False hopes

Today's first reading (from Jeremiah) confronts the problem of false prophets: people who raise false hopes. And what kind of false hopes? The expectation, in times of suffering, that things ought to just return to the familiar patterns and structures and supports; that things will go back to "normal." It's understandable, of course: we judge what is "normal" by how things have been in the past. But we risk limiting our openness to God's creativity that way. Even in the biblical situation, when the false prophet was promising that the fixtures stolen from the Temple (the Temple of the Lord himself) would be restored, and worship would again proceed like always, God was hinting otherwise: the Temple would be destroyed, leveled to the ground. God wanted the people to be very clear on this, and not to base their hopes on a building, no matter how illustrious. Once that happened, God promised through another prophet, "Greater will the future glory of this house be than what it ever was before."
God's promises outshine our hopes.


On a different note:
We're getting ready for another day of recording; I posted a video of our work so far. Check our Singing Sisters blog for updates!