‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.

Friday – Jeremiah 6: 14 “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.”

Jeremiah was one of many prophets that God sent to Israel when they became arrogant and unconcerned. Ultimately, Israel failed to listen to these prophets, so God scattered them to the winds of exile for several hundred years.

What I want to spend some time thinking about this morning is all the ways in which these words from Jeremiah should strike us today. There is so much injustice in our world – from gun violence to hatred of our LGBTQ brothers and sisters to racism to abuse of the poor and it goes on and on.

Do we dress these wounds as if they were not serious? Do we call the abused to peace when there is no peace for them? Jesus calls us to fight off our unconcernedness. He asks us to give protection to our neighbors and the visitors in our public squares. This morning, think about some areas where you can give protection to those in the public square. Then make a game plan to follow up on that thought.