Worshipping Mammon - Jeremiah 2

Worshipping Mammon

Note: All names and places, except Peter Huang and Pastor Ben’s, are made-up.

Read: Jeremiah 2

My first year of serving at WCAC YG was 2002 – oh wow, that was 10 years ago. Freaky. Anyways, in the Doulos team was a young junior whose name is Edgar. I remembered Edgar as a fiercely devoted follower of Christ and quite mature for his age, frankly speaking. In fact, during the Spring of 2003, Pastor Ben invited him to teach junior high Sunday school class. Peter Huang, the harp maestro of Chambana and WCAC YG alumnus, was in that class. He, too, had fond memories of Edgar teaching. Edgar’s family moved to Raleigh, NC for his senior year. He was, and remains, a brilliant man. He graduated in the top 5% of his class at Duke, proceeded to attend Duke Law School, and now is a public attorney for the government. Unfortunately, in the course of his pursuit for success, he lost his faith. Just a few years ago, at the LIFE Conference, the group managed to meet up with Edgar and some were quite disappointed to see how far away from the faith he has drifted. I remember Peter Huang telling me, “Henry, I can’t believe that someone who used to teach us Sunday school can fall away from the faith!” Edgar was, of course, not the only WCAC YG alumnus to drift away from the faith; no doubt some of you may have other names in mind.

So consider the situation when YHWH, the God of Israel, appeared before Jeremiah. The prophet Jeremiah lived in a time of relative prosperity for Israel. This is not surprising. To trace the root of the problem, we need to look at the reign of King Manasseh of Judah (reign ~ 687 – 642 BC). At the time, Judah was a vassal state of Assyria; it was given independent rule because it served the interests of the Assyrian superpower. Archaeologists and ancient Near Eastern historians, based on data found in Nineveh, discovered that Judah was the source of many resources needed by the Assyrians. This meant that Judah grew in prosperity. In an effort to make Judah more marketable to the Assyrian market, Manasseh encouraged Ba’al worship. Even though he eventually repented and rolled back his program of Ba’al worship, the damage had been done. The reforms of King Josiah, Manasseh’s grandson, while approved by God, did not stem the tide of faithlessness.

Enter Jeremiah. Picture the wealth of Wall Street or Michigan Avenue, with all its glittering lights and resplendent wealth. Maybe even picture downtown Naperville, with its idyllic Riverwalk, the Five Guys and Jamba Juice, and the obvious clock tower. And then picture some old guy talking about how God will judge America and how everyone will suffer and be punished. I guarantee you that the police will take him away. Such was the suffering Jeremiah had to endure. In fact, his calling was anything but glamorous. Jeremiah tepidly accepted his calling after God’s exhortation, and after being harassed by the people, God’s only reassurance was, It’ll only get worse. What a calling!

What did Jeremiah preach to earn him the ire of the people? Well, the word of YHWH ain’t pretty. God begins nicely (v. 2-3): When Israel was young she was obedient and followed God through the desert of Sinai to the Promised Land. Now – keep in mind that Israel did sin (cf. Golden Calf), but God in his great mercy did not even bring that great sin up! What a gracious God we worship! But then, things turn south. In verse 7, God essentially scolds the Judeans: I brought you to a great land and all you do is trash it! Instead of following Me, you follow Ba’al! And this “I gave you the best, and you ruined it all!” pattern continues for several verses. Can you imagine how God must’ve felt? This is not the voice of anger, but the voice of utter sadness, the same sadness your parents showed you when they were terribly disappointed in you. It is the same voice we might use for Edgar; you used to be faithful, so ardent in your faith. What happened? Why did you give up Christ?

What was the sin that God accused the Judeans of committing? They gave themselves over to the worship of Ba’al, the ancient Near Eastern god of strength and fertility. Ba’al was a very popular god as he promised financial security in various forms, from agricultural wealth (a very good harvest) to having many wives and children (social security in old age) to strength so that one can defend one’s borders (national security). In today’s context, the equivalent of Ba’al would be money, success, status, power, etc. Jesus was not saying anything particularly new in Matt. 6:24 when he warns that “you cannot serve both God and money.” Little wonder the Judeans hated Jeremiah. Everyone’s doing just fine, making money, and living their lives peacefully. Why do we need this rabble-rouser to come along and talk about how we have disobeyed God, blah-blah? Furthermore, Jeremiah’s message was the last thing anyone wanted to hear – you are wealthy now, but God is going to take it all away! Nobody wanted to listen to that!

But the truth is that the Israelites, by worshipping Ba’al, worship something that was literally “here today and gone tomorrow.” Even today, we still have little idea of what exactly Ba’al was like. Success, like Ba’al, is here today and gone tomorrow. The trouble is that success is very enticing, and always promises to bring eternal health, wealth, and happiness. It never does. That is why it is important for all of us in our relative youths to take seriously our God who is everlasting, who loves us and desires for us always love Him as He loved us. That is also why it is important for us to remember that success is always here today and gone tomorrow. As Jeremiah had prophesied, Israel’s wealth and culture were almost wiped out as the Babylonians invaded and carted off the best and brightest to Babylon. Since then Israel would never regain its former glory. Let this be an important lesson for us to remember.