[CatherineTorpey]

Hello all,

Sorry I’m sending these notes on Sunday morning.

Our preacher is the Rev. Damaris Whitaker of Fort Washington Collegiate Church. She brings her Puerto Rican heritage to us for Hispanic Heritage month, and her sermon is “Lamento,” which could be translated as “I lament” (I’m sorry, I am lamenting, I mourn) or the noun “lament.” Her text is Jeremiah 8:18-9:1.

Let’s send up prayers for Puerto Rico, which is facing Tropical Storm Fiona today; it’s just been declared an emergency situation

We had a bit of Jeremiah last month when Ben and Jacqui preached from this book. Jeremiah is the “weeping prophet” from the time just prior to the attack of Babylon on the Southern Kingdom, Judah. Jeremiah was a prophet and also a priest. He did not enjoy his task as a prophet, and his people did not enjoy what he had to say. He decried false prophets bringing false hope to the people. Jeremiah’s worst fears came true when Babylon did, as had been predicted by his prophetic pronouncements, destroy Jerusalem. He was one of those sent into exile, and the book of Lamentations which laments its fate is traditionally attributed to him.

A few specific notes on today’s passage:
“a balm in Gilead” – many of us know this phrase from the beautiful African American spiritual which answers Jeremiah with an emphatic “yes.” Gilead is an area east of the Jordan River whose pine and cedar trees had a sap that was used medicinally by local physicians.

Dan refers not to a person but to the northernmost city in ancient Israel, and so it is used to refer to the furthest end of the country. A common Biblical phrase is “from Dan to Beersheba,” Beersheba being in the far south – it’s like our saying “from coast to coast” to mean the whole USA.

Zion is a religious term for Jerusalem and more generally the land of Israel.

Here is the Robert Alter translation of today’s section:
CHAPTER 8
18 I catch my breath from sorrow, my heart within me aches.
19 Look, the sound of My People’s Daughter crying out from a faraway land: “Is the LORD not in Zion, is her King not within her?”— Why did they vex Me with their idols, with alien empty breath?
20 “The harvest has passed, the summer has ended, and we have not been rescued.”
21 Over the breaking of my People’s Daughter I am broken, I plunge in gloom, desolation has gripped me.
22 Is there no balm in Gilead, is there no healer there? For why has no mending come to my People’s Daughter?
23 Would that my head were water and my eye the font of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of my People’s Daughter.
CHAPTER 9
1 Would that I were in the wilderness, at a wayfarers’ camp. I would forsake my people and go off from them. For they are all adulterers, an assembly of traitors.”

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