Document:  Johannine.94.01

JOHANNINE HOURS - January 1994 - from the Taize Community, France.

Jeremiah 20,7-13

This text gives us a glimpse of the inner struggle undergone by one of
the greatest prophets of Israel. Jeremiah, a man of peace, had to
proclaim the word of the Lord which only led to resistance and violence
against him, even from his own kinsfolk. Beside himself, he projected
his suffering toward God. The prophet felt himself trapped in the middle
between, on the one hand, the Word of God that filled him to such an
extent that he could not hold it back, and on the other his countrymen,
who refused to be open to God and to change their lives in consequence.

Is there a way out of such a situation? Yes, and Jeremiah discovers it
by sharing his sufferings with the Lord, sometimes vehemently, rather
than keeping them to himself. Jeremiah makes an act of surrender that
gives him the certainty that God's cause will triumph, that God's
justice will at last shine forth in the world (that is the most
authentic meaning of the expression translated by "vengeance" in v.12).

The life of Jeremiah helps us understand that being called by God is not
a privilege. It means instead having to live out in one's own being the
contradictions of a world that ignores the source of its own existence,
attempting by this concern for both God and world to close, in oneself,
the gap between the two. The prophet thus gives us a foretaste of the
inner struggle waged at Gethsemane, and on the cross, by the One sent by
the Father to reconcile all things in himself (cf. Col 1,20; 2 Cor
5,18).

Am I in the habit of bringing to God, in prayer, my difficulties and
even my fears and doubts? Can the example of Jeremiah help me in this?

Does my faith bring me into conflict with some aspects or values of
contemporary society? Which ones? In such a situation, how can I
maintain a reconciled heart?

You can also read: Jeremiah 15,15-21; Matthew 26,36-46

[ email addresses: brother.roy@almac.co.uk  or  taize@dkauni2.bitnet ]