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Jeremiah 32:27 ESV

“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?”

Jeremiah 26:20-23 ESV

There was another man… Uriah the son of Shemaiah…He prophesied…in words like those of Jeremiah… (they) struck him down and dumped his dead body in the burial place of the common people.”

The world is full of winners and losers. Uriah the Son of Shemaiah was a man I had read over many times. His story is one short paragraph in Jeremiah and we are not told of him again. He walks in and out and in the midst of this book of sorrow and destruction his is a story that seems to blend into the patchwork. He was a prophet to Judah and, like Jeremiah, he prophesied its destruction by God’s hands through the means of Babylon, because of their generations of sin. Even though he preached rightly, even though he spoke truth, and courageously proclaimed to those in authority their sin and damnation, he was tracked down in Egypt, brought back to Judah, and killed for it.

Later in the recorded text Jeremiah is told to buy land that he will never be allowed to cultivate. The city is surrounded and will fall. Judah will be conquered and go into exile. As Jerusalem is surrounded by Babylon and all that Jeremiah has prophesied will happen God told him to buy a field. He responds with a little exasperation and God replies with the reality that NOTHING is too hard for him.

The world is full of winners and losers. The reality is that the winner isn’t always the one with the highest score. The truth of the matter is that it depends on what game you're playing. Golf requires a low score, basketball a high score; who wins and who loses is determined according to the rules and what game is being played.

I have been told that life is a contact sport. I disagree with this on a technical level. Sports have umpires and referees. They don’t determine who wins or loses they simply make sure the rules are being followed. We are deceived if we believe that God is simply calling balls and strikes. Making sure everyone plays by the same rules and allows the game to continue come what may. As if Uriah simply chose a poor time to stand and speak. He just picked a run plan when he should have picked a pass play. So, he suffered and died for it. Jeremiah was more nuanced in his approach and lived (to die in Egypt).

Life is more like figure skating or Gymnastics. I grew up watching these events with my mom, and always remembered watching amazing athletes twist, twirl, and jump, then sitting in expectation waiting to see what the JUDGES said. Sometimes it was evident they were not as skilled other times it was unknown to my untrained eye. Yet, it didn’t matter how much I liked the routine or didn’t, only one thing mattered when it came to winners and losers, the judgment. Uriah was a winner not because he pleased the Judge by speaking truth. Jeremiah was the same, not because I think he did a good job, or I think he courageously preached but only the judgment of the Judge matters. How great the life looks or how foolish is only icing for the crowd, the matter wholly and solely rests in “the God of all flesh.”

In Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew the servant has no clue what is going on with his master. It is painful and shameful for him. But the master knows what he is about and in the end his wisdom is proved. As we look at the twists and turns of this world, we must recognize that we are merely servants, we are not the master. He is about something far more glorious than we could imagine.

CRUCE, DUM SPIRO, FIDO