Daily Prophets
Day 129
“Surely because of your trust in your wealth and in your treasures, you too shall be captured. Cursed is the one who is lazy in doing God’s Holy work. I know..the wickedness that is in him. Therefore I will howl for Moab. For fire went forth…consuming the brow of Moab. But I will restore the fortunes of Moab in the days to come, declares God.”(Jeremiah 48:7,10,3031,45,47)
The opening verse is a familiar refrain for Jeremiah and God; stop thinking that wealth, treasures, property, royalty, power, prestige is going to protect you from ruin. On the contrary, these things may well be one’s undoing. Because people since antiquity have tried to use these things to stop disaster from befalling them, physically, spiritually and emotionally. At one time, the Church “sold” the idea that donating enough would save your soul from damnation. This is true for all denominations, not just the Church. Jeremiah is reminding us that none of the material things we use to “protect” us and convince us that we are okay will, in the end, prove protective.
What is the crime that most people commit, especially those with wealth and treasure? The crime of being lazy about doing God’s holy work. The text uses the word used for the building of the Temple and the word used in the 10 Commandments for not working on Shabbat. What is God’s holy work? Caring for the stranger and the poor, loving our neighbor as we love ourselves, living transparently and truthfully, etc. Not doing this is the way we show “the wickedness that is in” us. We are constantly faced with the choice to take the next right action when it is needed or to put it off for a time convenient for us/wait for someone else to do it/deny that God’s call is the next right action.
When we commit the crimes enumerated above, God howls for us, as God “howls for Moab”. God’s howl is, I believe, both a howl of deep pain and sadness as well as a call for us to hear, wake up and rejoin the covenant with God, return to God’s side and be the partner we were created to be. We are not created to massacre people because of the color of their skin, nor the religion they practice; nor are we created to deny truth so we can have power, nor deceive others for our own personal gains. God’s howl is a call to us to return to our basic goodness of being and remember who we answer to.
The fire that consumes Moab is the purifying fire that has to come about to get rid of the dross that our actions have created and we have allowed to accumulate inside of us and in our homes, families, communities, countries. It is unfortunate that we still cannot hear Jeremiah’s words and realize he is talking to us today as he spoke to the people of his era. We hold on to the hope of the last sentence, God will restore our fortunes, without appreciating the steps necessary to make that happen-our return to God and to Godly actions, our retaking our proper place in caring for the poor and the stranger because we were strangers. When will we appreciate the passion of those who rail for justice, truth, love, kindness and hate mendacity and deception?
Rabbi Heschel teaches: “The prophet was filled with a passion which demanded release; if he tried to contain it, its flame burned from within him like a fever…Jeremiah felt the divine wrath as springing up from within.”(The Prophets pg. 116/7). Rabbi Heschel is explaining what happens to the prophet, not that he wants to sound or be angry-it is not a choice because the injustices to God and to the people are so great that his identification with God and the downtrodden, the disadvantaged is so great, it bursts forth from his soul. We think that this type of passion is not good and should be kept for a spiritual leader in a service in a house of worship, yet Rabbi Heschel reminds us, at least he does me, that passion for God and living God’s words and ways is an inside job that follows us everywhere in all our affairs.
In recovery, we have let go of our old ideas that money, power, etc will shield us, protect us and/or make us happy. We know happiness, joy, power, etc all come from doing the inner work necessary to be partners with God, connected to another(s) and live a life of service and spirituality. We do not seek to change other people, places or things, we seek to stand for and with God and spiritual principles. We howl at the lost souls who come to recovery and leave, ever fearful of the destruction that awaits them. We are grateful for our recovery and we repay the “bounty God has given us” with actions that honor our humanity and the humanity of another(s). In recovery, we are the recipients of God’s Grace because our lives and our fortunes have been restored by God.
I howl for me, I howl for you and I howl for God. I know Jeremiah’s pain and anguish from the years of seeing people continue to use old ideas and old ways that have led to destruction of their souls/inner lives and the destruction of their physical beings and another(s) life as well. I howl louder because I have been restored to life and to fortune, I howl louder than most because of the fire in the belly that never goes out-always sensitive to the howl of God and God’s call to me to heal my corner. My howls are misinterpreted at times and, in a few instances, used for my ego rather than God’s service. I am aware of this and do T’shuvah for these times. I am not, however, going to be a quiet soft-spoken person; I am loud, in your face and an Advocate for your Soul and this mission of mine will never end. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark