By Jeremiah, Eugene and Me

In the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken to you concerning Israel, Judah and all the other nations from the time I began speaking to you in the reign of Josiah till now. Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about every disaster I plan to inflict on them, each of them will turn from his wick-ed way; then I will forgive their wickedness and their sin.” So Jerem-iah called Baruch son of Neriah, and while Jeremiah dictated all the words the LORD had spoken to him, Baruch wrote them on the scroll 36.1-4

Eugene Peterson says: ‘The book Jeremiah read was Deuteronomy. It was discovered in the course of the temple repairs, it was the handbook for Josiah’s reforms.’288 By reading it Jeremiah developed a memory (of God’s activity in liberating his people from slavery), a theology (of the call to love which echoes throughout the book) and a sense of responsibility (in response to the multiple demands that love makes)289

‘The book Jeremiah read developed into the book that Jeremiah wrote. Just as Deuteronomy repreached the message of Moses to a people who had lost touch with Moses, so Jeremiah repreached the message of Deuteronomy to a people who had drifted from its moorings’. 290

Charles Williams says ‘There is no other institution that suffers from time so much as religion. At the moment when it is remotely possible that a whole gen-eration might have learned something of theory and practice, the learners and their learnings are removed by death, and the church is confronted with the ne-cessity of beginning all over again. The whole labour of regenerating mankind has to begin again every thirty years or so.’ 290

Jeremiah was directed: “Take a scroll and write on it all the words I have spoken …Perhaps when the people of Judah hear about every disaster I plan to inflict on them, each of them will turn from his wicked way; then I will forgive their wicked-ness and their sin.” The prophet’s task was to take a scroll and write God’s word.And he enlisted the help of Baruch as a scribe to not only write it but read it. 291

As Jeremiah ‘was forbidden to speak in public (he was persona non grata to King Jehoiakim), his message was now written so that it could be delivered by another . Baruch read out what Jeremiah wrote to the people in the temple. 292

‘Honest writing’ exposes the reality of the way we live, the way we ‘violate beauty’, the way we manipulate truth, the way we ‘dominate people’ and challenges us to change our ways. Such writing is not without pain for the reader. ‘Every significant utterance is a wound, but “faithful are the wounds of a friend”.’ 293

I wondered about the place of writing in my prophetic engagement with the world. After all, ‘of the making of many books, there is no end’ (Eccl.12.12)

According to  a survey by the Jenkins Group 80 percent of the (US) population want to write a book. 120,000 titles are published in the U.S. each year ( www.bookwire.com) And 293,550 titles are published in the world each year www.worldometers.info 70 percent of the titles published do not make a profit. In fact 70 percent of titles published do not even earn back their advance. ( www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

In the U.S., each day people spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines. (Veronis, Suhler & Associates) On average, a bookstore browser spends 8 seconds looking at a book’s front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover. ( www.parapub.com) 33 per cent of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. 42 percent of university graduates never read another book after college. 80 per cent of families did not buy or read a book last year. 70 percent of adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years. (www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

Most people who read typically read fiction (53 percent). The favourite category is crime, mystery and suspense (19 percent). (Publishers Weekly) A successful non-fiction book sells only 7,500 copies. (www.authorsguild.org) And 57 percent of  the new books that are bought are not read to completion. (www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

So, its not surprising Christ never wrote a book.

But, his followers did. And they managed to turn their book – The Bible – into the world’s biggest ever bestseller.

I have tried to follow in the footsteps of the followers of Christ and – like Mahatma Gandhi, CF Andrews, Stanley Jones, Studdart Kennedy, William Barclay, Leslie Weatherhead, Toyohiko Kagawa, Helder Camara, Jean Vanier & Henri Nouwen – tried to write personally as simply and as practically as I can about God’s call on our lives.

In ‘Christi-Anarchy’ I wrote about the example of Christ – who was committed to an empowering rather than overpowering spirituality of compassion. In ‘Not Religion, But Love’ I wrote about how we can practice the principles of radical compassion that Christ personified in the context of our every day lives.

In ‘Compassionate Community Work’ I developed these ideas in more detail, giving people lots of suggestions as to how they could engage their community more compassionately. All these books have been ‘successful’, having been printed in multiple editions and distributed in lots of countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA, the UK., India, China and the Philippines. ‘Compassionate Community Work’ has become a text for the Micah network – a network of 300 hundred Christian aid and development agencies. And ‘Living Community’ – a generic version of ‘Compassionate Community’ – is going to be used as a textbook at universities and colleges to train community workers. (See books on www.daveandrews.com.au)

And now I have written the Plan Be series (Plan Be, Hey, Be And See and See What I Mean) calling for a d-i-y personal-political be-attitude revolution. In 2010 I’ll be launching it in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

I know I’m not a great writer, but I know my writings continue to stimulate great conversations. And for that I’m grateful.

Dave Andrews

Numbers refer to pages in The Quest by Eugene Peterson Zondervan Grand Rapids 2000