(Please read the Scripture passage before the homily.)
Why does God send prophets? To give the people an opportunity to listen and turn back to God so that God in turn repent of the evil God otherwise would have inflicted on the people. If, then, we have heard the word of God spoken to us, we should not brag about it, but, rather, listen to it and repent of our sins.
Jeremih accused the people of not listening and not obeying the word of the Lord. The people’s sin was in refusing to obey God’s word as spoken through the prophets. This is our sin also.
Not to listen to the Lord is to disobey the Lord. It is to refuse to listen, to refuse to want to hear what God says. Disobeying is always a refusal to want to hear, whether it is our parents when we were little or God at any age. What we call sins merely describes how we have not listened to God’s word.
Without listening, communication breaks down. The consequence of Jeremiah’s people refusal to listen was the destruction of their national center, their place of worship, and their personal lives.
The consequences of our disobediences are similar in nature. God calls us to listen to God’s word. We must do this as individuals and as a society. Any personal change in our lives will impact the behavior of our society. If we listen, then society can listen; if we do not, then our society does not.
To declare oneself or one’s nation Christian is meaningless, unless we listen to what God tells us to do and heed that. Words mean nothing unless our character matches them. Our actions give meaning to our words. We need to listen so that our words have meaning, and we can communicate what the Lord would have us do. The result then will be growth in goodness.