FROM PROSPERITY TO PAUPERISM

By: Travis W. Lewis

And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer. Lamentations of Jeremiah 1:6 [1]

She had once been a place of beauty, one so close to God that most her needs were filled from within, being without a need to bow to any but to her King. The entire known world resorted to her for both commerce and wisdom. For scores of years, her dominion had progressively grown exponentially. She was deeply loved by some and dreadfully feared by others, yet her religious and political positions were heeded and respected by both. The city of Jerusalem, often referred to as “Zion”, had been a city of joy and mirth as most of the known world clamored to share her identification. As she had been instructed long ago, she relished her solemn religious feasts and ceremonies that kept her King in focus. She rested without fear of either becoming servant of a tyrant or of being marched off to slavery in a strange land. Her King was like a wise, loving, providing and protective husband, and she was the princess among all her neighbors. Wise counsel and direction from the King would be passed along through those whom Zion trusted to govern and protect. With all this, she had reason to be a happy and content people – rich, respected, religious and secure.

However, as time passed, ever so gradually the focus of her feasts and ceremonies morphed from glory and honor to her King to entertainment and glorification of self. Her festivities were still festive, and her ceremonies were still solemn. All her religious rituals continued to be observed with original frequency, yet noticeable to only the King and to the wisest in their midst, the concentration had changed. With that, though she refused to heed warnings from her prophets, Zion pronounced her own demise.

Many of the concerns of the times are expressed by the prophets, not the least of whom was Jeremiah. Having revelation from God, he wept bitterly as he warned the “city of God” of her errant ways. Though confronted with open ridicule and persecution, Jeremiah would not be halted from crying out the alarm. The beauty of godliness and the glory of her King’s presence had vanished. In metaphor, Zion had been the Queen of a vast domain that had been righteously ruled by a faithful King, and she had banished the thought of being cut off, divorced and relegated to becoming a lonely widow.

Even the princes to whom the citizens of Zion had looked and listened for guidance and protection had been cut off as well and were themselves now destitute of any lasting source of sustenance. They had become like deer, having now been cut off from the support of the King and being forced to search for pasture where none was to be found. Consequently, finding themselves famished and weak, they had become easy prey to those before whom, not so long ago, they had considered themselves invincible.

Pondering Jeremiah’s lamentations over Jerusalem, there may be current applications to which this alarm could become metaphor. Maybe one can be our nation. Possibly another could be our family, and yet another might be ourselves as individuals. Yet, I fear that Jeremiah’s prophecy concerning Zion is more closely directed toward the children of God as a “church” body or congregation. As our economy has distributed opportunity and material wealth more evenly among us than ever before, has the beauty of such virtues as humility, morality, and modesty not been virtually replaced and justification provided by the observation that “times have changed.” Within the heart of God’s people, has heart-wrenching concern for the most forgotten, the most beaten down and burden-laden, and the least among us not been replaced by the rationale to let the politicians take care of it all? Has the burden to reprove and rebuke from both the pulpit and teaching desks been precluded by the politically correct alibi to be careful not to offend anyone? After all, reproof and rebuke to the coddled congregant prompt the choice of a less offensive message among another congregation, which results in less money in the collection plate, less accolades to the teacher, and lower numbers on the attendance record. In summary, has it not become mostly about the money? Yet the axiom remains true – accumulated wealth and affluence never become so vast that God cannot soon diminish or even cause it all to vanish in an instant.

However, the concern of the prophets, and even more so with our Lord, was not of what might be the backlash from plain rebuke and reproof, but what we could expect if those charged to deliver the warnings failed to do so.

Hopefully these thoughts can affect some Christian congregation or its leaders with sorrow for her calamities, because we, along with many of our families and friends are its living members and, like Jeremiah, we are resolved to receive our lot with it. Ω ©

[1] As I recently seated myself at dawn for meditation on the front porch of my home, I rather routinely opened the Holy Bible app on my I-Phone. The verse upon which my eyes at once fell was Lamentations 1:6. Immediately recognizing its application to the people of God in our age, I was convinced the “incident” was not a “coincidence.” During the days that followed, I compiled my thoughts into the above essay.

[2] The photo heading of this essay is of my grandparents, Lafayette and Louella Scott Lewis along with their seven children still living at home, in 1917. The photo is found on page 10a of my book, I Was A Sharecropper’s Son, and the story of their family tragedy and ensuing poverty follows in Chapter 1 of the book, which is made available in the Store section of this website. Thank you… Travis