It was the Lord who made it known to me, and I knew;

then you showed me their evil deeds.

But I was like a gentle lamb

led to the slaughter.

And I did not know it was against me

that they devised schemes, saying,

“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,

let us cut him off from the land of the living,

so that his name will no longer be remembered!”

But you, O Lord of hosts, who judge righteously,

who try the heart and the mind,

let me see your retribution upon them,

for to you I have committed my cause.

Jeremiah XI.18-20

Jeremiah is one of the most quoted books in the New Testament. When Jesus was praying in Gethsemane, he couldn’t not have remembered Jeremiah.

We read thi prophet, together with Lamentation, together with Isaiah, with Job during the Holy Week... to be in synthony with Christ, his heart and his mind, his sorrow for Jerusalem and his poeple.

Jeremiah: the prophet seduced by God, as he defines himself. He is a singular personality in the context of the prophetic movement. He suffers from being the one to whom God has decided to confide His anger.

What an unfortunate situaiton for someone who lives in the land where the people who were supposed to be in communion with God, to following the law of Torah, the Jewish Bible, have gone astray so much that God will even order Jeremiah to not intercede for his compatriots anymore.

"Yes, they cry out to me, but listen, Jeremiah, do they even know whom they cry out to, do they even know me? Look, they’ve multiplied their gods, they have as many as there are streets in Jerusalem. Look at the offerings to Baal, look at the evil they do, look, Jeremiah… watch!"

The vocation of Jeremiah is peculiar. He is granted to see the reality with the eyes of God. Great, no? But this vision happens to be so paniful that he exclaims "cursed is the day I was born!" Having been given this vision he cannot but lament seeing the destroyed heritage.

In Jerusalem God will tell the prophet to go and see the workshop of the potter. As clay gets marred at the wheel, the potter forms it into another pot and shapes it as it seems best to him. "Watch, Jeremiah, watch. I am the potter of these people, I am to shape them as I please. Just tell them that, that’s it, I will not tolerate their wickedness anymore, I will not tollerate their self-shaping".

In fact, in the Hebrew Bible the word "potter" is not used. It says "creator", as to allude to the Creator.

At this point Jeremiah is caught between a rock and a hard place. Because, of course, delivering the message of judgement is rarely a pleasent thing to do. Who likes the herald who brings bad news?

He can offend God by refusing to proclaim judgment or he can offend the people by obeying God..

This irresolvable contradiction makes him one of most desperate prophets of the Old Testament.

It’s a pity that none of the prophets is the holder of truth. Otherwise, we could imagine the people of Judea could ask Jeremiah: oh, but listen, brother, listen, friend, you have to understand us as well. The political situation doesn’t allow us to act otherwise, these are the times we live in, there is this and that… and why are you so grim all the time, you are boring, Jeremiah, no one wants to listen to you anymore, you are a killjoy. Especially the king Josiah feels this way, as the more power you have, the bigger is the illusion of your strength.

Unfortunately for Jeremiah, he is just a messenger. He doesn’t invent what to say.

It’s good for us to remember this being disciples of Christ, because we are conferred the spirit of prophecy at the baptism and confirmation.

We are commissioned to listen to God and share the truth, to act in accordance with it, to live it - but not to invent it, not to change it according to our preferences, not to negotiate it, not to sell it.

Our vocation becomes somewhat similar to the vocation of Jeremiah. To see the reality with the eyes of God. What does it mean? It is very simple. It means to see with the eyes of someone who loves, who cares for the hearts and the minds. And there is no such torture as love. This is why we read Jeremiah, we read Lamentations, we read Job. We cry at seeing the corruption and the impoverishment of God’s heritage.

But there are two sides to the vocation of the prophet, and they both stem from love. This is the tragic one of trying to talk to hearts mad of stone, but there is another one.

When Jerusalem, as Jeremiah has predicted, is destroyed and the Jews are exiled in the Babylon, he doesn’t say: told ya! I told you you will call for destruction and so it happened. Now I wash my hands.

No, it is at this moment the same God's vision makes him preach compassion and laent the destruction of the beloved people. When everything is lost, He starts preaching salvation. Jerusalem will be returned to its people. "Continue to do good in the land of exile, continue to do good in slavery, none of it will be lost".

Let us pray for the strong spirit and for courage to be worthy prophets.

Amen.