Saturday, September 11, 2004
Euphrosynos the Cook
Kellia: Jeremiah 5:1-9 Epistle: 1 Corinthians2:6-9 Gospel: St. Matthew 10:37-11:1
Jeremiah 5:1-9, especially vss. 7, 8: "When I fed them to the
full, they committed adultery and trooped to the houses of harlots. They were well-fed lusty
stallions, each neighing for his neighbor's wife." In his prophetic proclamations, Jeremiah
repeatedly warned his countrymen that their refusal to accept correction and to repent (vs. 3) was
inviting certain punishment from the Lord (vs. 9). With many vivid images, he forecast a
massive national destruction, that, as God revealed to him, would come from the north at the
hand of Babylonia, an expansionist empire marching out from Mesopotamia to consume other
nations all along its borders (vs. 6). To reinforce his proclamation of disaster and help the People
of God understand that their sins were leading directly to Divine judgment, Jeremiah explicitly
exhorted his fellow citizens against a number of specific offenses. Today, we begin a series of
meditations on the Prophet's exhortations against a variety of sins, considering first sexual lust.
The Prophet, like the Holy Fathers after him, provides Divinely inspired insight into the source of
the fires of lust - gluttony and idolatry. The Lord says, "When I fed them to the full they
committed adultery" (vs. 7). St. John of the Ladder confirms this cause-effect relation when he
writes that "we have heard from that raving mistress gluttony...that her offspring is war against
bodily chastity." Not that fasting and abstinence from food are sure guarantees of victory in the
fight against lust, for we should remember that Satan "who had never eaten was cast from
Heaven." Still, as St. John observes, "with beginners, falls usually occur by reason of luxury."
We will do well in our battles against the flesh to keep the two days of abstinence diligently each
week, enter heartily into the seasons of fasting, and especially observe the days of strict fasting.
Notice that God immediately precedes His declarations against lust by condemning those who
"have forsaken Me, and have sworn by those who are no gods" (vs. 7). Let us remember that the
people of Judah were surrounded by Canaanite neighbors who practiced sacred prostitution as an
almost invariable accompaniment of the cult of the fertility goddesses. The women who were
called harlots by the Prophets were called "holy women" by the Canaanites. Reading between
the lines, one easily surmises that cult prostitution attracted the people of Judah (2 Kngs. 21:3),
and, even though king Manasseh and king Josiah who followed him, made rigorous efforts at
reform, such indulgence seems to have been pursed in brothels (Jer. 5:7).
We certainly can take no comfort in the delusion that contemporary society is better than the one
against which Jeremiah wrote. The 2000 census report discloses that "households headed by
unmarried partners grew by almost 72 percent during the past decade, most of them involving
people living out of wedlock. A third of all babies were born to unmarried women (33%) which
compares to 1940 figures when the percent was 3.8. Between 1960 and 1990, cohabitation
increased nearly 1,000 percent. The problem is that we have grown accustomed to such realities,
facing them among our own family members; and so we are tempted to say, along with one
President's Domestic Policy Adviser in response to the census report: "Who cares?"
The soaring divorce rates and promiscuity of western cultures lead one to modify slightly, for a
modern fit, the descriptive portrait of Jeremiah's world, and to characterize what we see as a herd
of "well-fed lusty stallions and mares, each neighing for each other's spouses" (vs. 8). Beloved
of the Lord, let us not overlook the Lord's conclusion: "Shall I not punish them for these things?
says the Lord; and shall I not avenge Myself on a nation such as this?" (vs. 9).
O Lord, do Thou maintain Thy married servants in peace and concord, and grant them to lead an
upright and blameless life, walking in Thy commandments to a ripe old age.
