Chapter 36 of Jeremiah offers a cautionary tale that is as relevant today as it was twenty-six centuries ago. It unfolds in three acts.
In act one (vv. 1–19) God tells Jeremiah to write down the various oracles and judgments he has been pronouncing, presumably under God’s direction, for some time. The content of these prophecies is God’s judgment on the nation of Judah and its rulers for their idolatry, for forsaking the covenant and the ways of God. As punishment for their unjust behavior, the prophet says God will send the armies of the Babylonian Empire to conquer Judah. Jeremiah follows God’s instructions, dictating his words to his aide Baruch and then sending him to the temple to read the scroll aloud. Among those who hear these alarming words are some of the king’s officials, who take the scroll and warn Baruch to get Jeremiah and go into hiding, but quick.
Act two (vv. 20–26) opens in the court of King Jehoiakim. The king’s officials relay to him the words of the scroll, including some choice oracles condemning him and his royal administration particularly. Sitting before the fire in his winter apartment, Jehoiakim has one of his officials read a few lines at a time, and then he cuts them from the scroll and feeds his fire with them, until he has burned the entire scroll. “Yet neither the king, nor any of his servants who [hear] all these words, [is] alarmed, nor [do] they tear their garments” (v. 24). The king then orders the arrest of Jeremiah and Baruch, but God hides them.
Act three (vv. 27–32) represents God’s response to the king’s actions. God instructs Jeremiah to reproduce the former scroll and to add some new bits addressed directly to the king:
Thus says the Lord, You have dared to burn this scroll, saying, Why have you written in it that the king of Babylon will certainly come and destroy this land, and will cut off from it human beings and animals? Therefore thus says the Lord concerning King Jehoiakim of Judah: He shall have no one to sit upon the throne of David, and his dead body shall be cast out to the heat by day and the frost by night. And I will punish him and his offspring and his servants for their iniquity; I will bring on them, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and on the people of Judah, all the disasters with which I have threatened them—but they would not listen (vv. 29–31).
It’s not hard to see the parallels between Jeremiah’s time and ours. Too many people in positions of influence in our nation want to suppress the truth. They have their own narratives that do not fit the inconvenient facts. Whether it has to do with supposedly stolen elections or ridiculous conspiracy theories or the politicizing of vaccinations and mask-wearing, we have factions in this country who are in essence cutting away the words of the scroll of truth and burning them in the fire. Never mind that the results of their reality-bending are the erosion of our democratic norms, or the suppression of millions of votes, or thousands upon thousands of preventable deaths. The purveyors of lies ignore the warnings of prophets and scoff at the word of God. And they are not alarmed, nor do they tear their garments.
I don’t believe that God directly punishes people for their sins in a quid pro quo fashion, but I do believe that our words and actions have consequences. If we stand for falsehood instead of truth; if we blind our eyes to the harm we do to others, to ourselves, and to the earth; if we put our faith in any person or ideology rather than in God; if we burn books instead of reading and learning from them and opening ourselves to being changed by them; we will deserve whatever consequences come our way.
Honor God, respect truth, practice compassion and justice. And when the words of the scroll are alarming, be alarmed. Tear your garments. Repent. And in God’s name stop burning the books!