Broke, Not Woke

 

Broke, Not Woke

 

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1

Jeremiah laments over Judah 

 

8:18 My joy is gone; grief is upon me; my heart is sick.

 

8:19 Listen! The cry of the daughter of my people from far and wide in the land: "Is the LORD not in Zion? Is her King not in her?" ("Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?")

 

8:20 "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."

 

8:21 For the brokenness of the daughter of my people I am broken, I mourn, and horror has seized me.

 

8:22 Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored?

 

9:1 O that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

 

 

Jeremiah was known as the “weeping prophet.” Today’s text is a good indicator as to why. Israel was both a source of joy to God and God’s prophets one moment, and a curse, in the next. They were often BROKE, not “woke.”

 

A few ground rules to consider:

 

*The Bible speaks as Israel and “the people of God” as being the same thing, and we must understand this. Biblically, Israel was never a “nation,” but a collection of affiliated family “tribes” that occupied a land they believe God gave them. Only “modern” Israel was given nation status in 1948 by the United Nations, AND this modern, political nation-state was granted land in the Mid-East as a homeland. Jews from all over the world flocked there to settle. “Biblical” Israel is not the same thing as the nation-state named “Israel” today. Modern Israel is a political entity, not a theocratic state with a king, priests, and prophets, like its biblical version.

 

*If we want to equate biblical Israel with what it really stands for in the Bible—namely the “people of God”—we are all included, at least all of us who claim to believe the Bible, and most certainly those of us who call ourselves Christians. Hence, the blessings available to biblical Israel are now also available to us and any other “people of God,” and the admonitions and warnings given to biblical Israel ALSO must apply to us.

 

*To directly equate the modern state of Israel with the Israel we read about in the Bible would be in error, unless we also apply God’s law to it, as the Bible does to the “Israel” it addresses.

 

If the weeping prophet Jeremiah felt HIS Israel (remember, they were “the people of God” then) was “broken,” he would be shattered to see what has happened to what we call “Israel” today! Israel under Netanyahu has become a world power and a conquering state. We are currently witnessing them destroying Gaza and denying Palestinians—many of whom are practicing Christians—lands they have lived on for generations. In 1948, when the United Nations “partitioned” lands in the Mid-East after the Second World War, a large portion was given to the newly-established “nation” of Israel. Borders were drawn, and the Palestinian peoples were given their own adjacent lands they could call their own. “Palestine” was NOT chartered as a nation-state, and still is not one. After the Jewish people were close to being wiped out by Hitler’s Holocaust, it was understandable that free-thinking, well-meaning world leaders desired to give them a protected “homeland” where they could reestablish themselves and rebuilt their peoples, families, and faith. However, by granting this new nation of Israel a large piece of land, it meant forcing some of the indigenous peoples (“Palestinians”) into smaller quarters, which tended to reignite the historical enmity between the people of Israel and the mostly Arab people we had simply called “Palestinians.” What was meant to be a “Balm in Gilead” for Israel began to be a bitter pill for the people of the Palestinian territories, lands now greatly limited by the actions of the United Nations, in favor of Israel. This new historical “brokenness” was just beginning.

 

Had it stayed that way, we might have been able to arrive at some kind of tense, but “manageable” situation in the Mid-East, but it didn’t, and here’s where Jeremiah would be turning in his grave. Israel “exploded” in its growth, as Jews from all over the “diaspora” began to flock to the new nation state of Israel. This part of the experiment was quite successful. The growing pressure of needing larger settlements for these new residents meant a methodical encroachment into the lands occupied by the Arab/Palestinian people. As Israel grew stronger, they used this strength to drive the Palestinians into smaller and smaller areas, as Israel’s burgeoning growth usurped more and more property. Without any kind of central government or a formal military of any kind, the pressured Palestinians began to resort to what the world labeled “terroristic” tactics, and the agitated factions—with the support of other groups in neighboring and “friendly” Arab nations—drafted ideologies aimed at their “new” enemy, Israel. One need only to compare a map of the borders drawn between Israeli and Palestinian peoples in 1948 and a map of what land party now occupies, to see why we have such an unsolvable mess there, today! Through various wars—such as the 1967 six-day war—Israel has compressed the Palestinian peoples into a fraction of the land area granted them by the United Nations in 1948, and Israel has cut them off from important bodies of water (for shipping, drinking, and agriculture) and transportation routes. Israel has also developed what some suggest is the third or fourth largest military machine on the planet, that includes a prodigious nuclear capability. They are strong, and have the backing of the United States and most of Europe, while the Palestinians have factions like Hamas and Fatah al-Intifada that carry out para-military “terrorist” attacks, in response to Israel’s overwhelming force. Jeremiah’s tears would be flowing.

 

Israel, as a nation-state, has largely abandoned important elements of God’s law that once governed them. One of the highest commands given biblical Israel was the “Hebrew Code of Hospitality.” They were commanded to “welcome the stranger (immigrant or sojourner) in your land, and treat them like a citizen, for you were once strangers in a foreign land” [Leviticus 19:33-34]. Driving out Palestinian families because you want the land might be seen as the absolute antithesis of this, wouldn’t you think? What has been happening in Gaza and in the Golan Heights over the past few decades is both a sign of Israel’s “brokenness” in the words of the prophet AND a clear indication as to how modern Israel is fully a political body, and NOT one practicing Judaism as the Bible describes it. To hear so many Christians rally for total support of the nation-state of Israel, equating it with biblical “Israel” is disheartening. [Full disclosure: the Hebrew hospitality code  was the topic of my Doctor of Ministries study; my dissertation was entitled: “Welcoming the Stranger: Assimilating Guests into the Congregation.”]

 

Now please note: supporting our Jewish siblings and standing with them against antisemitism IS a bonified Christian act, as well as a humanitarian one. I’m not talking about this vital alliance. The brokenness of the situation is that WAY too many people of faith equate supporting what Netanyahu’s government is doing in Gaza with supporting the “Israel” of the Bible. Remember, Israel in the Bible stands for all of the people of God. Jeremiah would have had fits with how modern Israel is treating the “stranger in your midst.”

 

The brokenness of God’s people is nothing new. One would hope that at least Christians, who are the beneficiaries of the grace of God through Jesus Christ, would be a little less broken? I guess our humanness trumps our redemption, at least to some degree. But shouldn’t we at least be willing to wear “woke” proudly as a label? After all, Jesus was “woke.”

 

Where did the use of “woke” in its current form come from? Here’s what I found:

 

“The phrase ‘woke’ originated in African American Vernacular (AAVE) and initially meant being aware of social and racial injustices. The word’s meaning and use have undergone significant changes throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, leading to its politicization.”

 

One cannot read the Gospels without clearly seeing how Jesus schooled the people of his time on social injustices. He regularly spent time with the marginalized “outcasts” of his day, from lepers, to tax collectors, to women. His teachings highlighted the needs of the poor and uplifted the downtrodden. He welcomed children to his lap, in public. He also cursed religious leaders who “strained out gnats and swallowed camels,” and who demanded more of their subjects than they did of themselves. He proclaimed that “greatness” came from servanthood, not power and wealth. He openly welcomed Gentiles, people the Jews of the day despised. To apply the term “woke” to Jesus, at least in the AAVE use of the word, would not at all be inappropriate. Of course, now the term has been turned into a pejorative one. Labeling someone as “woke” has become an insult, suggesting that their calling out injustice is somehow “un-American” or “too liberal.” Maybe it’s just too Christian? Does anyone notice that turning “woke” into an insult is also racist, given its origins?

 

As the prophet tells us in today’s text, Israel was often “broken,” usually during its times of prosperity, when it was so easy for it to take credit for its good fortune and put Yahweh on the back burner (or just leave the priests handle “that religious stuff.” Prophets proclaimed that it was time for them to “wake up”—to once again acknowledge their Creator and regain their sense of justice and community. In short, they should be more “woke,” both to God and the others around them, and their needs.

 

Ask yourself this question: when you are put in a position of defending what you have versus what others don’t have, how do you answer? Are you more like “broken” Israel, speaking of your own efforts and strength? Or do you speak of the blessings you have received, with a willingness to help others with the surplus? “Broke” or “woke,” you decide. When it comes to where we are as a nation right now, Jeremiah nails it: "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." Fortunately, there IS a balm in Gilead, and he is Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer! Only by “exploding” this balm can we hope to bring healing to our land and to our souls. May God have mercy on us. Amen.