Daily Prophets
Day 89
“Don’t put your trust in illusions…No, if you mend your ways and your actions; if you execute justice with one another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan and the widow; if you do not shed innocent blood, if you do not follow other gods to you own hurt, then I dwell with you in this place that I gave to your fathers for all time.”(Jeremiah 7:4,5-7).
The first verse above says it all. Jeremiah is telling the people that they are believing the lies of the king and the priestly class, they are engaging in self-deception and calling it truth, so they are not fearful or, maybe, not even aware of how far from God they have strayed. Isn’t this what gets all of us in trouble?
The trust we put in our illusions and the illusions/deceptions by another(s) is doomed to get us into trouble, separate us from God and one another. One of the illusions is the perversion of justice will make me more powerful and protect me. This way of thinking and acting is so insidious to our destroying our spirit, the spirits of the people we interact with and the connection to God, as I am reading this verse today.
Mending our ways means to let go of all the insidious, selfish, power-driven actions that were going on at the time. God is railing about injustice, again! Jeremiah is telling us to stop these evil ways, stop taking advantage of the voiceless and the powerless. I infer him to be telling us that God wants us to take care of the voiceless and the powerless, not harm them further.
Jeremiah is pleading with us to stop following false gods to our own ruin/hurt. He is screaming at us to save ourselves because, miracle of miracles, God is still willing to allow us to repent and to “dwell with” us in this place, in this moment and for all moments. God’s forgiveness and mercy know no boundaries, God’s forgiveness is always available, are we going to accept both through our actions of mending our ways and following God, not the different idols we have been? Are we going to stop living our illusions and live with God?
Rabbi Heschel teaches: “To the people, religion was Temple, priesthood, incense:…Such piety Jeremiah brands as fraud and illusion… Worship preceded or followed by evil acts becomes an absurdity. The holy place is doomed when people indulge in unholy deeds.”(The Prophets pg.11). How apropos for the verses quoted above and what has happened throughout the ages up to and including today. Too many people associate religion and God with the edifices that purport to worship God and ‘represent’ religion. This may be the reason there are so many unchurched people in America today. Our institutions have to ‘walk their talk’ as we say in recovery. What is said and learned inside these places of worship must be practiced outside of them, not to get ‘mitzvah points’, rather to live well and make an inviting space for God to dwell with us!
Regarding the call to return before and after speaking of the destruction that is about to happen, Rabbi Heschel says: “Man has the power to modify His design… the message of anger is a call to return and be saved. The call of anger is to cancel anger.”(ibid pg. 286). Here again, Rabbi Heschel illuminates an important truth, we can cancel God’s anger, we can modify any decree by our behavior-if we return, the decree is cancelled, if we don’t, the decree is carried out. We can also think about this as the experience of continuing to go down a path of negativity and illusion, it brings us to destroy our inner lives, our outer lives and of those around us. Return and mend our ways allows us to know that we are always able to change.
In recovery, we know all about living in illusions. We had been doing it for years and, our recovery is proof of verses 5-7. We are mending our ways, we are living a just life, we are caring for the alien, the widow, the orphan, the poor; the voiceless and the powerless because we have been all of these in our addiction, and in our recovery. It was an Anonymous Program because drunks were labeled “lost causes” and work wasn’t readily available, families were shunned, etc. So we know we have to accept anyone and everyone who wants to “mend their ways and actions”, because we were accepted when we first showed up. In recovery, we are constantly checking our selves and our actions for errors and for victories so we continue to “walk our talk” without the need to be perfect. Our recovery is the path and space where God dwells within us and we live well.
When I think of all of times I have trusted in the illusions of my mind/emotions and/or the illusions of others, I see the harm, pain and learning that occurred. I am grateful for all the people who help me see when I am in illusion and lift me out of them. It hurts, often to leave the illusions about other people, ones who have been trusted by me; it hurts to leave the illusion of how my career would end. Yet, as the text says, leaving them, practicing the actions that God wants and following a new path from God sets me free and I feel God dwelling within me. What illusions are you still giving in to? Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark