ are the ones who are under the yoke. They are bound by their own insatiable desires and needs. They are at odds with the world and with one another. They are prisoners to the master of sin that leads them into slavery and a self-imposed exile from God and creation. Freedom does not come from conventions and constitutions and conflict. Freedom is not won or earned. Freedom is God’s gift to his people. It is experienced by living according to his plan made known in Jesus Christ. This is God’s great and foundational reality for this world. It is his will for creation, his law. It is the truth. There is no other.
Jeremiah was eventually revealed as God’s true prophet. You will eventually be revealed as one who knew and followed the truth. The day when all will be revealed is coming. Jeremiah only had to wait a couple of months to win his contest with Hananiah, and only seven years for his truth to become evident to all. Maybe we only have seven years to wait—or maybe it’s 700. It doesn’t matter. That day will come. God has promised it. It’s part of his unbreakable truth. It’s your truth, and you know it. And that’s the truth. Amen.