THE LORD HAS SEDUCED ME

XXII SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME - Jeremiah 20:7-9

The Psalm 63, which is this Sunday’s responsorial psalm, expresses the human experience, that is the experience of the man who seeks God and who cannot find peace until he finds him. We are like dry and scorched land, thirsting for water. It is like a burning fire whose flames we cannot quench.

“O God, you are my God, for you I long;

  for you my soul is thirsting.

My body pines for you

  like a dry, weary land without water.” (Psalm 63:1)

In our search for God, we may go astray, and like a butterfly fly around, aimlessly seeking all colours and flavours. And nothing can satisfy us. Then, we try everything that is strange and drown ourselves in the blaring noise that surrounds us, but the pleasures of this world do not satisfy us. We look far and wide, but the one who can bring peace to our hearts is with us; in fact, he is within us, as St. Augustine wrote: “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new! Late have I loved you! And, behold, you were within me, and I out of myself, and there I searched for you.”

However, if we do not give up searching for him, he will reveal himself to us, bringing joy and peace to our hearts. Then, we will realise that our restless search for God was guided by him. In fact, he is the one who takes the initiative and comes looking for us.

The prophet Jeremiah expresses the experience of every prophet when he says: “You have seduced me, Lord, and I have let myself be seduced.” (Jr 20:7) Jeremiah experienced the love of God and could never forget him. With that experience, his life went through a radical change, a change that brought him in conflict with the society around him. Very soon he realised that God’s ways are different from our human ways. In his effort to be faithful to the God of love, he entered into conflict with the prevalent values and the politically correct. He was rejected, despised and hated, thus encountering suffering and persecution. And he felt like trapped: he would like to give up his mission and to abandon the God who had seduced him, but he could not. Going through the experience of being “a daily laughing-stock”, Jeremiah complained:

“you have overpowered me,

you were the stronger.”

It seems as if Jeremiah was fighting with God and could not win. That brings to mind the struggle between Jacob and the Lord (Gn 22:32). In that wrestling, we get the impression that Jacob came out victorious, but that was not the case since Jacob was injured and, in the end, received a new name, confirming that his life and his mission was totally dependent on the Lord, who had been fighting with him. We may try to wrestle with God - and we do it many times -, but in the end, God’s plans are carried out. Jeremiah came to the conclusion that within him there was 

“a fire burning in my heart,

imprisoned in my bones.

The effort to restrain it wearied me,

I could not bear it.” (Jr 20:9)

As I read this passage, it came to my mind Leonard Cohen’s song: You want it darker, in which he cries out God: I am ready, my Lord.

It is difficult to understand and to accept that the way to true life passes through suffering and through death. Peter wanted to keep Jesus away from his passion, and Jesus rebuked him for that. And all the true disciples of Jesus must be ready to carry the cross like him:

“Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it, but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it. What, then, will a man gain if he wins the whole world and ruins his life? Or what has a man to offer in exchange for his life?” (Mt 16:24-26)