When the nation of Judah stood on the verge of collapse, and every good citizen was answering the call of “All hands on deck,” Jeremiah’s message could not have been more unwelcome: “Hand yourselves over to the Babylonians, for they are God’s servant to destroy this nation for its sins.”
Would he have said the same to us today?
I don’t know. We certainly cannot pluck passages out of the book of Jeremiah (or any other book of the Bible for that matter) and simply apply them to our own situation. At the same time, these stories would’ve never been handed down to us if they had nothing to teach us about how we ought to live our lives: Now these things happened to them as an example, but they are written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of ages has come (I Corinthians 10:11)
America is a great nation. Many of us believe that it is the greatest nation. But even the greatest nation is not without its sins, nor will any nation be able to escape the grinding millstone of God’s justice. For to what will we attribute the turmoil we see going on all around us, if not to the sin of mankind? Lincolns words come to mind: Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” (Ps. 19:9)
Of all the issues that face us today...none is more deadly than the lure of totalitarian utopianism.
Now I realize the church is not a place for political rabble rousing, but neither is it a place to escape the responsibility of having to say or do anything about the problems that face us in the real world. If the nation continues to slip into moral and religious decay, then it will only be a matter of time before the machinery of its political institutions fall into the hands of mob-backed demagogues and tyrants. And when that day comes, the church will no longer have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines. It will have to take a side, either becoming a servant of the state, or going underground to preserve its witness.
Of all the issues that face us today – and there are many – none is more deadly than the lure of totalitarian utopianism, which can thrive just as well in a Democracy as in Communist and Fascist countries. And this is not an area in which the Church can remain spiritually indifferent, for, as Bonhoeffer rightly understood, it amounts to a suppression of our most basic confession: “Jesus is Lord.”
That day has not yet arrived. God willing, it never will. But as we fight for the right, as God gives us to see the right, may we do so with these words in mind: “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”
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