When it Looks Like Destruction: Jeremiah and White Evangelicalism
I joked the other day that I needed to “breakup” with Jeremiah soon. I’d been studying and writing about the book for three different projects, and while I was in love with what I was learning, it was the end of the semester and I was ready to be done.
But I can’t seem to get one particular story out of my head – Jeremiah 38:1-6. Of all of the beautiful, difficult, interesting things I learned and passages I read, this one has lodged itself firmly in my brain. It’s a simple story. Jeremiah’s been doing what he does and telling the Israelites that they are facing coming judgement via angry Babylonians. They deserve it, and at this point, they should give themselves over to their captors and live out their lives in the exile that God will use to refine them. But there are other prophets promising that God wouldn’t allow such a thing, that the Babylonians will be defeated, that God will give them prosperity in the here and now. In chapter 38, a few prominent men hear Jeremiah’s proclamation—that the people need to leave the city and give themselves over to the Babylonians—and declare him a traitor. They go to the king and ask for his death, because he is “discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city, as well as all the people, by the things he is saying to them. This man is not seeking the good of these people but their ruin” (38:4, NIV). So they put him in a cistern to die. The king ultimately changes his mind and allows Jeremiah to be saved from the death awaiting him. But this line is the one that’s been rattling around in my head during the last few weeks: This man is not seeking the good of these people but their ruin.
It’s ironic, because the people leading the charge for the soldiers to stay and fight think they are working for the good of the people, but Jeremiah knows that their campaign will only lead to ruin. The one shouting prophecies about destruction is the one who is truly seeking the good of the people.
After weeks of heartbreak, weeks of a constant reminder that the white evangelical church is broken, weeks of our leaders digging in their heels and insisting that nothing is wrong, I keep coming back to this truth:
Sometimes, what looks like our destruction is actually for our good.
I don’t really blame anyone that thought Jeremiah was seeking their ruin when they saw him running around the city telling people that they would die if they stood their ground. I don’t really blame anyone who called him a traitor when they heard his command to give themselves over to their idol-worshipping enemies. I don’t really blame anyone who wants to listen to the voices that say that surely God wouldn’t let this judgement come, not in this way. Standing your ground sounds principled. Giving yourselves over to your captors sounds like defeat. There might be nothing more important for our ears to hear right now than the truth that our destruction might be for our good. I’ve felt for weeks like running through the streets (internet) screaming, “The Babylonians are coming! And we deserve it!”
For a lot of people, it looks like destruction right now. It looks like our leaders, institutions, churches, and culture are being destroyed. Some of it is. Idols are being smashed, broken systems are being exposed, evil theologies are being shattered.
It looks like destruction because a lot of it is. And I know how tempting it is to find the people saying, “It’s all going to be okay. Nothing really needs to change. A few tweaks maybe, but this city will stand and we will protect it. God wouldn’t let this judgement come, not in this way.” But sometimes, what looks like our destruction is actually for our good. There are consequences for our sin, including our institutional, generational, systemic, and corporate sin. Accepting those consequences can look as absurd as telling the people to stop fighting and give themselves over to their captors.
But there are things that need to die.
Our attachment to a political party that knows it is the beneficiary of a lopsided bargain.
Deep-seated racism and misogyny that we’d like to think is behind us.
Institutional structures that protect the powerful instead of the most vulnerable.
Our impulse to protect our own kingdoms.
We are in the midst of a tumultuous time, and it can be hard to see how this chaos could be used for good. But refining requires fire and rebuilding requires a little demolition. I’m not a prophet, but Jeremiah and I have gotten really close in the last month. No one really enjoys being the person that announces judgement. No one wants to be the one telling a phony kingdom that it needs to be destroyed for its own good. No one wants to isolate themselves from the people they came from. I think Brueggeman said it best: “It is my judgement that the great pastoral opportunity among us is to utter faithful folk into the abyss too long denied, and to utter faithful folk through the abyss to newness, a difficult move given the despair among us" (Like Fire in the Bones: Listening for the Prophetic Word in Jeremiah, 27). No one wants destruction. And yet God seems to often work in this way: taking away the things we think we ought to love the most to make room for the newness He is in the constant business of creating.