Jeremiah stood on the short stone wall that rimmed the fountain. The people gathered around easily heard his voice above the trickling water. For many, it was the first time seeing him in person. Others meandered past, uninterested in today’s variation on the same sermon he had given each day for the last six months.
The first timers regarded him as a tourist attraction. They came from all over the world. Taking pictures, gawking, listening to or joining in the heckling. He went because the Lord told him to speak. The reactions didn’t concern him. Or so he told himself.
He stepped down and headed to a bench where a young writer recorded his every word. Fingers pushed dark-rimmed glasses back up the writer’s nose. A happy grimace adorned his face.
“How was it today?” Jeremiah asked.
“It went well,” Baruch said.
“I didn’t aggravate anyone?”
“No more so than normal.”
Jeremiah rubbed his eyes in a circle.
“Your head still hurting?” Baruch asked.
“A bit. I think it’s the sun.”
Baruch examined the preacher’s frail body. “I think you need something to eat. You wanna join me for a bite?”
Jeremiah flipped through his wallet and pulled a twenty halfway out. “That sounds good. Where too?”
“I was thinking Giovello’s.”
“I’m not sure my bank account could take the hit. How about someplace where the appetizers don’t cost more than my rent?”
“It’ll be on me,” Baruch said. “Well, on the Register, actually. When they found out I knew you, they gave me a promotion, a raise, and an expense account. As long as I write stories about you, of course. You’re rather famous, you know.”
“I’m a side show attraction,” Jeremiah said. “A jester sent to amuse both kings and commoners. Which wouldn’t bother me so much if anyone paid attention.”
“They listen to you.”
“Sure, they listen, but does it do any good? Have any hearts changed?”
“I couldn’t say.” Baruch bit his lower lip while he waited for Jeremiah to continue. When the silence had gone on long enough, he spoke up. “So, what do you say? Giovello’s on me?”
Jeremiah rubbed the last of the tiredness from his eyes. “Yeah. That’ll work.” His breath formed a mist in the cool air.
A young woman with pink streaks in her blonde hair headed towards Jeremiah. A cropped t-shirt exposed her belly from beneath an open jeans jacket. A stud through her left nostril matched the one through her navel. She arrived holding her phone out towards Baruch.
“Would you mind taking a picture of the two of us?” she said, indicating her and Jeremiah.
“I’m sorry, miss,” Jeremiah said, “but I don’t do that.”
“You don’t take pictures?”
“That’s not what I’m here for.”
“Are you too good to take a picture with me?”
“Nothing of the sort,” he said. “It’s just … I don’t find it appropriate.”
Disgust spread across her face. “It’s inappropriate to take a picture with me? You smug, little ass. You know, I’m not the hateful, hypocritical jerkwad. I didn’t even want to come today after what they told me about you. But I’m an open-minded person. Thought I’d at least give you a chance, hear what you had to say. You couldn’t be as bad as they claimed. So I listened to you, and some of what you said almost made sense. I figured they were wrong after all. Now that I meet you, though, it turns out everything they’ve told me about you is true.”
Jeremiah looked her in the eyes. “I’m afraid you misunderstand. It’s not you I find inappropriate. It’s the whole idea that I would capitalize on my so-called fame in any way. I’m here to glorify God, not myself.”
“If you say so.”
“I do say so, and if you’re not too busy, I would love to talk with you a while.”
“About what?”
“Whatever you’d like. I get the feeling you had something in mind besides a picture when you approached.”
The young woman’s face turned red. She pulled her jacket shut as though to conceal her vulnerability.
“Why don’t we start with our names. I’m Jeremiah.”
“Carolyn,” she said, taking his hand. “My friends call me Lyn.”
“What brings you to town?”
“I live here. Well, out in the suburbs.”
“What do you do? Are you in school?”
Lyn grabbed her right forearm and started to scratch it. “No. I was in school. It wasn’t for me. I work in a bookstore now.”
She glanced at Baruch. Jeremiah read her intentions and nodded at him.
“Do you mind giving us a moment? I’ll meet you at Giovello’s.”
Baruch took his leave. Jeremiah pointed to a bench and walked over with Lyn. A man in a gray overcoat watched from the center of the plaza not more than thirty feet from where they sat. A cigarette glowed in his hand.
“What’s on your mind?” Jeremiah asked.
Lyn continued to scratch her forearm. “Nothing really. Just, well ….” Her head did a slow turn around the plaza. Her eyes met Jeremiah’s for a moment before they bounced away. “I guess … is what you say true? Is it really going to happen?”
“Yes, it’s true,” he said. “Will it happen? That depends.”
“On what? You make it sound like it’s a certainty.”
“When God speaks, he always tells the truth. When he pronounces judgment, it will happen. But we have a choice.”
“I don’t follow.”
“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.”
She squinted and scrunched her cheeks. “So, he won’t bring about the destruction you talked about?”
“When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. That is what the Lord says. He wants to forgive. He desires to forgive as his nature is to be loving. But he is also a holy God who cannot tolerate sin forever. There gets to a point where mankind is so depraved, where man’s mind and heart have turned so far from God, that the Lord has no choice but to bring judgment.”
“Have we reached that point?” she asked. Disbelief and fear mixed in her question but not in equal measure.
“Not yet,” Jeremiah said, “but we’re certainly headed that way.”
“I see.” She paused. A flock of pigeons lifted into the sky, their wings beating against the air. “And you say he’s going to destroy the nation because we commit adultery. Isn’t that a little unfair? I mean, what’s the big deal?” She hesitated. “Maybe those aren’t the right words. I get it that cheating on your spouse is wrong, but is that really so great a sin that he’s willing to bring drought and famine and disease and the sword on all of us? That is what you said, correct?”
“We commit two kinds of adultery,” Jeremiah said. “What we do physically is an indication of where our heart is, which is really where the issue lies. The biggest sin, what I would consider the worst sin we can commit, is turning from the one true God towards anything else. That’s spiritual adultery. Loving someone or something more than God.”
“Why does that bother him so much? Is he that petty, that jealous, that he can’t stand to see us happy with someone else?”
“He is a jealous God but not in the way you think. He’s jealous for our lives, our souls. He is the source of life, and there is no life without him. When we turn from him, it only hurts us. When we reject him, we break away from the only thing that can sustain us. He desperately wants us with him, but he loves us enough to set us free if we don’t love him back.”
The scratching stopped. Hurt now added to her disbelief and fear. “Does he love me?”
“Yes.”
“Even though I’ve ….”
“Yes, Lyn. He wants you to stop the affair, though.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“I took a guess,” he said.
“Yeah.”
The man in the gray overcoat dropped the cigarette to the ground and smashed it with the toe of his shoe.
“It’s hard, you know,” Lyn said.
“What is?” Jeremiah asked.
“He loves me. That’s what he tells me. He says he’s going to leave his wife for me. That I’m his soulmate, and we’re meant to be together. I’m never happier than when I’m with him. Doesn’t God want me to be happy?”
“He wants you to be happy but for real. You’re not actually happy, are you?”
“No.”
She brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Her eyes fixed on the images in her mind. Jeremiah waited until she was ready.
“Are you sure it’s not too late for me?” she said.
“I’m sure. Your heavenly father is waiting for you with open arms.”
“Is he going to abandon me too?”
Her last question haunted Jeremiah on the walk to Giovello’s. Would God really destroy the nation because of people like her? Was she the person he was sent to speak to? Would she listen and change? More than once, he raised those questions to God. No response came.
Lively chatter spilled from Giovello’s as soon as Jeremiah opened the door. Baruch waved him over to a table not far from the entrance. Rolls and a half-eaten appetizer waited.
“It took longer than expected,” Jeremiah offered.
“By the look on your face, it didn’t go well,” Baruch said.
“It did. Better than usual anyway. She seemed receptive. There was a guy, though, watching us the whole time. He followed me here. It could be a coincidence, but I don’t think so.”
Baruch searched the room. “Who is it?”
Jeremiah indicated with his chin. “The guy at the far end of the bar glowering at us. The one in the gray coat.”
“Do you know him?”
“Never seen him before as far as I remember. Then again, I have a huge fan club. It’s hard to keep track of all the members.”
“Any idea what he wants?”
“I’m sure we’ll find out before the evening’s over.”
The waitress took their order, her smile disappearing for an instant when she recognized Jeremiah, and left the two alone. Jeremiah picked at a roll. Small chunks formed into tiny balls between his fingers and fell on the plate. Baruch kept up a one-sided conversation, Jeremiah replying with one or two word answers until the waitress returned.
“Here you go, sweetie,” she said to Baruch. “There’s a little something extra in yours,” she told Jeremiah.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Baruch said as the waitress headed back to the kitchen.
“As long as it doesn’t kill me,” Jeremiah replied. He bowed his head to say grace and took a few tentative bites. “OK so far.”
Baruch tried to enjoy his meal, but with so many heads twisting to look at them, he found it difficult to do so. The man in the gray coat bothered him more than the rest. Before the lasagna retired from Baruch’s plate, the man had downed his fifth shot. His occasional stares became constant glares. Thoughts became plans became actions. His feet carried him towards the table.
“You’re that preacher Jeremiah,” the man slurred.
“My name is Jeremiah,” he said. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“I heard you talking to that girl.” Thick, dark brows fell over his bloodshot eyes. A scar along his hairline moved as he spoke. “The one in the plaza.”
“That conversation didn’t pertain to you,” Jeremiah said.
“You shouldn’t have been talking so loud.” His raised voice caught the attention of the tables closest to them. “You know, you’re a pervert,” he said, shoving Jeremiah lightly on the shoulder. “All you ever talk about is sex. About sex and … other things … you pervert.” The shot glass in his hand lifted to his mouth, the brown liquid vanishing in a single swallow.
“OK. Well, now that you’ve had your say, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave us alone to finish our meal.”
“I can’t do that, pervert.”
The room whispered around them. People tapped their friends and pointed towards Jeremiah. The man persisted with his drunken barrage.
“Where do you get off telling us what’s right and wrong? Who stepped down and made you God?”
Jeremiah put the fork down and wiped the corners of his mouth. “Apparently, you have an issue with something I said. Would you care to discuss it?”
“You said that girl was going to hell, all because she had sex.”
“I never said anything remotely close to that.”
“Yeah, you did. You got all in her business and told her God hates her.”
“Once again, those words never came out of my mouth.”
“So, you claim ….” He steadied himself on the back of a chair next to him. “You claim there is no hell. That God doesn’t punish people who like sex.”
“If you’re asking me if there is a hell, then yes there is. Does God send people there? No. We choose to go there willingly. It all depends on whether or not we accept the sacrifice his son made on our behalf, on whether or not we love this world more than we love God.”
“Eternal hellfire because of sex. What a stupid notion.” He released the chair and swayed. An accusatory finger shook at Jeremiah. “An uptight God and his perverted prophet, banishing people to an eternity of flames over something natural.”
“Some people’s punishment will be worse than others,” Jeremiah said, his eyes narrowing. “The willfully disobedient, for example. Those who teach others to commit the sin they do.”
“What are you talking about?” The man’s words hissed out.
“You are unrepentant in your sins. You lie down with other men and will receive the due penalty in your body. You teach others your abomination and lead them to do the same and worse.”
The man’s face turned red. “I don’t … what you say isn’t ….”
“Right now, a man, barely more than a boy, waits in your apartment to do things with you no men should do together.”
The man stuttered a few times and became silent. Both his face and his neck flushed. A woman at the closest table spoke up.
“Why don’t you mind your own business? He’s not hurting anyone. What he does is none of your concern.”
The rest of the patrons murmured their agreement. The mood spread throughout the room like an angry rumor, growing and expanding until it developed into a caricature of itself. Cries of ‘pervert’ and worse repeated and swelled, an incoming tide of repressed emotions releasing. The restaurant manager set a direct course for their table.
“It’s time for you to leave,” he said. “The meal’s on the house.” He pulled at the back of Baruch’s chair and pointed towards the exit.
Baruch and Jeremiah headed outside but not before receiving a host of jeers and a few beer showers. When they stepped through the door, the inside erupted in applause. Jeremiah wiped the alcohol from his shirt.
“You get used to that,” he said to a wide-eyed Baruch.
“You were a little rough on him,” Baruch chided.
“Is that what you believe?” Jeremiah asked.
“What people do behind closed doors, what is that to me?”
“You can follow God or man,” Jeremiah said, “but you can’t follow both. Make your choice.”
Baruch’s gaze followed Jeremiah down the street.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jeremiah sat on his sofa, his head in his hands. His heart pounded. He took deep breaths to control the fear which raged inside. For an hour he sat before he could formulate the words.
“Oh, God,” he cried out. “It is about to come.”
Through all the years of preaching, he had hoped the people would listen and repent. Hadn’t the Lord told him many times? Hadn’t the same words been given to the other faithful shepherds?
This people honors me with their lips,but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
His hope, a two-edged sword, sustaining him through the deepest droughts, piercing him now when he realized he had played the fool. Did it really come as a surprise?
All the fears, the despair, the betrayal, crashed down on him, a wave of helplessness penetrating to his marrow, to the lifeblood which flowed out of it.
“What am I to do, Lord? How will I survive this? You promised you would sustain me. How will any of us survive? For all they have done against you, they are my people, and I love them. If I am willing to forgive them, can’t you? Would you destroy them all? Would you destroy the good with the evil? Is there not anyone worth saving? Ben? Victoria? Lyn? Would you destroy the one who searches for you? Answer me, Lord. Will you be angry forever?”
I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For others seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
As for my people, I will take care of them in a way of my choosing. You, obey me.
“And Lyn?”
I have kept a remnant for myself. When my wrath has been satisfied, I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the places where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed. Thus, I declare.
My joy is gone;
no hope remains.
The Lord in his fierce wrath will strike the nation.
They have all strayed.
Every one has turned his back on him,
the righteous God, the savior who sustains life.
The harvest is past;
the summer has ended,
and the wheat has all been burned in the fire.
Only a few heads of grain remain standing.
Is there no one to restore my people?
Will they not turn
and be healed?
My people, my nation.
If only you would listen to his words. Jeremiah shut his journal and lay down on the couch. Sleep would not come for many hours.