Jeremiah probably wasn’t too well-liked. He was pretty outspoken, to say the least. But that is what good prophets are. They thrust a mirror in our faces and point out the things that we don’t like to admit about ourselves. 

Jeremiah would have had a thing or two to say about some of the homemade religious philosophies that I hear and practice every once in a while. Consider three themes in use today and how he may have responded.

No harm, no foul. This implies that I can do whatever I want, just as long as it does not bother anyone else. Jeremiah may have responded that men and women don’t answer to each other. They answer to God.

My God is spelled with two “o’s.” In other words, as long as I am a good person, I will be taken care of in the afterlife. Jeremiah railed against Israel  to confess their sins to God and repent. I imagine he would be singing the same tune here. Besides, whose definition of “good” do we use? 

Nature is my church. When I go for a long walk, go fishing, (fill in the blank with your favorite outdoor activity), I get into nature and feel closer to God than I do in any church.   Except for personal prayer and meditation, all other aspects of Christian life are meant to be with and among others. We all need each other and at some points in our lives, desperately so. 

What is so appealing about these three statements is that they seem to hint at high morals and therefore seem like good religion. However, each one turns our belief inward to ourselves to the point of becoming self-absorbed navel gazing. After a while, we become the center of our religion. God no longer is. They are examples of starting out on the right path but gradually wandering off in other directions. At that point we need a prophet, a modern-day Jeremiah to shake us up, to help us to reflect on where we have strayed and to point us in the right direction.