Useless and shameful people

Jeremiah 12 & 13

Honesty here -- I am beginning to feel repelled by all the constant hammering away at the people, both God's chosen people and the other nations. The vivid images in chapter 13, of a soiled useless belt and a woman with her skirts pulled up over her head for all to see her shame make me feel a little sick. God is saying, and asking Jeremiah to say, some very ugly things here. If someone said these things today, I'd probably accuse them of using gratuitious sexual images.

So, God, why do you do this? Why do you speak in this most hurtful and demeaning of language? If I go back to your character -- that you are a faithful God, that you keep your promises, that you love your people, that you will not be mocked but will defend your glory, that you are a jealous God who expects the worship of your people -- it seems that you must have really been at the end of your rope here in trying to get your people to pay any attention at all to you. So you became very graphic.

I guess part of my aggravation is about the fact that these images of unfaithfulness are always female. I don't really know how these images would have hit the minds of the people of that ancient culture, but I know that they are making me feel a little sick and repulsed as a woman. Sexuality is confusing enough as it is, and so easily perverted, that I am really annoyed by the image of Judah as a prostitute or a mare neighing in heat. Was that culture more earthy and able to get meaning from these images without just weirding people out? Was prostitution very common then and done because of inappropriate sexual desire on the part of the women rather than financial need? I doubt it. Yes, I know you are extending the image of Israel as your bride. But why always use a female example, rather than an example of a randy man chasing skirts? If you were speaking to us today, would you use this same image or would you perhaps use an internet porn example? This is another example of how your ways are not my ways, and I often do not understand your ways.

I wonder if the existence of visual media, which is part of our culture but was not such a part of theirs, is effecting my reaction to this passage?

You answer Jeremiah when he asks why the wicked nations continue to prosper, saying that later they will also get their own come-uppance. You also hold out this ray of hope:

Jeremiah 12:15-17 "But after I uproot them, I will again have compassion and will bring each of them back to his own inheritance and his own country. And if they swear by my name, saying, 'As surely as the Lord lives' -- even as they once taught my people to swear by Baal -- then they will be estabished among my people. But if any nation does not listen, I will completely uproot and destroy it," declares the Lord.

I'm sure glad you throw this thought in there every so often -- that you will establish or re-establish people in relationship with you if they turn to you. I need to hear this over and over as I struggle.