Lent 5 - Jeremiah: Written on our hearts

Lent 5 – Jeremiah
Jeremiah 31.31-34

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts… (Jer 31.33)

How marvelous to know that God has molded God’s desires for us into our very being! What freedom this is for us, knowing that, if we are true to ourselves, true to God’s creative power within us, we will live in harmony with God and with one another. The plans God has for creation will be fulfilled.

Too bad this is not always what we see in the world. Because we are suffering, or deeply wounded by the realities of our lives, we do not always act like our true selves—the people God created us to be.

But here Jeremiah is calling us back….to remember who we are—God’s own people, with God’s love in our hearts.

Living in the West Bank, and especially in Gaza, it would be easy to despair, to give up and give in to the lost hopes and dreams of a Palestinian state. The suffering is great. The wounds are deep and unhealed. Some Palestinians protest Israel’s theft of their land. Every Friday in al-Walaja and Bi’lin and Ni’lin and many other Palestinian towns, the people join together to voice their protests of yet another few meters of Israel’s security wall being built on their village lands.

Other Palestinians, mostly young men and boys, throw rocks at the Israeli soldiers driving into their villages in jeeps and armored vehicles. Others fire rockets at Israeli towns near the border with Gaza. When no one listens to your protests, there is immense frustration that builds up and finally explodes in violence.

I deplore the violence of the suicide bomber. Bombings, and other violence, will never bring freedom. A suicide bomber is someone who has given up hope and sees no other way. The suicide bombing is a desperate cry for recognition: “Listen to me!”

When these young people are denied the chance to become the people God created them to be, something dies in them. This hole of death in their hearts distorts what God has written, or maybe God’s words are sucked into that dark hole.

Or maybe they know what God has written in their hearts, but the walls, the barbed wire, the prison bars, the drone attacks, the humiliation and endless uncertainty, prevent themfrom living what God has written. Perhaps they are acting out of post-traumatic stress disorder.

However we describe what is happening in their souls, I can understand why the young men sometimes pick up stones to throw at the soldiers entering their towns in tanks. After all, even if these young men don’t ever throw a stone, chances are they will one day be rousted out of bed in the middle of the night and arrested for stone-throwing anyway.

God has written on all of our hearts. Sometimes I’m too noisy to hear what has been written; sometimes the noise outside keeps me from listening. When I stop, however, the words are there.

What has God written on your heart?

God of all goodness, help us quiet our lives so that we can hear the words you have written on our hearts. Amen.