Sinners in Anguish, a Reflection on Jeremiah 14:7-10, 19-22

During the season between Pentecost and Advent, the lectionary offers two Old Testament passages each week, one of which is paired with each week's Gospel reading. This week, since the OT passage is from the Apocrypha, this alternative to the alternative is offered from Jeremiah.

In the passage from Luke, a devout religious practitioner is criticized but an outsider, the tax collector, is accepted. His attitude had been humble, his prayer had been an admission of sin and a request for mercy.

His prayer, although an individual lament, is an echo of the one from Jeremiah that is a prayer for the nation: We have sinned and been unfaithful. Help us although we do not deserve it.

In their distress, Israel turns the Lord pleading not to be forsaken.

The Lord replies that they have loved to wander (we can read this literally or metaphorically), and, now, they will suffer the consequences. They respond by more pleas and another acknowledgement of their sins. They acknowledge the care that God has already bestowed upon them and the covenant between them, "O Lord our God, we set our hope on you, for it is you who do all this."

Despite their prior actions--and because they can remember the prior actions of God, they ask for forgiveness and restoration.