Jeremiah 13:1-5: a reflection

God gives Jeremiah a strange thing to do: buy a linen belt, wear it around his waist, and then go bury it by the river. It is an enacted parable, and the meaning turns on the belt itself. A belt is worn close, wrapped snugly around the body, clinging to the waist. That closeness is the whole point. God explains later that as a belt clings to the waist, so he had made his people to cling to him, close, intimate, wrapped around him in love.

Notice what that image says about how God wants to be related to. Not at a distance, not as a formality kept at arm's length, but close, clinging, like a belt worn snug against the body. God did not make his people for a cool, occasional acquaintance with him; he made them to cling to him, near and constant, held tight to him in love. That is the intimacy he desires.

And that makes the tragedy of the parable, the belt buried and ruined, so poignant: his people had pulled away from the closeness they were made for. The image is worth sitting with as a question about our own walk with God. Are you clinging to him, close, snug, near, the way a belt clings to the waist? Or have you drifted to a comfortable distance, keeping him at arm's length? You were made for closeness with God, to cling to him. Draw near again, and cling.