NOTES for Jer 23:23

Childlike naivete can at times be very sincere, especially when it concerns one's relationship with God. Here is a typical episode: a girl of about four is walking with her mother, who is scolding her for bad behavior. The girl wants to say something in reply, but holds back. Her mother insists: "Well, say it, say what you think!" The girl brushes it off: "Later, in the underpass!" They both come to the pedestrian underpass and go underground. There the girl declares to her mother: "You are nasty!" Her mother is surprised: "Why couldn't you say that to me up above?" The girl answers: "Up above God will hear!"

The four-year-old girl's answer would be amusing and naive, if we ourselves were not so much like her when it comes to our relationship with God. The fall, this distancing of the human being from God, does not begin by chance with a person trying to hide from Him, hiding in order to conceal sin. Perhaps not because of fear of punishment, but because one does not want to admit one's own failure either to oneself or to Him.

Deep down, the overwhelming majority of us believers would like God never to see our sins. We would like Him to be near and look at us when, as it appears to us, we are good and ready to meet Him: for example, during prayer or when we are doing something good. But it is better to sin somewhere in a dark corner, in an underpass, in the desert, in the forest - in short, far away from altars and churches.

It appears to us that if God is far away, then He neither sees nor knows, and that in this respect He is like us: after all, we too know little or nothing at all about those who are far from us at a given moment. With God everything is different, and through His prophet He reminds us of this. His nearness does not mean that He learns something new about us that He did not know before; it means that we have come into the center of His attention, have somehow drawn that attention, and now He is going to intervene directly in our life, to enter it in order to change something in it.

And here, quite naturally, we want to look better than we really are. But God does not need us to "look" like anything; He needs us simply to be. To be as we are, and to let Him into our life as it is, so that we may give Him the chance to make it, with our participation of course, what it ought to be according to His design and plan.

A question to the point: can it really be that because we feel distant from God, He becomes less God? Is His goodness less, His love less, His omnipotence less? What foolishness!

Perhaps this comes from our "material" experience, which tells us that the effect of something on us weakens as distance increases. Then God's distance even becomes convenient: we can take Him less seriously. We understand that He has reasons to be displeased with us, but if He is far away, then it is not so frightening and we do not need to hurry very much to change. We already begin deliberately pushing Him away from ourselves, building barriers between ourselves and God, anything to avoid falling into the hands of the Living God. All of this, of course, is self-deception. God is always and everywhere the Same. He is always near us, even when we think He is far away. And the point is not to hide from Him in fear or run away, but to seek Him in trust, turn to Him, and draw near to Him.

The question in essence: Can it be true that because we feel ourselves far from God, He becomes less God? Smaller becomes His goodness, smaller His love, smaller His omnipotence? What a stupid thing.

Probably, it goes from our "material" experience, which says that the influence of something on us weakens as we go afar off. So the farness of God turns out even advantageous: we can count less with Him. We understand that He has reasons not to be satisfied with us, but If He is far, then it is not so terrible and we can hurry not too much to change. We already begin purposefully to push Him away from us, to put barriers between us and God - only not to fall into the hands of the Living God. All this is of course self-deceit. God is always and everywhere the Same, He is always next to us, even when we think that He is far off. And the problem is not that in fear we hide from Him or avoids Him, but that in confidence to find Him, to turn to Him, to approach Him.

The word that comes from God may be the most precious thing a person possesses: it reveals the deepest meaning of one's life and reveals God coming to meet humanity. Without it, the world sinks into the meaninglessness and banality of its own words. Unfortunately, however, the need to hear God's voice and receive from Him a message about His will can be exploited. Is this not why all kinds of “dream books,” horoscopes, and every imaginable form of fortune-telling have always been so popular? A person thirsts for revelation but receives a wretched substitute produced by “prophets and priests” (healers, sorcerers, magicians...) who, just as in Jeremiah's time, use God's name for their own ends. The prophet is comforted by the knowledge that a time will come when everyone will share in this Word. This is already possible—and whoever seeks will surely find.

The rebukes continue, but once again amid severe warnings we see a ray of hope. The people still have only to go into exile and a new slavery, yet words of prophecy are already sounding about the coming return from captivity - about the fact that the same Lord who once led His people out of Egyptian captivity will free them also from the rule of new conquerors. But more than that, He gives a prophetic promise of the righteous Branch of David. Even if this part of the prophecy was not fully understood by Jeremiah's contemporaries, here the seed of readiness to receive the Savior was planted in their hearts, a seed that would have to sprout over the following centuries.

It must not be accidental that precisely after the prophecy about the One who will become the Good Shepherd, the Lord again returns to denouncing false shepherds and false prophets.

This problem, however, is relevant today as well. And the issue is not only that in every age there have been enough frauds who fooled a trusting public. Perhaps far more dangerous is sincere and selfless self-deception, when a person mistakes his own conclusions, or a projection of the subconscious, the deception of his own heart, for a voice from above. But here prophecy warns of the danger: if former prophets turned away from the Lord, exchanging Him for Baal, then new ones risk exchanging the Lord for their own illusions and dreams.