Discerning Love
Jeremiah 20:7-13
Jeremiah 20:7-13 (NRSV):
7 O Lord, you have enticed me,
and I was enticed;
you have overpowered me,
and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all day long;
everyone mocks me.
8 For whenever I speak, I must cry out;
I must shout, “Violence and destruction!”
For the word of the Lord has become for me
a reproach and derision all day long.
9 If I say, “I will not mention him
or speak any more in his name,”
then within me there is something like a burning fire
shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
and I cannot.
10 For I hear many whispering:
“Terror is all around!
Denounce him! Let us denounce him!”
All my close friends
are watching for me to stumble.
“Perhaps he can be enticed,
and we can prevail against him
and take our revenge on him.”
11 But the Lord is with me like a terrifying warrior;
therefore my persecutors will stumble,
and they will not prevail.
They will be greatly shamed,
for they will not succeed.
Their eternal dishonor
will never be forgotten.
12 O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous;
you see the heart and the mind;
let me see your retribution upon them,
for to you I have committed my cause.
13 Sing to the Lord;
praise the Lord!
For he has delivered the life of the needy
from the hands of evildoers.
You all know what Love is, right? I could give you my definition of Love, but a definition with fancy words that need further unpacking is not really what I’m talking about. I mean more of an experiential knowing, something you know because you’ve lived it.
I bet you all have some sense of what Love is, and yet, I don’t think it’s always so obvious what is and isn’t Love. Even if someone calls what they’re doing “Love.”
Let me illustrate. I’m going to make eight statements and if you think “yeah, that feels like Love” say “yeah!” and if it doesn’t feel like Love say “nope.” Now each of these examples is going to end with “because I love you,” which I want you to assume, for the purposes of this exercise, could be a neutral thing to say. And while each of these examples might have nuance in the details, just try to discern, quickly, with your gut, whether it leans more toward or away from Love. Ok, is this Love, “yeah” or “nope”...
“I’m quenching your thirst by giving you this cup of water because I love you.”
“I’m telling you you’re on the path to eternal conscious torment in hell because I love you.”
“I’m canceling my plans so I can be with you during this hard thing because I love you.”
“I, the man, make the decisions about what you can do with your time and body because I love you.”
“The reason I’m shouting that if we don’t recognize the sacredness of our neighbor, we’ll collectively self-destruct is because…I love you.”
“I’m kicking you out of the house for being, in your words, ‘queer,’ because I love you.”
“I’m giving you this thing you say you need, no strings attached, because I love you.”
“I was looking down at my phone while driving through a roundabout and nearly hit you with my car as you were running through the crosswalk, Matt, because I love you.” (That was last Wednesday.)
Those examples might have been on the easier side, but we know life and people are often more complex. How do we know when we are witnessing or experiencing Love? We probably don’t pull out our academic definition of Love and do some on-the-fly analysis, we probably just sense it, we feel it, like a burning fire in our bones.
Sometimes it’s tricky to discern whether what others are doing is Love, maybe because of our biases, expectations, fears, or something else that clouds our appraisal. It could be hard to know when what we’re doing is loving, maybe because we’re too focused on our intentions instead of actual impact, or we’re kind of lying to ourselves, or being hard on ourselves and not giving ourselves enough credit, or something else entirely.
Does our truthtelling arise from a Loving Center? Does Love guide our speech? Are our practices and protests and Pride celebrations, powered by Love? How do we discern whether what people are saying or doing is…Love…or something far from it?
Jeremiah, often called the weeping prophet, which might not surprise you, given this text, is not happy. Maybe, annoyed? Discouraged? Resentful? He feels overpowered, like he’s lost a battle with God, or himself. Tricked even, into devotion to his cause. He feels mocked, ridiculed. He feels the turmoil of wanting to quit while feeling the intensity of his call to not quit. He feels like folks are against him. He feels at least a little vengeful toward his opposition. And he seems, in the end, resolved to keep at it.
It wouldn’t be fair to judge Jeremiah based only on this text, anymore than I should form solid conclusions about you if you just need to vent, and that happens to be the only conversation I ever have with you. People are more than their most flustered moments. Jeremiah speaks, honestly, and intensely, here. Who is speaking these words, in our midst? And, do they come from a loving place?
Different but related question: does it matter what you believe–which truth you are speaking? It feels inclusive to say “beliefs don’t matter,” and in the context of, say, asking who gets to participate in a community, that could be an important commitment to maintain. But can beliefs inform how you treat others and participate in the world, and thus have real-life implications for people’s lives? Yes! Does it matter if you believe climate change is real and urgent? Does it matter if you believe that only men should lead in every sphere of life? Does it matter if you believe giving military support to Israel is part of God’s grand plan? Does it matter if you believe God finds queer love and identities beautiful and sacred? Yes! These beliefs have real-world consequences.
I don’t think we can simply “respect others’ beliefs” without a more critical, discerning touch. You can respect a person, and their right to believe things. But I have no respect for a belief that demeans or harms the Earth, or women, or Palestinians, or Jewish people, or queer people. I have no respect for the beliefs of the protestor who has been showing up outside the meetinghouse as you all enter this space. I want him to stay hydrated and get home safely and keep learning and growing, and stop yelling at my Friends, but the beliefs he is expressing…are lousy! The guy has lousy beliefs!
How do you know if a prophet’s message is loving or lousy? How do you know if your message, the truth you speak, as an individual or a community, is loving or lousy? Or, what about everyday speech? We don’t always think before we speak, really, we just kind of say the thing that comes to mind, but occasionally our words are more deliberate, like when carefully helping someone through something difficult, or letting someone know the harm of their actions in a way they’ll actually receive. How do you discern whether the truth you are telling is energized and shaped by Love?
Speaking of truth-telling: what’s it like to feel a truth that must be told, rising within you? How do you know when to voice it? What happens when you keep it inside? What happens when you release it? This could be personal, like someone’s story of coming out. It could be relational, like letting a friend know how they’re hurting you or how remarkable they are. It could be communal or societal, like warning a collective of a life-destroying trend taking us farther away from the possibility of human flourishing.
When Jesus says, in Matthew 10:34, "I have not come to bring peace but a sword,” he’s not making a stunning turn away from peace and toward violence, he’s not abandoning his goal of a harmonious and flourishing ecological community. He’s not suddenly saying “grab a weapon, let’s kill some Romans.” He’s being frank, through metaphor, about what can happen when you give up on a superficial kind of peace and tell people the truth, even in Love. They may withdraw from you; you may sever relationships you might have maintained had you stayed quiet. But what’s the cost of staying quiet? Of inaction? What toll does it take on your body? What toll does it take on other bodies?
Jeremiah has to speak, he can’t hold it in. A fire burns within him, and he must let it spread. Is this the fire of Love? Or the fire of something else? Is he motivated by a need for control, or a powerful fear, or a sense of adequacy, or a deep, persistent wound that makes him wound others? Or does he speak because the good of his community weighs heavily on him, and it’s a matter of authenticity, or integrity, or safety, to speak?
We get a pretty raw Jeremiah, here. He’s not the “weeping prophet” simply because of his own misery but because he laments a community who has lost its way. But even if Jeremiah is committed to social justice and care for the vulnerable and challenging corrupt and violent leadership, he’s not necessarily a saint. He’s nuanced, he’s flawed!
But what god does he believe in? The word “Lord” in this passage, isn’t quite the same as “God” in a historical or interpretive sense, but it effectively does the same thing for me in that it is a template. When I see or hear the word “God” or “Lord,” my mind elaborates on what that is, my body feels it, and my practices reflect it. For example, I think many people in our world believe in a God who is compassionate and many, a god who is a bully. Whether you believe Jeremiah speaks on behalf of compassionate god or bully god makes a significant difference in how we feel about him and his ministry.
Let’s try on each of these two gods, here.
O [bully god], you have enticed me; you have overpowered me, [bully god], and you have prevailed…I must shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of [bully god] has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, “I will not mention [bully god] or speak any more in [bully god]’s name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire. I am weary with holding it in….[bully god] is with me like a terrifying warrior; my persecutors…will not prevail. O [bully god]...to you I have committed my cause. Sing to [bully god]. Praise [bully god]. For [bully god] has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.
Do you know this god? I mean, it may not be your god, but do you recognize the presence of this god in the words and actions of people in your world? Let’s read it again, but instead of “compassionate god,” let’s use “Divine Love.”
O [Divine Love], you have enticed me; you have overpowered me, [Divine Love], and you have prevailed…I must shout, “Violence and destruction!” For the word of [Divine Love] has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, “I will not mention [Divine Love] or speak any more in [Divine Love]’s name,” then within me there is something like a burning fire. I am weary with holding it in….[Divine Love] is with me like a terrifying warrior; my persecutors…will not prevail. O [Divine Love]...to you I have committed my cause. Sing to [Divine Love]. Praise [Divine Love]. For [Divine Love] has delivered the life of the needy from the hands of evildoers.
In the first reading, we might feel Jeremiah is coerced, and becomes like that which coerces him. In the second reading, Love wins! Love prevails! Love delivers the needy.
So was Jeremiah bullied into service by a divine bully, and in so doing, made a bully, himself, part victim acting in fear, part instigator of terror, identifying himself as needy, a man with a persecution complex because people don’t appreciate his toxic message? Or was Jeremiah enticed by Divine Love to be an ambassador of that Love, for the good of the world, for the truly needy in his midst, sharing his true self and true convictions with the world? Is Love his goal and his method, even somewhat defining of who he is?
My bias, that impacts my reading, is that violence and destruction were happening, then, as now, as a natural consequence of the worst impulses of otherwise good human creatures who are all made for Love. I think when Jeremiah shouts “Violence and destruction!”–this is not a warning of looming Divine punishment but a way of telling the truth. It’s him saying, “Wake up people! Stop ignoring the violence, stop denying the destruction! Love is enticing us! It’s time to speak, and to act!” Real Love might feel terrifying to some, but it beats the terrifying alternative of Love, absent.
Giving a drink to the thirsty, being present to a struggling friend, speaking life-saving truth in public, giving generously? Seems like Love. Preaching hellfire, controlling women’s bodies, kicking your queer kiddos out of the house, driving recklessly and almost injuring the local Quaker pastor? Maybe not Love.
But life and faith are often more complex. Is the God we or others believe in, Love? Are the words we are speaking and the things we are doing–Love? How can you tell?
Quaker spirituality invites us to listen deeply, to discern the voice of Love within and around us. So let’s do that!
Queries:
What has my God/Guide enticed me to do, say, or become?
When have I felt a “burning fire in my bones?” What did I do about it?
Does our truthtelling arise from a Loving Center? Does Love guide our speech?
How do I know when I am experiencing or expressing Love? What are the cues?