Charles M Schulz, creator of the cartoon series "Peanuts" shows Linus talking to a brick wall, pleading for a greater effort at living together in peace and harmony. Obviously, the brick wall does not answer him. He then tries the same speech on his sister, Lucy, for whom it is actually meant, and he meets with the same hard silence. He then says to his friend, Charlie Brown, "You're right... Talking to Lucy is like talking to a brick wall!"

This cartoon portrays what God must have felt when talking to His own people, so much so that He called upon Jeremiah to warn them of the need for a radical change of heart. He had promised them their inheritance as His people. All that was required of them was obedience to His Instructions to "follow right to the end the way that I will mark out for you and you will prosper" (v. 23). They "did not listen, they did not pay attention, they followed the dictates of their own evil hearts" (v. 24). Their worship of Him was insincere because they had turned to alien gods, and in their stubbornness refused to mend their ways

The last sentence of today's Gospel Reading sums up this attitude of the Jews of Jeremiah's time as well as the Jews of Jesus' time who accused Jesus of casting out devils through Beelzebul i.e. through black magic. Jesus says here, "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters."