Fire in the Bones--September 21, 2020
"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.
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.
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." [Jeremiah 20:7-9]
It's okay. You're not alone.
I mean, it's not okay. So much in the world is not okay. So much feels like the old verse from Yeats, "Things fall apart/ the centre cannot hold/ mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." But if that's how you are feeling these days, if you find yourself just overwhelmed at how not-okay things are, it's okay--it's safe--to say so. It's okay to say, "It feels like everything is coming unglued." You are allowed. You have permission--and from the prophets of the living God, no less.
And it's okay, too, if you find yourself feeling quite alone in the midst of all the not-okay-ness. It's okay--it is, to use Mr. Rogers' wording, "mentionable"--to name that feeling that everything around is falling apart and you feel like you're the only one who sees it, the one one troubled by it, the only one who cares about it. That's how it feels when the center cannot hold--you end up feeling like everything and everyone is getting flung further from you.
So let me say this one more time, just to be clear: if you find yourself these days feeling like both you and the world are unraveling like worn threads, and if you wonder if you're the only one who is distressed by all that unraveling, it's okay to say it. It's okay to say you feel like that. You're not alone, in fact, but it does feel like it. And that's okay to say.
That's often how the ones who were really in tune with God felt, to be honest. They felt alone--and oddly enough, they had that in common. It's Jeremiah here in these verses (and honestly, through a lot of his book--he does a fair amount of complaining to God throughout the book of his words that we find in the Scriptures). It was Elijah, too, on the run for his life from the king and queen and complaining to God that he was the only one left who was faithful... when God had to tell him that there were still many who had not sold out to the ones in power. It was Amos who got chased out of town by no less than the high priest for calling out the rottenness of things in his day. And it was surely John the Baptizer, too, languishing in prison for having spoken up against the puppet king Herod and his decadence, and wondering why Jesus hadn't busted him out of jail if he really was the Messiah. And of course, it was the same for Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the solitude of his prison cell under Nazi guards... and Dr. King in that famous Birmingham jail cell, too, lamenting that so many white moderate preachers had decided to look the other way rather than support his movement.
All of them, from the ancient prophets of Israel to the good troublemakers of the last generation, they have all had those times they felt like they were the only ones sometimes. They wondered why nobody else was speaking up, or if nobody else saw, or if nobody else cared. When you are overwhelmed by the rottenness of things, it has a way of making you forget that others are in it with you. Or maybe, like walking outside on a cloudy, moonless night, you can't see around you to know that you have others walking with you.
But if that's you these days, at least know that other faithful voices have been in the same place. Jeremiah was there for a very long time--certain that things were falling apart around him while the official party line from the palace and the temple was that "This is all fine. Everything is fine," and also just as certain that he was the only one willing to say out loud that things were not fine. And when Jeremiah ran into folks who didn't want to listen, it just about broke the poor guy. He felt like he had no options--if he spoke what he was sure God led him to say, he was going to get in trouble; and on the other hand, if he bit his tongue and tried to keep it all in, he felt like he was going to burst. It was like "a fire in the bones," he says, like he couldn't shut the message from God in or he would explode. But then he found himself back in the familiar place of being the only one in the room willing to acknowledge the elephant sitting there.
If you have been in that place before, or if you feel like you are there now, and you can't make out any faces in the dark, it's okay to say so. Jeremiah's brutal honesty gives us permission to be honest, too--with each other, and with God--when we feel like we're the only ones who are paying attention, or the only ones upset, or the only ones troubled by the days we are living in. You can say it. You can even, like Jeremiah does, bring it right in God's face--look at how he comes out with both barrels, accusing God of having duped him, tricked him, and strong-armed him into being a prophet. "You have enticed me.. you have overpowered me... you have prevailed," he says--to God! Most of us were taught somewhere along the way that we have to be nice to God, that we have to be polite in our prayers, and that we have to sound... you know... "religious." And here comes one of the most prolific prophets of the Bible just coming out swinging at God and accusing the divine of setting him up for failure with a message that nobody wanted to hear.
If Jeremiah can accuse God like that, it's okay for you to bring your struggles to God, too. If Jeremiah can be honest about how alone he feels, it's okay for you to say the same out loud. If Jeremiah can confess how wearying it is to feel like he's the only one willing to say the unpopular thing, it's okay for you to own how tired you are if you feel like you're the only one paying attention in the world, too. Jeremiah's words give us permission to be in the same place, for however long we need to be.
Because here's the thing: once Jeremiah vents, he can catch his breath, and he can rally his strength to speak again, and to let the holy fire out from his bones. Once Elijah hears from God that he's not alone, he can get up and go back into the fray again. Once every one in that great cloud of witnesses brings their lament and discovers that they are in a chorus of other voices, they can get back to work for a while. And when the work wears them down again, they vent again, and they get through the next leg of the journey, too.
If you've been wondering somewhere along the way here, "Doesn't anybody else see? Am I the only one saddened and upset and broken-hearted over all the rottenness around?" hear it now: you are not alone. Everything's not okay, and you're not crazy to call out the not-okay-ness. It's okay to say that out loud. Maybe as you say it, you give courage to someone else who was waiting to hear that they weren't alone.
Maybe you need to hear it, too: you are not alone.
It's okay to be frightened or sad or angry these days.
It's okay to say, "Things are not okay."
Even when we bring our angriest, sharpest words at God, there comes the voice that spoke to Jeremiah and all the other prophets, too: "I know it is hard. I am with you. The rottenness of it all grieves me, too. I hurt with you. And I will bear this with you, too. Take my hand. Let's go."
And if today we only get as far as sensing that there are other folks here in the dark beside us, that is enough for today. Tomorrow we'll take the next step, and even if it's still in the dark, it will be with the knowledge that there are others beside you, who have the same fire in their bones as you have.
Lord God, strengthen us where we are weary. Bind up the wounds in our hearts, and tend to the pains we carry from feeling like we face the brokenness of this world alone. Help us to sense one another's presence in the dark, and to know you are with us here, too. Kindle the fire in our bones again.
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