Homilies on Jeremiah 1.16–3.2

But the words of God do not stop at “rooting out and pulling down and destroying.” For suppose the evil things have been rooted out of me and the worse things pulled down: what benefit is it to me, unless better things are planted in place of what was rooted out? What benefit is it to me, unless excellent things are built up in their place? That is why the words of God first, of necessity, “root out and pull down and destroy,” and after that “build and plant.” And we have always observed in Scripture that the things of gloomy appearance, if I may so call them, are named first, and then the things that seem joyful are mentioned second. “I will kill and I will make alive.” He did not say, “I will make alive,” and after that, “I will kill”; for it is impossible that what God has made alive should be killed by him or by anyone else. But “I will kill and I will make alive.” Whom will I kill? Paul the betrayer, Paul the persecutor; “and I will make alive,” so that he may become “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ.” If the wretched people from the heresies had understood this, they would not constantly bring these words against us, saying: “Do you see how savage and inhuman the God of the law is, and he says, ‘I will kill and I will make alive’?” Do you not see in the Scriptures the promise of the resurrection of the dead? Or do you not see the resurrection of the dead already being prefigured in each person? We “were buried” with Christ “through baptism” and rose with him. So he begins with the gloomier but necessary words, such as “I will kill,” then, having killed, “and I will make alive; I will strike, and I will heal”; “for the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and scourges every son whom he receives.” First he strikes, and after that he heals; “for he causes pain and restores again.” So too here: “I have set you today over nations and kingdoms, to root out and to pull down and to destroy and to rebuild and to plant.” But first those evil things must be taken away from us. God cannot build in the place of the evil building. “For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? What fellowship has light with darkness?” Wickedness must be rooted out from its foundations, the building of wickedness must be consumed out of our soul, so that afterward the words of God may build and plant; for I cannot understand otherwise what is written: “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.” What do the words do? “Root out and pull down and destroy.” Words root out “nations,” words pull down “kingdoms,” but not these … worldly ones. Understand what is rooted out and pulled down by words in a way worthy of words that pull down and words that root out. Is there not even now, in what is being said, a power, if God grants it (according to “The Lord will give a word to those who preach the good news with great power”), a power that roots out whatever unbelief, whatever hypocrisy, whatever wickedness, whatever licentiousness there is? Is there not a power that pulls down, if anywhere an idol-temple has been built in the heart? So that when that is pulled down a temple of God may be built, and the glory of God may be found in the rebuilt temple, and there may be no sacred grove but a planting, a paradise of God, where the temple of God is, in Christ Jesus, to whom be the glory and the power for ages of ages. Amen.

Homily 2. On “How have you turned to bitterness, O foreign vine?” as far as “If you wash yourself with lye and multiply soap for yourself, you are stained in your iniquities before me, says the Lord.”

“God did not make death, nor does he delight in the destruction of the living; for he created all things that they might exist, and the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor is the dominion of Hades upon earth.” Then, passing over a little of the text, I will say where death came from: “Through the envy of the devil death entered the world.” If, then, there is anything excellent about us, God has made it; but we have created wickedness and sins for ourselves. That is why here too the beginning of the reading in the prophet speaks as if perplexed to those who have come to have in the soul a bitterness contrary to the sweetness that God prepared for it: “How have you turned to bitterness, O foreign vine?” As if he said: God did not make lameness, but made all people sound of foot; what, then, is the cause of the lame? And God made all the limbs healthy in the first place; what cause, then, made someone suffer? In the same way the soul was made “according to the image” not only of the first man but of every human being. For “Let us make man according to our image and according to our likeness” reaches to all human beings. And just as, in Adam, what most people understand as “according to the image” is older than the image that was added to him when through sin he wore “the image of the man of dust,” so in all, being according to the image of God is older than the worse image. We sinners “have borne the image of the man of dust; let us bear,” repenting, “the image of the heavenly.” But the creation was made in the image of the heavenly. So the Word here speaks in perplexity to sinners, by way of rebuke: “How have you turned to bitterness, O foreign vine? For I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true.” This was said in what precedes, and by taking up a few words again I will persuade you that God planted the human soul as a good vine, but each one, having turned, became contrary to the will of the Creator. “But I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true,” not partly true, nor partly true and partly false, but “I planted you a fruitful vine, wholly true. How have you turned?” When I planted you a wholly true vine, how have you turned to bitterness and become a foreign vine?

After this let us look at: “If you wash yourself with lye and multiply soap for yourself, you are stained in your iniquities before me, says the Lord.” Did some sinful soul suppose that by taking lye and washing herself with perceptible lye she would be rid of the stain and rid of the sin? Did someone suppose that by taking this herb that springs from the earth and washing and scrubbing himself the soul would be cleansed, so that the Word here says to the one that has turned to bitterness and become a foreign vine, “If you wash yourself with lye and multiply soap for yourself, you are stained in your iniquities before me, says the Lord”? But one must know that the Word has every power; and just as he has the power of all Scripture, so the Word has the power of every medicine, and is the power of everything that cleanses, and most scouring: “For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.” Whatever you name that is needed, this is in the power of the Word. So there is a word that is lye, and there is a word that is soap, which, when spoken, cleanses such stains. But since not every sin is healed by such a word that is lye and by such a word that is soap, but there are sins that do not call for lye or soap, it is said to the soul that thinks she has sins that can be washed out with lye and soap: “If you wash yourself with lye and multiply soap for yourself, you are stained before me in your iniquities, says the Lord.” And just as some wounds are healed by a poultice, others are healed by oil, and others need a bandage and so become sound, but there are other wounds of which it is said, “It is not possible to apply a poultice, nor oil, nor bandages; but your land is desolate, your cities burned with fire,” so there are some sins that soil the soul, and for these sins a person needs a word that is lye, a word that is soap; but there are some sins that are not healed in this way, for they are not even comparable to dirt. That is why the Lord in Isaiah, knowing the differences between sins, see how he says: “The Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and will cleanse the blood from their midst by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of burning.” Filth and blood: filth by a spirit of judgment, blood by a spirit of burning. If you have sinned, but not “unto death,” you are soiled. “The Lord will wash away the filth of the sons and daughters of Zion, and will cleanse the blood from their midst.” Then there is a correspondence: to “the filth,” “by a spirit of judgment,” and to “the blood,” “by a spirit of burning.” And most of us, if we sin more gravely, need not lye nor the multiplying of soap, but the spirit of burning.

That is why Jesus baptizes (perhaps I now find the explanation) “with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Not that he baptizes the same person “with the Holy Spirit and fire,” but the holy person “with the Holy Spirit,” while the one who, after believing, after being counted worthy of the Holy Spirit, has sinned again, he washes “with fire”; so that it is not the same person who is baptized by Jesus “with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Blessed, then, is the one who is baptized in the Holy Spirit and does not need the baptism of fire. But thrice wretched is he who needs to be baptized with fire. Yet Jesus has both. For “a rod shall come forth from the root of Jesse, and a flower shall come up from the root”: “a rod” for those who are punished, “a flower” for the righteous. So too “God is a consuming fire,” and “God is light”: a consuming fire to sinners, light to the righteous and holy. And “blessed is he who has a part in the first resurrection,” who has kept the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Who is the one saved in another resurrection? The one who needs the baptism of fire, when he comes to that fire, and the fire tests him, and that fire finds wood, hay, and straw, so as to burn them up. So, since these things are said, let us gather the words of the Scriptures as far as we can and lay them up in our heart, and try to live according to them, if perhaps we can become pure before our departure, and, having prepared our works for the departure, go out and be received with those good works and be saved in Christ Jesus, to whom be the glory and the power for ages of ages. Amen.

Homily 3. On “Have I become a wilderness to the house of Israel?” as far as “or a land left untilled?”

The Lord says at the beginning of the reading, about Israel, that he did not become to him a “wilderness,” nor “a land left untilled.” Who, coming to this passage, would not inquire, examining the purpose of what is written? Granted, God did not become a wilderness in Israel, did not become a land left untilled in Israel: has the Lord, then, become a wilderness to Israel today, or is he now a land left untilled to him? And again: when he was not a wilderness to Israel, nor a land left untilled, was he a wilderness and a land left untilled to the nations? For if he is always not a wilderness to all and always not a land left untilled to all, what need was there to say particularly to Israel, as something exceptional, “Have I become a wilderness to the house of Israel, or a land left untilled?” But we may come first to God's universal benefits, and then, after his universal benefits, to the particular ones.

God is a wilderness to no one, making the sun rise on the evil and the good; to no one is he a land left untilled, sending rain on the just and the unjust. How is he a wilderness who makes the day rise and makes the night for rest? How is he a wilderness who makes the earth bear fruit? How is he a wilderness who arranges each person's soul so that he may be rational, may take up knowledge, may exercise his understanding, and, in the body, may have healthy “senses”? So in the universal sense God is a wilderness to no one. But as for the particular sense, I come to the affairs of Israel and say: he was neither a wilderness nor a land left untilled when he did the signs and wonders for the people in Egypt. And if there was a time when they were forsaken, he became as it were a wilderness to them, though he is not a wilderness himself. But when he was not a wilderness to Israel nor a land left untilled, he was, in the particular sense, a wilderness and a land left untilled to the nations. And when he turned away from Israel and became to that Israel a wilderness and a land left untilled, then grace was poured out on the nations, and Christ Jesus has now become to us not a wilderness but full, not a land left untilled but bearing fruit; for “many are the children of the desolate, more than of her who has a husband.” And he threatens those to whom he did not become a wilderness or a land left untilled, saying: I have not become to you “a wilderness” nor “a land left untilled,” but you have said, “We will not be ruled; we will no longer come to you.” Did the sons of Israel say in despair, according to the letter, “We will not be ruled”