Is There No Balm in Gilead?

The prophet laments in Jeremiah 8:18-9:6. Sometimes it is in his own voice, sometimes it is in the voice of God. But God is in each of the tears and cries of despair over stubborn, broken, wounded, and precarious hearts. God is in the frustration of one speaking to the ears that do not hear. God is in the mourning over those who are oppressed and those who oppress.

My joy is gone, grief is upon me, my heart is sick. Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land:

The voice and heart of God beat through the voice and heart of the prophet who observes the times and speaks to the people of the times. This God chooses prophets who weep. This God appoints messengers who love the unlovely and care for the careless. This God chooses spokespeople who both identify with and stand apart from the masses who go astray.

Our times are broken times.? We confuse and cloud the issues. We defend our traditions for the wrong reasons. We compare our rights to those of others in order to assert our own. We hold our preferences in high esteem and our loyalties up as ultimate treasures.

We display our discomforts and inconveniences to discount the historical and immediate pain of those who are other than us in some way.

We learn with precision and repetition to speak the words, "but what about me?"

"But what about us?"

And still ... and yet ... and as a result, summer comes, harvest passes, and we miss the salvific moment that God, in God's mercy declares. We allow the Year of Jubilee to pass unnoticed until it is gone and then, we grieve.

And God grieves with us, for us, and with and for those we have wounded and forgotten along the way.

We and God are sick at heart.

If we are not weeping prophets in these days of greed, hate, vitriol, and injustice, we are no prophets at all.

If we are not confused, conflicted, and torn, we have not deeply touched nor been touched by the heart of God.

For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.

Who are these who are "my poor people?"

They are the oppressed.

They are the oppressors.

They are those who think they are one, for all think they are oppressed and yet, are also oppressors.

They are those who know that they oppress, do not care, but may not be aware that they are also in bondage and jeopardy .

Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?

Why indeed?

Indeed, why not?

There is balm. There is a physician.?

What, then is missing?

Is it us?

Is it our failure to receive the balm or our unwillingness to apply it to the wound of the other? Or are we arguing over whose wound is worse? Are we doing a triage dance over the severity of the suffering and who gets the attention? What is our favorite injustice?

What is our pet sin to malign.

What is our finger of choice to point at our chose people to blame for all that is wrong?

And thus, we are not healed.

O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people!

Weep! Weep! Weep!

Weep until you are weary and cry out to God who weeps along with you.

For in weeping we discover the love and in love we have our only hope of joy and the joy of hope.

Perhaps we shall find it in our hearts to carry the balm in our satchels and apply it freely to the open sores of the world without judgment or bitterness.

Perhaps the weeping will move us to be to one another, physicians of mercy, grace, and peace.

Perhaps we will temper our words, soften our hearts, and strengthen our spines for the work of righteousness and reconciliation.

Perhaps we will be willing to be the lone and lonely Jeremiahs of the world.

O that I had in the desert a traveler's lodging place, that I might leave my people and go away from them! For they are all adulterers, a band of traitors. They bend their tongues like bows; they have grown strong in the land for falsehood, and not for truth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know me, says the LORD.

No one is saying that this call to weep has a gravitational pull of pleasure and happiness.

It is a wearying weeping that evokes revulsion and feelings of flight over fight. Yet, we must flow.

And that is just how God must feel.

Thus it is for the prophet and the prophetic community.?

This community of weeping prophets cannot settle down in ultimate comfort in this world. We are not at odds with the people, but the systems and processes that are active around us are at odds with the light we bear and the love we share.

Beware of your neighbors, and put no trust in any of your kin; for all your kin are supplanters, and every neighbor goes around like a slanderer. They all deceive their neighbors, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongues to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent.

It is not that we think ill of our neighbors. We see them as we see ourselves, through the enlightened eyes of realism and truth. Our theology of sin and its deceitful implications and outcomes is heart and raw. We know that of which people are capable because we know that in ourselves.

We may also know what it is to be too weary, worn, and discouraged to repent.

That is why the call to repentance is always, always, always good news.

With the call comes the explicit implication of possibility. God says and the prophet says, "Here is a place, a moment, an opportunity, a grace, a forgiveness, and a hopeful empowerment for you and for me to change our minds and change our direction!"

Otherwise, how could they?

Otherwise, how could we?

In the valley of weeping is the place where the very, very, very good gospel of very, very, very good news takes on a melodious and welcome tone.

Oppression upon oppression, deceit upon deceit!

To say less, to cover-up, to call one thing something else, to deny, to negate, and to defend indefensible? is to perpetrate oppression through deceit. Generational lies do not become truth because they are often repeated. Uncomfortable revelations about injustice are no less true because they disturb us or because we feel harassed by them. History does not change to suit us no matter how we dress it up. Just because we have always thought it was one way because it was our way, does not make it so.

These things compile and in the compilation, they compress, and to decompress and de-compile is an excruciating process. But it is the home of righteous, peace, joy, love, grace, and purpose.

They refuse to know me, says the LORD.

It is, of course, the bottom line. YHWH, the LORD, reaches out and reveals to be known and mankind only fails to see through refusal.

Thus the prophets weep and the LORD weeps.

But like the God of Jeremiah commanded him, that God commands us that even when it may be useless to pray for a magic turn-around or avoidance of the pain, keep proclaiming, keep prophesying, keep hoping.

The encouraging words in Jeremiah are few and far between, but they are enough.

They are enough to know, that at the end of the matter, there is good news and weeping is for but a moment..