Reverend Jeremiah Wright

Jeremiah in the Sistine Chapel

Jeremiah is the name.

I am sure most of you are certain that Jeremiah was a bull frog. If you have forgotten, Jeremiah was also a prophet. Do you know the expression "jeremiad", meaning an oration or tirade against the misguided mores of the established order, derived from the name "Jeremiah"? Perhaps in the phoney world where cable TV speaks of the Reverend Wright they do not remember. "Jeremiah was hated, jeered at, ostracized, continually harassed, and more than once almost killed." Notes on Jeremiah 2 0 0 7 E d i t i o n Dr. Thomas L. Constable from the Temple Sermon: 9 Would you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, go after other gods you do not know 10 and then come and stand before me in this temple, the one called by my name, and say 'We are safe'--only to keep on doing these travesties?! 11 Has this house, the one called by my name, become a den of thieves in your opinion? The language of God, and especially the prophetic language, is not the language of everyday life, of cable TV, of babbling commentators; nor is it the language of patriotism: it is the language of religion! And just as I cannot speak of war using the words and concepts of the language of playing a musical instrument, so also I may not speak of religious expression as if it were as simple as chatting about the weather. When Bill O'Reilly asks Hilary Clinton whether she would have stayed at a church wherein the pastor spoke as did Reverend Wright, both should have worn "Buffoon" pins on their lapels, for neither could imagine a religious discourse where the topics were anything but "please" and "thank you". At this point, I pray that "Jeremiah" is not a prophetic symbol, for Jeremiah spoke to the Jews about the Babylonian Exile they were to undergo.