Jeremiah's Loincloth

Jeremiah was a prophet.

His story holds an interesting account where God tells him to go get a loincloth.  Any one that he chooses.

God then tells Jeremiah to wear the loincloth and not to clean it.  God wants Jeremiah to go about in dirty underwear (and nothing else).

From there the ridiculousness goes on, but instead of continuing the story I would like to change registers.  I would like to use this story to address a modern cultural problem, namely, that some people expect such foolishness of the Bible, and might jump to the conclusion that this story is a confirmation of their expectation.

In response to this pervasive belief that the Bible is absurd my point is simple: Such baffling moments in Scripture, moments such as the story of Jeremiah and his loincloth, are not a sign of the Bible's absurdity but are a call for us to discern.  Such moments are a challenge to us to figure out what the hell is going on.

For instance, in the case of Jeremiah's loincloth is this some kind of a punishment?  Is Jeremiah to go about in dirty underwear because of something he has done?  No!  Jeremiah condemns the iniquity of his people and works miracles among them.  He is a good man and has done nothing to deserve such treatment...

Is the point then to show Jeremiah that without his care the loincloth is ruined?  Is it to say that without God's care Jeremiah, and Israel more broadly, would be nothing, just as without Jeremiah's care the loincloth is nothing?  If so, why would God need to teach such a lesson to Jeremiah?  Doesn't Jeremiah already know the ingratitude of his people as well as his smallness before the Almighty?

This last possibility is closer to the mark though.  The trick to figuring out the story is indeed that the loincloth is to Jeremiah as Jeremiah is to God, but God's point is not that Jeremiah would amount to nothing without God, but rather that Jeremiah has been selected as an article of pride. Jeremiah's loincloth is in the same relationship to Jeremiah as Jeremiah is to God: they are both chosen adornments.  Articles of clothing chosen of their own accord to gird the chooser's loins.

In other words, it is not the grace of God that makes Jeremiah worthy, nor Jeremiah's tending of the loincloth that makes the loincloth worthy.  Rather it is the personal qualities of Jeremiah and the loincloth that make Jeremiah and the loincloth worthy of their place of pride.

Jeremiah is not to clean his loincloth because God wants him to learn this lesson.  God wants Jeremiah to learn that despite the iniquity of his people Jeremiah was, still is, and may continue to be the glory of God.  Israel and humankind more broadly were once articles of pride and may be so again.  Without the grace of God and of their own accord.

That is what we learn if we discern what is going on with Jeremiah and his loincloth.  We see our value as human beings in the eyes of God.  We find that we can be worthy of adorning God's own loins.

Such a baffling moment is not a sign of absurdity but of a humanism of greatest consolation and joy.

Thanks be to Job.