ideologyhunter
Contributor
Is anyone else a fan of Jeremiah 13: 1-11? That's the story of God mandating the prophet's underwear etiquette. It's such a strange (okay, dingbat) tale that I wonder how many preachers have used it as a Sunday reading. I'd guess that zero Sunday school teachers have used it, as kids giggle at just the word underwear.
In the earlier chapters of Jeremiah, God rails at Jerusalem, excoriating the people for idolatry and promising to hand them over to their enemies. He raises up Jeremiah as a prophet who will voice his warnings to Israel.
In chapter 13, God tells Jeremiah to buy some underwear (the Good News Bible says linen shorts, RSV says linen waistcloth), but not to wash them. After an unspecified period of wearing the linen, God tells him to take the shorts to the Euphrates River and hide them among the rocks. All Bibles that I've checked say Euphrates, but this doesn't make much sense. Jeremiah was living in Judah, just north of Jerusalem, and the journey to the Euphrates would force him to travel 300 miles each way (with a second round trip coming up.) That's a lot of travel to hide some unwashed skanky underwear. (Some apologists say that it wasn't the Euphrates but some local river with a similar name, and others think it was somehow a spiritual, not a literal journey. You know, like the metaphorical journey you make when it's time a pitch a pair of done-in shorts. I say, this is the Bible, so forget about logic, and let's say he ended up traveling a total of 1200 miles following God's bidding on the shorts.)
"Some time later" God tells him to go back to the Euphrates and get the underwear. Because he's a wise prophet of God, he makes the journey again to fetch the underwear. He finds them. Instead of this being a miracle narrative, with brand new fragrant linen undies coming out of the dirt, he finds that the shorts are now ruined and "no longer any good." Now comes the capper to the story, the reason God has directed his men's wear choices. God tells him that the tattered shorts are a sign of how he will besmirch and humiliate Judah and Jerusalem for idolatry. "They will become like these shorts that are no longer any good. Just as shorts fit tightly around the waist, so I intended the people of Israel and Judah to hold tightly to me." (If I taught this in Sunday school, this is where I'd interject, 'See, kids, God knows about the elastic waistband on underwear. So every time you're putting on underwear, it's like a symbol of...okay, forget that, that's kinda dumb.')
Then, mid-narrative, God drops the subject and goes into a teaching on wine jars. Here is where I felt the Bible let me down.
1) So Jeremiah, who has already traveled 900 miles on his underwear mission and has another 300 miles to travel to get home, finds out that the whole thing was to compare torn-up shady underwear to Israel? What a payoff for a prophet. "God, next time, could you just paint a picture for me? I had to wear creepy shorts and bury them and walk to the ends of the earth with them, so that you could compare the holes in them to your people?" I would've been so pissed off.
2) There wasn't even an Underwear Tour, where Jeremiah would've paraded the shorts all over the countryside, comparing the shorts to the Lord's people. I'm pretty sure they're never mentioned again.
3) Couldn't God just have given him an atomic wedgie? That would have messed the shorts up good, without all the mileage.
4) As far as I know, there's no Underwear of Turin equivalent (or my born-again cousins would've told me about it and traveled to the Holy Land to see 'em.) But think how special that garment was -- God actually used it for his purpose, and taught a lesson over it. He may have touched the shorts, who knows. They could have healing powers today. If you were deathly sick, wouldn't you want a minister to rub Jeremiah's old underwear all over you?
Well, it's a beautiful story, and it shows how God truly loved his people, and how if God tells you to take some old felonious BVDs on a looonnnggg journey, why, you need to do it, to show your faith and wisdom. I hope I have strengthened your faith today.
In the earlier chapters of Jeremiah, God rails at Jerusalem, excoriating the people for idolatry and promising to hand them over to their enemies. He raises up Jeremiah as a prophet who will voice his warnings to Israel.
In chapter 13, God tells Jeremiah to buy some underwear (the Good News Bible says linen shorts, RSV says linen waistcloth), but not to wash them. After an unspecified period of wearing the linen, God tells him to take the shorts to the Euphrates River and hide them among the rocks. All Bibles that I've checked say Euphrates, but this doesn't make much sense. Jeremiah was living in Judah, just north of Jerusalem, and the journey to the Euphrates would force him to travel 300 miles each way (with a second round trip coming up.) That's a lot of travel to hide some unwashed skanky underwear. (Some apologists say that it wasn't the Euphrates but some local river with a similar name, and others think it was somehow a spiritual, not a literal journey. You know, like the metaphorical journey you make when it's time a pitch a pair of done-in shorts. I say, this is the Bible, so forget about logic, and let's say he ended up traveling a total of 1200 miles following God's bidding on the shorts.)
"Some time later" God tells him to go back to the Euphrates and get the underwear. Because he's a wise prophet of God, he makes the journey again to fetch the underwear. He finds them. Instead of this being a miracle narrative, with brand new fragrant linen undies coming out of the dirt, he finds that the shorts are now ruined and "no longer any good." Now comes the capper to the story, the reason God has directed his men's wear choices. God tells him that the tattered shorts are a sign of how he will besmirch and humiliate Judah and Jerusalem for idolatry. "They will become like these shorts that are no longer any good. Just as shorts fit tightly around the waist, so I intended the people of Israel and Judah to hold tightly to me." (If I taught this in Sunday school, this is where I'd interject, 'See, kids, God knows about the elastic waistband on underwear. So every time you're putting on underwear, it's like a symbol of...okay, forget that, that's kinda dumb.')
Then, mid-narrative, God drops the subject and goes into a teaching on wine jars. Here is where I felt the Bible let me down.
1) So Jeremiah, who has already traveled 900 miles on his underwear mission and has another 300 miles to travel to get home, finds out that the whole thing was to compare torn-up shady underwear to Israel? What a payoff for a prophet. "God, next time, could you just paint a picture for me? I had to wear creepy shorts and bury them and walk to the ends of the earth with them, so that you could compare the holes in them to your people?" I would've been so pissed off.
2) There wasn't even an Underwear Tour, where Jeremiah would've paraded the shorts all over the countryside, comparing the shorts to the Lord's people. I'm pretty sure they're never mentioned again.
3) Couldn't God just have given him an atomic wedgie? That would have messed the shorts up good, without all the mileage.
4) As far as I know, there's no Underwear of Turin equivalent (or my born-again cousins would've told me about it and traveled to the Holy Land to see 'em.) But think how special that garment was -- God actually used it for his purpose, and taught a lesson over it. He may have touched the shorts, who knows. They could have healing powers today. If you were deathly sick, wouldn't you want a minister to rub Jeremiah's old underwear all over you?
Well, it's a beautiful story, and it shows how God truly loved his people, and how if God tells you to take some old felonious BVDs on a looonnnggg journey, why, you need to do it, to show your faith and wisdom. I hope I have strengthened your faith today.
So yes, my faith is strengthening. I thank you for all your (plural) attempted arguments.