Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note! Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth— so that I may pardon Jerusalem. (Jeremiah 5:1)
The prophet Jeremiah hears God calling him, begging him, to run through the streets of the city looking for one person, just one person, who is just and truthful, so that God can pardon the entire city and save it from the destruction that is to come. It is a picture of a God who wants desperately to save the people, who seeks in the people even the smallest opening of justice and truth through which to enter their hearts and their actions and transform them.
So often we picture God as strict and vengeful -- sometimes downright mean! -- sitting up in heaven and watching our every action, waiting to see if we infringe the commandments, implacably punishing for the merest of sins. So often opponents of Christianity picture Christians as joyless, fun-hating control freaks who use the threat of divine punishment to enforce rules and regulations that stifle freedom and creativity. Somehow we get in our minds the picture of God as eager to punish, and ourselves as fearful of that punishment.
But how different is Jeremiah's picture here! It's as if this God is looking for the barest excuse to avert punishment, the merest pretext for pardon. One just and truthful person could rescue the entire population! Even more importantly, the thing that deserves punishment here is not just "breaking the rules," not just an infringement of a juridical code. It is lack of justice, lack of right relationships, failure to be truthful, dishonesty, illusion, hypocrisy. God doesn't look for obedience to rules so much as integrity of heart. And the destruction that lurks is not so much punishment for infraction as it is self-destruction, disintegration from within of the person and the people who will not seek right relationship and who refuse to acknowledge reality. God sends Jeremiah to look for one instance of right relationship and true compassion, so that through that opening God can enter to inspire and transform the entire people. That is how eager God is to save.
What openings of justice and truth can we give God to enter our lives and transform us this day?
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