My parents were not big entertainers, but we never missed a Wednesday night supper at church. We belonged to a church full of good people, so Wednesday nights were always a good time. I grew into an adult who loves gathering friends around my dinner table. I enjoy choosing recipes, putting flowers on the table, and lighting the candles.

But the reality is, no matter how thoughtful the host's preparation, the success of a dinner ultimately depends on the people you've gathered.

And if I'm being honest, the Prophet Jeremiah would never, ever make my guest list. Jeremiah would spoil the evening's carefully curated vibe before all my guests had even shrugged off their coats. Jeremiah is an old school prophet. I imagine he'd push his way through my front door uninvited and stomp toward the dining room. His intense eyes, deeply set under a furrowed brow, would bore into each guest's soul.

And he'd stand in the doorway, feet wide apart, and declare to all who would listen—and to those who would rather not—"What is wrong with the way we are living in God's created world?" The Book of Jeremiah has 52 chapters. Jeremiah needs the space; he has a heck of a lot to say. Prophets speak truth to power.

They call people to account for their actions. Prophets are the verbal conscience of a generation, asking what we are doing, why we are doing it, and how our actions honor God.

A prophet's words always, always point to God's very first commandment: "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength." Any attention and effort placed elsewhere is more than simple folly; it leads us away from God.

Prophets say plainly: if you follow God's first commandment, everything right and good for ourselves and for others will follow.

But ever since we were shown the door out of the garden of Eden, this world has not been a simple place, and we are not simple people. Again and again, we make it hard on ourselves and everyone around us by attempting to keep the good things of this world under our power. With stunning hubris, humans try to limit the sovereignty and power of God. In today's Scripture reading, Jeremiah is speaking from prison.

It's a fancy palace prison in the Court of the Guard, where he is fed, clothed, and can purchase land, but it is a prison. Nonetheless, Jeremiah is held captive under the authority of those who claim the right to the land in Jerusalem.

In 1983, scholar Charles Cousar wrote: "The armies of Nebuchadrezzar have surrounded Jerusalem for the purpose of reducing its inhabitants to starvation and its government to oblivion." Does this sound familiar to our ears in the year 2025?

Two thousand five hundred years later, today's people in Gaza are deprived of food and water. They're watching their loved ones, their children, starve. While nourishment—manna, life-saving sustenance—is carefully guarded, just beyond their reach, minute by minute, day by day, God-created human beings are depriving other God-created human beings of food, water, and freedom. Do you think the Prophet Jeremiah would have words to say about Gaza?

And how about one continent over, where Sudan's Zamzam refugee camp in Darfur is a declared famine site due to war between brothers and sisters? In large U.S. cities, where poor neighborhoods are defined not by walls or checkpoints, but by unjust economic policy, children born into poverty are already suffering more deeply due to recent cuts in Medicaid and food assistance. And in our literal U.S. prisons, people who have committed crimes and yet who are still God's children are barred from learning, acquiring basic survival skills, or rehabilitation opportunities.

By a people who have forgotten God's command to love our neighbor, no matter who they are, as we love ourselves.

If Jeremiah is an old school prophet, who is his modern-day equivalent who reminds us to worship only God, to love one another, who speaks truth to power?

Greta Thunberg, concerned about climate change, took a stance at the tender age of 15 against the world's careless use of natural resources. Her pointed three-word admonishment, "How dare you," to a 2018 adult audience at the United Nations was a reality check heard round the world. In part, we listened because of her visually intense body language, her prophet-like, bold, upright stance and furrowed brow.

But mostly, we heard her message because we know deep in our hearts it's the gospel truth. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 letter from Birmingham Jail echoes that same truth about unjust suffering. As do the messages of prophetic artists, writers, and movie makers who gave us Schindler's List, Hotel Rwanda, and Bonhoeffer.

Prophets bring the suffering of regular people, God's people, to the forefront of our consciousness. Prophets listen to God and share God's concerns, God's anger and frustration with those of us hurting in one way or another, our fellow human beings.

Now is the time for prophets.

Is it possible that you, in some way, could also be a modern-day prophet?

Many of us are sitting in prisons of our own making. Though we are clothed and fed, we feel handcuffed. We remain silent for fear of losing our way of life or upsetting the polite conversation at the dinner table in the Court of the Guard in the palace.

Now is the time for people of faith to speak up for those who are denied a voice. Or, better yet, to create a way to amplify the voices of the suppressed, to build a platform from which they can speak for themselves.

But which? Jeremiah? Are God's chosen people? Who needs to be our primary concern? Which side is the right side to take? we ask. And God's answer remains the same: "Worship the Lord, your God, with everything you've got."

And that means loving your neighbor as you love yourself.

Because God is the God of all Christians and Muslims and Jews and atheists and agnostics and everything and everyone in this world. We don't get to decide who God loves into creation, because that's God's territory, God's sovereignty, which we don't get to limit. Our God of Grace created humankind, all of humankind, and gave us responsibility for each other. No exceptions based on individual appearance or choices or zip code of birth. God is God of all.

In 48 of Jeremiah's 52 chapters, he speaks of anger, grief, frustration, sadness, and violence. But in a four-chapter subsection nicknamed the Book of Consolation, Jeremiah gives voice to quiet hope.

Why would a prophet rage and scream and fuss if they have no hope in converting us to civility? Without hope, a prophet could take it easy. Sit under a tree and take a nap and wait for the darkness to overcome the light. But because a prophet has hope, they speak up.

Theologian and modern-day prophet Walter Brueggemann wrote: "It is the vocation of a prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination."

Dr. King expressed his hope with the phrase, "I have a dream." In today's reading, Jeremiah reveals his hope by making a purchase.

This morning, Jeremiah describes to us an investment he's chosen to make. It sounds foolish. Jeremiah is imprisoned. The city of Jerusalem is under siege, the land littered with waste, soaked with blood. Surely any investment in land—land which will soon no longer belong to you—is money wasted?

And yet, Jeremiah carefully describes exactly how he's chosen to invest in the future. And he trusts that the deed to this newly purchased land will survive in an earthenware jar buried deeply enough so the blood still being spilled by the warring armies above it will not destroy it. God gives us the Earth's land and our siblings to care for from the beginning of creation. All of creation belongs to all of us, and we must care for all of it.

But our hope is not in the land; our hope is in God. And when we surrender to our selfish desires and fight over the land, we hurt each other and we break God's heart.

Today's word from Jeremiah is a call for God's people to invest in hope in the midst of the storms of this world. We are to focus on this bit of hope buried deep in our news-weary selves.

How can regular people respond to the prophet's words? I'm not the leader of a country. You don't control armies and borders and essential resources. So what can we do? The rock band The Eagles answered in harmony with their simply titled song, "Do Something."

A phrase often attributed to Mother Teresa says: "We feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."

Jeremiah would surely agree.

Today's verses urge us to take action toward hope. How? Sure, you could bury a deed in a jar like Jeremiah, or maybe invest in a tiny bit of the Amazon rainforest?

Contact your local, national, and international political leaders. Practice small kindnesses to strangers in your neighborhood or online. Inform yourself and refuse to look away from the hard things. If you can do so without sacrificing your mental wellbeing, speak up to question the microaggressions you hear in polite company.

Protest, preach, pray, and pay through acts of writing or marching or spending your money responsibly.

Jeremiah just asks that we don't sleep through it all. Don't distract yourself so much that you do nothing. Don't listen to the placating prophets of our time that entice you to selfishness over empathy. Don't sit in your fancy prison motionless with fear.

Two friends of mine, one Christian and one Jewish, recently gathered a group of concerned folks with no agenda beyond the desire for real talk about what's happening in this world. Yes, the gathering had flowers and drinks and nibbles. But the real beauty of the evening arrived in the hearty sustenance of honest dialogue among the guests. Of listening with respect to new points of view, of walking off into the evening with new information, a resolve to act, and a touch of hope in our hearts. Our power as God's people comes not from the land we own or the people over whom we rule.

Our power is in our trust in God and in following God's commandment to devote ourselves, our whole selves, to honoring God, neighbor, and self.

Amen.