Sunday Observer
By 
Anil Netto
In our world today, we can often see power structures that work against the interests of the poor and the oppressed. It was no different during the time of the Old Testament prophets, the public intellectuals of their time, who dared to make a difference in the darkness of their times.

Many of the prophets railed against hypocritical religious and political leaders who paid careful attention to religious rituals and sacrifices while oppressing the ordinary people and perpetrating injustices. Sometimes the leaders used these ritual celebrations or cults to entrench and legitimise their grip on power.

As always, no matter how dark the times, God is never far away. He sent messengers — in the Old Testament these prophets were the forerunners of the One who would embody God’s Justice and Compassion in his flesh. If the prophet Amos stood for justice, the prophet Jeremiah’s hallmark was standing for the truth, even if it meant speaking truth to power in the riskiest of circumstances, often at great personal cost and sacrifice.

Jeremiah, whose calling came in the year 635 BC during the time of the last kings of Judah, was a prophet torn between the seemingly opposing extremes of God's message. On the one hand, his message was one of wrath but on the other, he was filled with anguish and heartbreak over the hard-heartedness of the people.

Often he felt alone in speaking his message in opposition to the vast majority of the people in his land. Not too different from other lone voices in the wilderness, in other times, crying out God’s message while the people make merry and refuse to see the Big Picture or the suffering all around them.

Jeremiah therefore felt compelled to speak his messages in public places. He followed God's commandment to preach in the open: in the palace grounds, in the temple, and at the entrance to the city. He spoke truth to power: to the king, the military leaders and to the religious establishment. For that, like most other dissidents down the ages, he had to pay a heavy and terrible price.

He was accused of deserting to the Chaldeans — he was deemed a threat to national security — arrested without trial, beaten and then locked up in the house of a scribe that had been turned into a prison. He found himself in an underground vault, where he was holed up for a long time. (Jeremiah 37:13-16) On another occasion, the Temple’s chief of police struck Jeremiah after he had made a prophecy and then put him in the stocks in the Upper Benjamin Gate leading to the Temple.

Jeremiah in turn reveals a terrifying prophecy from Yahweh that the chief of police and the hard-hearted people of the land would be sent into exile (Jeremiah 20).

On yet another occasion, after he had prophesied against the city for not following God's word, the priests and people wanted to put him to death.

In short, confronted with injustice and the grinding oppression against ordinary people all around him, Jeremiah practiced civil disobedience. He refused to obey laws that were unjust and bad. Instead, he reiterated his basic message, which reminds me of Archbishop Oscar Romero ringing words not long before he was assassinated — in the name of God, stop the oppression, stop taking innocent lives and hurting the poor, stop hurting the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.

Because he was faithful to God’s commands in speaking the truth to the people and those in power, he was often hauled up to account. He was thus familiar with how the power structures operated and probably realised that the elites — whether the rulers, the priests, the temple police, and the business tycoons — operated in a cosy network of power to further their interests. And the fruit of their collusion was not in accordance with the will of God.

That was where Jeremiah came in but dissident voices like his, who threaten powerful vested interests, are quickly dealt with.

But little do the power brokers and vested interests realise that they are dealing with God’s messengers and agents, who have been entrusted to speak his two-pronged message of justice and mercy, anger and anguish down the ages. In the end, they will have to answer to God.

Postscript: This article is dedicated to our BEC member Aunty Florence, who passed away at the ripe old age of 91. I just got the news while in the middle of this article. She lived a full and active life, right to the end. It was only yesterday, I heard her praying from her bed that Jesus would welcome her with open arms. And then, she clasped my hand as if saying good-bye to me.