The opening words to our first reading is strong: “You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped” Wow…strong words from the prophet Jeremiah. Duped, tricked, suckered, fooled, hoodwinked. No one likes to be the unwitting tool in another’s hands, the butt of a joke, or play the part of the fool. Jeremiah doesn’t like it at all and cries out against the circumstances.
God called Jeremiah to be the prophet and Jeremiah answered –twice! No doubt those were heady days – when Josiah was king, reform was in the air, and the call to return to God was strong. Ah…to be so connected to the Lord, called to do his work, and now…. And now Josiah was no longer king. The successor was little interested in calling people to God. Jeremiah was then ridiculed, ignored, and laughed at. This is why Jeremiah says to himself: “I will not mention him, I will speak in his name no more.” He feels duped by God into a no-win mission.
He wants to walk away, but Jeremiah just can’t let it go. His encounter with the Lord is “like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones.” It is an unquenchable desire and Jeremiah finds he must continue, must go on being the prophet of the Lord – he can do no other.
Poor Jeremiah. He sounds more like someone ensnared in love’s desire – that burning fire, that passion that drives us to do what we swore we would not do. And in the heat of the moment we can either think God is just hoodwinking us… does God do that? I think not – but does God love? God is love. And love comes a calling in its own unique ways.
The word translated as “duped” can also be translated as “court,” “woo,” or “seduce.” You seduced me, O Lord, and I let myself be seduced. That is the way it was translated in the OT up to the prophet Jeremiah. The seduction, the wooing, the courting by God is an ongoing theme in Scripture. It is the story of the Book of Hosea. Hosea, the prophet, continues courting and wooing his wife Gomer who loves him, leaves him, returns to him, leaves again – and yet Hosea never falls out of love – always forgives and never hoodwinks. Hosea always proposes love. Love unrelenting, love ever faithful. And when Gomer leaves again. Hosea does not cry out You duped me, O Gomer, and I let myself be duped. Hosea, like God, offers love. That is always Hosea’s plan.
What about us? Without exception, God “comes a courting” and like all suitors, desires a response to his proposal of love. It is as the psalm says, “My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.”
Image credit: The Prophet Jeremiah, Michelangelo, fresco on ceiling of Sistine Chapel, Vatican City | Public Domain