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Lamentations 4:11-14. A continuation of the lament over the fall of Zion. "The Lord gave full vent to his wrath, he poured out his anger" and consumed the very foundations of Zion. The other kings and inhabitants of the earth did not believe any enemy or any foe could ever enter the gates of Jerusalem, but God himself ended up punishing his people. And he did it "for the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed in the midst of her the blood of the righteous." They were blind to the truth and wandered through the streets defiled with blood.

 

There are a couple themes in this reading that keep coming up. First, when God's people are close to him, nothing can harm them. The kings and the people of the world know this. I think this explains a lot of the suffering that the Jews have had to go through throughout history. People who are "of the world" and see only the things that it has to offer as being of value do not understand people of true faith who do not bend for power, status, money, or other things the worldly people have amassed and want respect for. So the worldly, consciously or not, feel a kind of jealousy toward the faithful ("Why don't they want what we want? Why aren't they jealous of what we have?") and try to drag them down.

 

If the faithful remain faithful then they have nothing to fear - they have chosen God as their shield and protector and they will be protected. But if the faithful allow themselves to be "secularized," adopting the values, morals, and ways of the worldly, then they forego God's protection and bad things happen. The world does not stop being envious of them, so once it brings them down to its level, it will eventually unleash its own wrath on them, but they will no longer have God's protection so they will suffer - much more than others who never knew God, because the world does not feel the same wrath and envy towards people who have always been pursuing wordly things.

 

Secondly, priests and prophets have a calling to speak the Truth to people. They are given certain blessings and gifts, and while they must speak God's words, they must be very careful to speak God's words only, and not their own. It is sometimes easy for them to feel a certain pride - that they know all that God wants and thinks because he has, in a limited way, revealed to them some of what he wants to be revealed to his people. This becomes very dangerous and can lead God's people very far astray.

 

Thus, prophets and priests often end up falling into the "worldly trap" discussed above - they preach the world's values as God's, and they confuse the people, leading them astray. Then, having been dragged down to the world's level, they feel the same kind of wrath and envy towards the truly righteous - people who are actually following God's ways, even though those ways don't match what the world and the priests are saying.

 

We can see this happening today with priests who are trying to teach the Truth and find ways to feed their flocks during this time of crisis being punished for speaking out against the lies we are being told, while priests who teach things that are absolutely contrary to the Truth, but are what the world wants to hear, are left alone or just mildly rebuked.

 

This is the "shedding of blood of the righteous" in the midst of the Church, the new Jerusalem. It will not go unpunished, I am afraid, but those who remain close to God will always be protected.