Jeremiah sees God at work in our lives and invites us to respond. God’s presence draws us into deep communion with God and the loving purposes that infuse all of creation. We may be tempted to read this assertion in individualistic terms—God the potter seeking to make something beautiful out of me, the clay. Okay, that’s there; but Isaiah offers us something more. God gets involved intimately with the kingdoms of this world, seeking to fashion goodness out of the collective life of humankind. God will do good for nations and kingdoms that renounce evil and seek good. But God will destroy nations and kingdoms that turn away from God. In other words, God does not ignore the political life of humankind. Jeremiah does not live in a democracy, so he does not provide this as an essay on responsible citizenship. Jeremiah reminds us that the way nations exercise political power cannot be removed from their spiritual life. The good or evil done by our state implicates us all.

And thus God through Jeremiah invites us to seek loving justice through our actions in the public sphere. We can do our part to seek the better in a public order that is neither perfectly good nor fully evil. Our faith calls us to care for the marginalized and victimized, to seek peace and reconciliation in the wake of violence, to recognize and relate to the hand of God even when others are given to cynicism, and to seek civility in public life.