Reading: Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
The optimist sees the glass half full of water. The pessimist sees the glass of water half empty. Same picture, completely different approach. Each results in inaction. The Optimists look through their rose-coloured glasses and say, `All will be well`. Pessimists say, `Things aren`t going to change so why bother?` Both view lead to inaction

Optimists and pessimists abound. Anyone can be an optimist. Anyone can be a pessimist. But to be both at the same time is a very different matter. That is to be a prophet and we today desperately need prophets. A prophet is one who is concerned with the unravelling of the existing order and the replacing of it with a new order. Jeremiah is called to speak words that will demolish and devastate, and words that will heal and build up. Prophets are men and women who root out and replant, who criticise and create. Prophets offer hope for the future notwithstanding the hopelessness of the present. They do this because they believe there is an intentionality to history that cannot be avoided, an intentionality they call `God`. Prophets are neither pessimists nor optimists. They are people of faith.

The passage we read this morning is a cry from the heart of the prophet about `business as usual` in the face of death and destruction. There is an indifference to death and destruction within Israel – as indeed there is within our world. I felt like Jeremiah the other day when I saw a cartoon on the US withdrawal from Iraq. The sign at the border reads: `Iraq – please leave it as you found it` and one of the soldiers is saying, `Give or take a million or so deaths, we pretty much did that`. The senseless slaughter indeed makes my eyes a fountain of tears as I weep for the slain of the Iraqi people. The pessimist says, `That`s life`. The optimist says, `All will be well in the long run`. And the prophets grieve over the situation and commit themselves to doing something about it.

Prophets are those who see hope in history – notwithstanding the agony of the present situation. They see the present situation in terms of alternatives. They are people who think and live in terms of alternatives; people who refuse to see the system as the solution and who point to alternative perception of reality and live out that alternative.

Anyone can be a pessimist. Anyone can be an optimist. What the world desperately needs today are prophets – people who assert that the present system is not worthy, and live and work for an alternative.