000 Allen FMT (i-xxii) - The Presbyterian Leader

272 Proper 21 [26]/Year C
because the scribes, prophets, and priests had not carried out the teaching
dimension of their ministries that the book of Deuteronomy regards
as fundamental (Deut. 6:1–6). Today’s passage (and others in Jeremiah)
calls preachers to help the congregation become a teaching community.
Amos 8:4–7* (Paired)
For comments on this passage, please see Proper 11/Year C.
Proper 21 [26]/Year C
Jeremiah 32:1–3a, 6–15+ (Semicontinuous)
When the Babylonians laid siege to Jerusalem, Jeremiah was imprisoned
by the monarch Zedekiah because the prophet claimed that God directed
the Babylonian onslaught and that Zedekiah would be exiled. Zedekiah
charged Jeremiah with treason (Jer. 32:1–5; cf. 37:11–21). In today’s passage,
Jeremiah enacts a prophetic gesture or symbolic action—a physical
gesture or action whose meaning symbolizes the prophet’s message. Jeremiah
often enacted such symbols, for example, Jer. 13:1–11 (loincloth),
12–14 (wine jar); 16:1–13 (celibacy and marriage); 19:1–11 (broken jug);
27:1–11 (yoke); cf. 18:1–12 (potter).
In the midst of double calamity (national disaster and personal imprisonment),
Jeremiah received a vision that Hanamel would come and ask
him to buy a piece of family land in Anathoth—Jeremiah’s home about
seven miles north of Jerusalem, occupied by the Babylonians. According
to Leviticus 25:25–28, family members had the first right to buy land held
in a family. This provision was a means of helping families maintain stability
and security as a limitation on exploitation. When Hanamel came
as envisioned, Jeremiah believed that God wanted him to buy the land.
The sale took place and was documented (Jer. 32:9–14).The city was
about to be overrun. Jeremiah was confined. More people could be exiled.
Yet, while many Judahites were yielding to despair, Jeremiah bought the
land as a sign that God could be trusted to bring Judah into a renewed
future. He envisioned the time when people would again buy houses and
fields and vineyards as a part of everyday life in a restored land (Jer. 32:15).
A preacher could explore with the congregation symbolic actions that
it could take to act out an aspect of the purposes of God. What could the
congregation do to represent hope and renewal in a way that is as expressive
as Jeremiah buying a field in the midst of siege? The preacher might