named

The words of Jeremiah, the son of Hilkiah, one of the priests who were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, to whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, and until the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the captivity of Jerusalem in the fifth month. (Jeremiah 1:1-3 ESV)


Oh the bittersweetness of Jeremiah.

Each time through the Bible it’s like another family reunion. It’s like I see faces across the room and then when they are before me, there’s that sudden lightning bolt of recognition, followed by the warm embrace, shared memories, laughter and tears.

There’s a sweeping grandeur to Isaiah that is unparalleled in the rest of the book. But if Isaiah soars to sublime heights, wafting on wings of servant songs and majestic dirges of doom, Jeremiah swoons and sweeps low in rich and earthy hues.

If Isaiah inspires me, Jeremiah feeds me.

Accompanying me on this journey as something of a guide and companion is Eugene Peterson in his book Running with the Horses. What a blessed excuse indeed to take this journey again, Peterson in hand! And so, to start, an excerpt early on as he observes the litany of personal names with which Jeremiah begins…

At our birth we are named, not numbered. The name is that part of speech by which we are recognized as a person. We are not classified as a species of animal. We are not labeled as a compound of chemicals. We are not assessed for our economic potential and given a cash value. We are named. What we are named is not as significant as that we are named.

Jeremiah’s impressive stature as a human being – Ewald calls him the “most human prophet” – and the developing vitality of that humanness for sixty years have their source in his naming, along with the centered seriousness with which he took his name and the names of others. “To be called by his true name is part of any listener’s process of becoming his true self. We have to receive a name by others; this is part of the process of being fully born.” Jeremiah was named and immersed in names. He was never reduced to a role or absorbed into a sociological trend or catapulted into a historical crisis. His identity and significance developed from the event of naming and his response to naming. The world of Jeremiah does not open with a description of the scenery or a sketch of the culture but with eight personal names.

Anytime we move from personal names to abstract labels or graphs or statistics, we are less in touch with reality and diminished in our capacity to deal with what is best and at the center of life. Yet we are encouraged on every side to do just that. In many areas of life the accurate transmission of our social-security number is more important than the integrity with which we live. In many sectors of the economy the title that we hold is more important than our ability to do certain work. In many situations the public image that people have of us is more important than the personal relations that we develop with them. Every time that we go along with this movement from the personal to the impersonal, from the immediate to the remote, from the concrete to the abstract, we are diminished, we are less. Resistance is required if we will retain our humanity.

The call of Jeremiah is a call to just such resistance.

How easily do we reduce Jeremiah’s own words to statistics – so many chapters and verses and words and letters; word dissected and then graphed on Pritchard’s scale. But it is his voice, his heart that must be heard and felt and sensed. Pathos and pulse and passion.

Do we dare diminish him?

Do we dare diminish others, joining with the sweep of our culture’s impersonal hand leaving behind mere stats and files and summaries like so much ash in a jar?

Do we dare allow ourselves to be so diminished?