Ramah

The Song of our exile

Thus says the Lord:
“A voice is heard in Ra’mah
lamentation and bitter weeping.
Rachel is weeping for her children;
she refuses to be comforted for her children
because they are not.”
Jeremiah 31:15

Where is Ra’mah? What is its significance here? As the wife of Israel mourns and weeps for her children who are not comforted, what is afflicting them?

According to my Ignatius Catholic Study Bible that lives on my desk Ramah is not where Rachel is living, but rather is a point of departure during the time that the prophet Jeremiah is prophesying. Ramah is the place where Babylonian soldiers would gather that captives of Judah for the long journey into exile. Rachel is mourning the loss of these children. This verse is also invoked during the slaughter of the innocents after the birth of Jesus, as literal children are put to the sword as a power obsessed tryant lays waste to the people he is supposed to rule in a desperate attempt to destory the new found hope born to the people. Good thing that history never repeats itself.

But at the departure point of exile we here the voice of the mother of Israel crying out in despair for what must come to pass. Exile has become necessary for the people of Israel because they have forgotten what it is that they were commanded to do, and who they were commanded to be. They forgot the “Lord their God who brought them up from the land of Egypt.” and decided to go after foreign gods and to worship idols and idol things.

It is not altogether amazing to me what happens when we forget our neighbors, and we forget ourselves; who we are commanded to be. It seems as though, time and time again, humanity just…forgets. We forget that it is only one unforeseen tragedy that separates the fortunate from the unfortunate. Only one reversal of fortune that can create discomfort, poverty, and squalor. That whatever temporary temporal comforts we enjoy now can be completely stipped away from us and we become like those who are forgotten, trampled upon, and left laying in front of our gates begging for mercy.

And I name this sin: pride. It is pride that causes the powerful to crush the weak under their heels. It is pride that causes us to store up for ourselves treasures here. It is pride that causes us to cast our aspersions on those who do not have what we have because they don’t work hard enough. It is pride, it is idolatry, and it is sin.

Our tribal tendencies, that is, to bifurcate, trifurcate, and further divide ourselves into “us” and “them” is a self fulfilling prophecy. The more we divide, and the more people who fall into the gaps of division, the more diminished we become. The more we refuse to push back against injustices and inequalities the more people will end up under the boot of the oppressors and we need not be surprised when we find ourselves staring up at the tread of the hobnail boot that is coming down on our own necks. The more the lies of Satan continue to convince us that we are better than someone else the more we will suffer and the more we will set the stage for our exile. The more we forget the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to be free the more enslaved we will become. The more we continue to live into the lie that “might is right,” and that a manifest destinity is the right of any nation, the more our own destinies will shift toward exile, destruction, and the loss of anything we thought a nation could be.

Thank goodness these are “only things that happen in scripture.” As if scripture itself were not written by those who were experiencing harrowing times because a people decided to forget who they set out to be, who God not only called, but empowered to be a nation set apart. Ramah is right down the road from where we are, and if we do not remember what caused the children of Rachel to go into exile, we ourselves will wake up to see we have been apprehended and sent into a strange land, with strange songs, and strange customs, for however long it takes for the tides to turn.

“Set up road signs;
put up guideposts.
Take note of the highway,
the road that you take.
Return, Virgin Israel,
return to your towns.
How long will you wander,
unfaithful Daughter Israel?
The Lord will create a new thing on earth—
the woman will return to the man.”
Jeremiah 31:21-22

We can come back from exile. But we also have to remember who we are supposed to be. Or our manifest destiny will be Ramah, and not the land of rest we have been offered by our God.