With chapter 4 of Lamentations we move into a new stage of the poetry – there are still 22 stanzas, but each stanza has only four lines. The poem is shrinking – and as it shrinks the Lamenter reflects on the loss of glory for Jerusalem:
4 [a]How the gold has lost its luster,
the fine gold become dull!
The sacred gems are scattered
at every street corner.2 How the precious children of Zion,
4:1-2
once worth their weight in gold,
are now considered as pots of clay,
the work of a potter’s hands!
Note in passing the English phrases that have entered our language – ‘worth his weight in gold’ – but this gold has lost its shine. From gold God’s people have sunk to clay. Clay pots – worked by a potter. Sometimes this image is used in a positive way, but here it seems to simply be used to highlight how they have fallen. But there is worse to come. They have fallen further than this.
3 Even jackals offer their breasts
to nurse their young,
but my people have become heartless
like ostriches in the desert.4 Because of thirst the infant’s tongue
4:3-4
sticks to the roof of its mouth;
the children beg for bread,
but no one gives it to them.
God’s people have not only lost their glory, they have lost their heart. They have become people who do not give water or bread to their children. The only thing left is survival, and in the midst of the need to survive the weakest are trampled underfoot.
It is easy to condemn such behaviour – and yet, in the midst of disaster and trouble all too easy to simply try to look after ourselves. Our energy and time become turned inwards, and we can easily fail to look to the needs of others.
5 Those who once ate delicacies
are destitute in the streets.
Those brought up in royal purple
now lie on ash heaps.6 The punishment of my people
is greater than that of Sodom,
which was overthrown in a moment
without a hand turned to help her.7 Their princes were brighter than snow
and whiter than milk,
their bodies more ruddy than rubies,
their appearance like lapis lazuli.8 But now they are blacker than soot;
they are not recognized in the streets.
Their skin has shriveled on their bones;
it has become as dry as a stick.9 Those killed by the sword are better off
than those who die of famine;
racked with hunger, they waste away
for lack of food from the field.10 With their own hands compassionate women
4:5-10
have cooked their own children,
who became their food
when my people were destroyed.
The Lamenter revisits the theme of loss of glory, and compares the judgement to that on Sodom – whose end was at least swift. Jerusalem by contrast is suffering a long, slow torment at the hands of Babylon. There is a severe famine – and as in a similar story at the siege of Samaria in 2 Kings, women are even eating their own children.
Israel’s state has become one of utter degradation. They have become de-humanised at the hands of their oppressors – they have stopped trusting Yahweh and instead do whatever it takes to survive.
11 The Lord has given full vent to his wrath;
4:11
he has poured out his fierce anger.
He kindled a fire in Zion
that consumed her foundations.
What is striking here is that this dehumanisation is not so much a description of what is wrong with Jerusalem and with God’s people. It is not a list of sins that bring God’s judgement – but rather it is a description of what it looks like to be a people under God’s judgement.
In that it is like Romans 1:18-32, where the sexual sin described is not so much the sin that brings God’s judgement, but rather the results of standing under God’s judgement. The sin that brings God’s judgement is deeper than the externals. It is the sin of idolatry. It is the sin of swapping the glory of the invisible God for idols made to look like men. It is the sin of swapping the weight and substance of the God who is there for the safety and security we devise for ourselves in material wealth and power.
The external sins of our world should arose our compassion. We will never stop sin by condemning it. Lasting change can only come when we come back to the God who gives us true worth and lasting value. Real change in the world, and in the church, comes when we return to true worship – for it is then that our hearts are changed and moved back to the reality of what matters.
As I’ve pondered these verses, and perhaps especially the way that God’s people in the midst of suffering and setbacks ended up treating each other as less than human I’m struck by how easy it is to do this. Hopefully not by resorting to stealing bread from children and cannibalism – but we can do other types of dehumanising .
I think of my own context in the UK, and I think of how easy it is for churches, and for church leaders under pressure to treat people as tools and objects for our goals and mission. New Christians can be welcomed and encouraged, their enthusiasm used to fuel new projects and ideas. But maybe then they spot somethings that are not quite right, perhaps they highlight the ways we have got to used to people working. And they are disbelieved and denigrated – maybe not in obvious way, but just subtly with a nod and a phrase or two that highlights their naivety and inexperience.
Again, here in the UK we have had a succession of major and less major church crises around the issue of abusive leaders. In each case there is a sinful individual at the heart of the matter who has abused and manipulated others. But in each case there are many, many more individuals who have allowed that abuse to happen, either through the desire to themselves be close to those who have influence, or throught the fear of being left outside or themselves bullied, or some complex mixture of all of those.
We have bought into a model of leadership that values what the world values – connections, power, the ability to ‘get things done’. We have been happy for churches to hand over their thinking to one person, or one group. We have been too scared to challenge unbiblical thinking about how power and leadership work – or should work in God’s kingdom.
People are considered as clay – not to be molded by a loving creator, but to be molded by us. When we realise that this is happening we should realise that it is a sign of something much deeper. It is not merely that we are going wrong – it is that we have gone badly adrift. We need to repent of the underlying attitudes that have got us to this place.
We need to remember the verses I read to one of the children tonight when Matthew applies them to Jesus from Isaiah 42:
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
Isaiah 42:1-3
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.
2 He will not shout or cry out,
or raise his voice in the streets.
3 A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out
This is the complete opposite of dehumanisaton. Jesus does not steal bread from the needy. Jesus does not treat people as tools. Jesus does not bully or abuse. Jesus does not manipulate. Jesus does not surround himself with ‘strategic’ people. Jesus does not make himself look good or draw attention to himself at the expense of others.
Jesus does not treat the ‘little people’ with contempt. Jesus does not despise the broken or the weary. He stoops and treats them with care and with love and with kindness. He does not break the bruised reed – picture a reed swaying in the breeze – so flimsy, so easily broken off – Jesus does not break us when we are at the point of breaking.
He does not snuff out the barely smouldering candle flame of our weary attempts to follow – no, he stoops down, and will gently fan that flame back into life. Because, as the song goes, he is the God of the broken, friend of the weak, the one who washes the feet of the weary and embraces the one in need.
So in a world where we may feel we are in the midst of the ruins of Jerusalem for one reason or another, let us not preserve our life and work by strategies that rely on the wisdom of our world, and let us not attempt to survive by breaking others down. Instead remember the gentle King, and follow his ways and his care for the broken and weary.
Joshua's Tree Rooted 