We reached a climax last week. If this were a television show it would have had “to be continued” at the bottom of the screen and we would be waiting for a new episode or new season to find out what happens. Jeremiah has finally pushed the king and the high priest to the limit. He is not just a nuisance. He is a full-fledged traitor. He has encouraged the people of Jerusalem to surrender to the enemy and save their lives instead of fighting to the death for Jerusalem. However, instead of these chapters giving us the next installment of the story, they are something of a flashback. You see this happen with dramas. You can be in the middle of a story and suddenly the words “Six years earlier” appear on the screen and you have to mentally adjust to what comes next. The writer wants to interject a bit of history that will help explain the present. Before the resolve of the conflict there is a flashback to an earlier time that gives us more of the context for what will happen. So it is with Jeremiah. We are taken back to a time before Zedekiah and retrace Jeremiah’s history with the kings who succeeded Josiah. We see the pattern of his relationships with all the five kings between Josiah and Zedekiah. He is the Billy Graham of the Old Testament in a way. The only difference is all the 12 Presidents enjoyed their relationship with Billy Graham while all but one of the kings would have been happier had Jeremiah found another place to live. Throughout the reigns of all five kings his message is the same. The messenger is the same – only the kings have changed. God’s word to Israel has been consistent right up to this monumental but inevitable change when Jeremiah commits treason and deserves death. However, the verdict will have to wait. First, we need to understand his relationship with not only the king but the main leadership offices of Israel. This is the flashback.

The first and oldest leader was the Prophet. Some say Abraham was the original prophet and others say Moses. Both served the primary function of the prophet. While prophets bring the word of God that sometimes includes what God will do in the future they are not futurists. We confuse that when we call people prophets who claim to predict the future. Prophets bring the word of the Lord to the people. They speak God’s words and not their own. Many times they would prefer not to speak or to soften the message. At times, they would have been even more harsh than God as when Moses complained to God that it would have been better to leave the people as slaves in Egypt. At times they intercede for the people with tears and pleading that God would not destroy the people.  They were always unique instruments of God’s communicating His will and terms of the relationship between Him and Israel. They are the conscience of the nation and are there to hold the leaders and the people accountable to the terms of the covenant. 

The prophets were the speakers and writers of Israel. As such, they were the creative class and those who used words and images to communicate. They were tempted to embellish or to pare down the message. They were tempted to believe the words were theirs and it was by their wisdom, insight and authority they spoke – not the Lord’s. “They fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord,” Jeremiah says. They built followings of people who made them into celebrities and came to hear them speak words of encouragement and hope. As it turns out, those words were appealing but false.

The second leadership position was the Priest. The first priest was Moses’ brother, Aaron and then the priesthood became hereditary through the family of Levi. The priest represented the people to God. There were two categories of priest – the High Priest and the regular priests we call the Levites. When the land of Canaan was divided among the tribes only the tribe of Levi was excluded. The priests were dependent on the other tribes and they derived their living and support through the institution of the Temple. So, naturally, they had a vested interest in keeping the institution alive. They were focused on meeting the needs of the organization that had to depend on the generosity and support of others. They could not afford to offend certain people. They could not wield power like kings or declare truth like prophets. They were the defenders of the institution.

The priests were in charge of the rituals and ceremonies. They kept order and routine. They preserved the traditions and the structure of religion. They were often at odds with the prophets who were unwilling to be subject to the rules and regulations of the priests. Some were humble and wise while others were corrupt and would do anything to retain their position and wealth.  Some, like Eli’s sons, were thoroughly wicked and not only fattened themselves on the offerings of the people but sexually abused women who served them. In the end they were killed because of their sin.

Before the institution of the king there was the Judge. The judges were military leaders after the death of Joshua during the time of the settlement of the country many years before Jeremiah.  That role faded away in time and when it did the nation was left not only with the absence of military leadership but without an individual who would enforce the laws. The Judge was not only a military leader but a leader responsible for being an example of righteousness for the people. Some, like Samuel and Deborah, did it well and others, like Samson and Gideon, were failures and even led the people astray.  As it says in the last chapter of the book of Judges, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.” Today, we would say there was a fraying of the moral fabric of society that once held a few basic assumptions in common. The social contract and agreements about what was right and wrong had broken down. Those became a matter of individual interpretation and today you would call it postmodernism where truth is relative and what is right for you may not be right for me. The playwright Harold Pinter put it this way: “There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.” As always happens, people cannot live for long without absolutes so they are drawn toward a genuine standard of right and wrong or toward demagogues and tyrants – mobs or monarchs – who define those in their own way. The worst is the monarch supported by the mob. A contradiction but a fatal combination.

That condition of everyone doing what was right in their own eyes created their desire for a king. Individualism eventually leads to chaos. Not only would the king be an authority like the other nations around them but he would be someone who would fight their battles for them. “We want a king over us. Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.” They had lost confidence in their ability to come together in times of crisis and fight their battles. They now needed a single figure who would take on their battles and grievances for them. But the king was also expected to be the defender of the poor and needy from injustice. It was the rare king who took that seriously. 

Kings were instructed (Deuteronomy 17:16-20) not to build large standing armies or to accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. As well, “when he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are the Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left.” There was no divine right of kings. There was only the divine responsibility of kings.

In 1 Samuel 8:10-18, Samuel warns the people what is only too true about kings: “He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves, and give them to his attendants…and you yourselves will become his slaves.. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.” It is the nature of kings to desire personal power and live in splendor at the expense of others. They build a court following that feeds on the people. This is not just ancient history, is it?

The three, like our own branches of government, were separate but intended to balance and protect each other from extremes. Each had unique flaws and temptations. Each had particular strengths. Each of them wrestled with the power of the others. The wrestling was a good thing as none of them were intended to overpower the others.

Too much of the prophetic would create the confusion of conflicting voices all speaking for God. There would be no structure or organization. Too much of the priestly would create a stagnant structure perpetuating tradition and the power of a religious elite. Too much power in the hands of a king would lead to tyranny and people giving over their rights to a single individual and his supporters. Of course, there was the danger that the three would merge and instead of balance there would be collusion and the idolatry of religion and political leadership combined. 

So, this passage is about the corruption of these three institutions. The king is more concerned about personal power and wealth than justice and integrity. “Woe to him who builds his palace by unrighteousness, his upper rooms by injustice, making his countrymen work for nothing, not paying them for their labor. Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar?” The kings forgot the law they were to have by their sides to guide them and remind them of their duty to revere God and they became a law unto themselves. 

The prophets turned away from their duty to speak the truth and began to speak from their own authority. They built followings based on their ability to speak and write – but not to speak truth. 

The priests made the institution holy and its support an end in itself. They worshiped the organization instead of God.

But this passage is not just about corruption. It is also a prophecy about a time when there will be no corruption and a single person will perfectly embody all three offices:

“The days are coming…when I will raise up to David a righteous Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.”

All three roles will be united in Christ who resisted all three unique temptations in the wilderness: self-importance, self-sufficiency and self-worship. He was a Prophet because he spoke for God. “These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.” He did not take credit for the words. 

He is a Priest – our High Priest – because he represents men before God, he offers sacrifice and offers compassion and grace. “Every high priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray…” (Hebrews 5:1-2) 

Moreover, he is King. He is head of the Church: “And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be the head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” (Ephesians 1:22) “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)

Therefore, if the Church is the body of Christ then we are to fulfill the three roles here. How do we do that? 

First, we speak God’s words.  We do not speak our own words or take credit for God’s words. We do not build a following based on filling people with false hopes, false guilt, false beliefs or false visions from our own minds. We faithfully speak the word of God. 

Second, we are a holy people with high standards and expectations. We are not self-righteous people but we are a particular kind of people whose lives reflect the glory of God. We are holy people who offer grace, encouragement and forgiveness to men and women. 

Third, the church should be defenders of the poor and needy and not builders of palaces at their expense. We should not be building up our own importance or splendor at the cost of justice and righteousness.

How should we take these verses personally? 

First, we should build people not power. We do not need “more cedar” to build ourselves up. We do not need to accumulate or think of ourselves as better than our brothers. 

Second, the true prophets only spoke when God spoke. Perhaps that is how it should be with us. We should only speak when spoken to. We don’t need to make pronouncements on every topic. We should be quiet until we have a word from the Lord. 

Finally, we should be holy and still offer forgiveness, grace and encouragement to people in our lives. We should not forget the weaknesses of people and their need for compassion. People still need kings, prophets and priests in their lives. They need protectors, truth tellers and those who go to God for them. They need Christ…but they need the Church. They need the whole whole body of Christ.