2. Jeremiah understands public history as an arena of God’s free activity. He posits an important tension between the realities of public life ruled by God and the appearances of public life shaped by institutional claims. That tension is most easily recognized in the famous temple sermon (chap. 7). The temple is claimed to be a vehicle for God’s presence in the world, but it is shown to be a fraudulent form of escape for the special interests that practice social oppression and then use the protected