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Monday of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time
Jeremiah 13:1–11
Today’s reading gives us one of Jeremiah’s strange symbolic actions.
The Lord tells him to buy a linen loincloth.
To wear it.
Then to hide it in a cleft of the rock.
After many days, he is told to return and take it back.
But the cloth is ruined.
It is good for nothing.
Then the Lord explains:
As a loincloth clings to the waist of a man, so the Lord made the house of Israel and the house of Judah cling to Him.
They were meant to be close to God.
Attached to Him.
Belonging to Him.
A sign of His beauty before the nations.
But now they have become like the ruined cloth:
spoiled,
useless,
unable to fulfil their vocation.
The story is strange.
Some readers wonder whether Jeremiah really travelled all the way to the Euphrates River, hundreds of kilometers away, buried the cloth, returned home, and then went back again.
That would have taken a very long time.
Others think the place may have been nearby, a place with a similar name.
Still others think this is a prophetic vision, or a symbolic parable.
But the main point is not geography.
The main point is relationship.
God is not speaking about a piece of cloth.
He is speaking about a people who were meant to cling to Him.
That is the shocking beauty of the image.
Israel was not meant to be far from God.
Not merely near the temple.
Not merely correct in rituals.
Not merely religious in words.
Israel was meant to cling to the Lord.
Close to Him like clothing to the body.
This is a very intimate image.
It tells us something about the heart of faith.
Faith is not only knowing things about God.
Faith is not only performing religious duties.
Faith is belonging.
Faith is attachment.
Faith is staying close.
The Book of Deuteronomy often says:
cling to the Lord.
And in the Gospel, Jesus will say:
abide in me.
It is the same movement of the heart.
Do not live far away.
Do not become detached.
Do not let sin, pride, false gods, or indifference pull you away from the One who gives you life.
A cloth separated from the body can rot in the ground.
A heart separated from God also begins to lose its beauty, its purpose, and its strength.
Jeremiah’s sign is severe.
But it is severe because love has been wounded.
God wanted His people to cling to Him.
He still wants this from us.
Not distance.
Not cold religion.
Not a faith kept only for special days.
But closeness.
A life attached to Him.
A heart that can say:
Lord, let me cling to You,
for without You I become less than what I was created to be.
Biblical Reflections on the Gospel of Matthew
Scripture Attribution
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition,
copyright © 1989, 1993
the Division of Christian Education of the National Council
of the Churches of
Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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