Reading: Jeremiah 18-22, Psalm 18

We come today to the core of the problem of Jeremiah, and see a kind of new fall narrative playing out in the warnings and decisions of the king and priests of Jerusalem. In the story of the potter’s house, God asks if he is not able to remake that which does not function well. Of course he can, provided it is flexible enough to work with. Then God sends Jeremiah out with an old jar, which he smashes in reference to the (rather awful) activities of Judah. Again, the call is repentance, but now judgment is certain- leave Jerusalem, flee to the mountains, become flexible to God’s work, or be broken forever. We already know what the response will be, because God told Jeremiah ahead of time: they will not listen to you. Instead, the chief priest physically attacks Jeremiah and puts him in stocks. A more obvious rejection of the call to repentance I cannot think of. That we expected this is hardly comfort to poor Jeremiah, who delivers a truly exquisite example of the faithful depressed prophet, praising God and cursing the day of his own birth all at the same time. Finally, God sends one more clear message through Jeremiah: leave, or die. I set before you a way of life and a way of death. He who stays in this city will die by sword, by pestilence, and by famine; he who goes out and surrenders to the Chaldeans will live. The only way to survive is to leave the promised land, to put themselves at the mercy of foreigners.

The sign-acts that Jeremiah does around the potter’s house are some of the most profound in the Scripture. We have already heard the prophet Isaiah, at the peak of his dramatic final prayer in Isaiah 64, cry out You oh Lord are our father, we are clay, you are our potter, ever and only the work of your hands. The metaphor was not a new one. What Jeremiah adds to it is the possibility of the potter shattering the clay vessel. We know from the minor prophets that the people in Jerusalem at this time were trusting in their outward practices and status as God’s chosen people to preserve them from foreign invasion. We even see king Zedekiah send messengers to Jeremiah asking questions along those lines in today’s reading. Jeremiah says no, your status is not going to preserve you. The God of Israel is sovereign over all the nations, as we also saw in the minor prophets, and he will engage them to make you what you should have been. Israel is not the only vessel this potter is working.

Yesterday we saw the problem for Jerusalem reduced to simple sabbath observance, the first sign God gave the people when they left Egypt back in Exodus, where it was the sign of obedience. They could not even do that. Today the message has been clarified: flee. Part of chapter 21 and all of 22 are directed at the descendants of David. Though the direction from God is now to flee Jerusalem, the responsibility of the line of David to do justice, to rule with integrity, to care for the fatherless and the widow, is not ended. This is still the responsibility of the king to carry out his tasks. The reading closes by comparing Coniah (a diminutive form of Jehoiachin. This guys had a lot of names. He is also called Jeconiah) to a broken and despised vessel. He is subject to a curse: write this man down as childless, a man who shall not succeed in his days, for none of his offspring shall succeed in sitting on the throne of David and ruling again in Jerusalem. This sets up a new problem: how will God fulfill his promise to David in 2 Samuel 7 for an eternal king? Tomorrow Jeremiah begins to answer that question by pulling together the promise to David with the story of the Exodus. The last son of David will also be heir to the office of Moses, the Servant of the Lord.