Jeremiah 1:4-10
I have probably preached on this Jeremiah text more than any other scripture passage. "Christians: Builders and Destroyers" was the first one, although I never actually preached it. I wrote it for a preaching class while in seminary. The title of the paper itself was: "Prophets: Builders and Destroyers." It had to do with the necessary but unpopular role of prophets as religious gurus of situations in life that need to be changed and the sometimes necessary task of destruction in order to bring about the perceived change. It was a product of the times - full of protest language and the challenge of that day - the early 70's.
Another one I shared while I was on the staff in Urbana. I titled that one: "The Call to All and the Gall of the Call." I've always been quite proud of that catchy title! But, I also liked the thoughts the text invited me to explore back then. It dealt with the nerve of God to call people who don't want to be called and the reality that we are all called people - everyone of us.
I couldn't find this sermon on my jump drive. That usually means I prepared it prior to it being possible to save sermons digitally. Recently I've been having people retrieve these early sermons from the file cabinet where I have stored every sermon I ever preached. So, I had my cousin go on a scavenger hunt for me last week.
Do you know what we discovered? It was handwritten! You younger folks probably aren't aware of this, but there was a day when cutting and pasting was actually done with a pair of scissors and real paste or sometimes staples! Presenting those sermons sometimes involved me having to read notes in parenthesis that told me where I was to go to find the next paragraph! Creating techniques aside, I had great hopes for that sermon - but the most creative and helpful part of it, I have to admit, was in the title. (I've typed it up so I don't ever have to look it up again. However, I didn't throw away the handwritten hardcopy! It's a keepsake of my terrible handwriting and BC sermons - oh, before computers!)
Then there's the one I recently posted on my blog: "God's Cure of an Inferiority Complex" comparing my own call and response to that of Jeremiah's. That's probably the subject this passage has most often activated in my heart and mind.
That's the wonder of working with the scriptures - the variety of messages we are able to glean from the same passage depending on what's going on in our own lives and/or around us. A few years back I was reading this passage and I couldn't help but reflect on the numerous conversations I had heard over the years in the lives of people wanting to understand this religious concept of call. People have openly and comfortably reflected on the personal calls they were experiencing and their pondering what it all had to do with the call of the congregation - the corporate call. Frankly, I often didn't sense the question was really any longer, "Is that you, God?" - but rather, "What do you want us to do, God?" "What do you want us to be, God?" "We know you are calling us to a new thing/place - we know we are yours - we just want to get going."
I remember in one of those churches an interesting aspect of that phenomena was that the church found itself at that place in history at the same time the community at large needed people and institutions to step forward and sound a message of hope - it needed to believe that new life could be breathed into dry bones - old buildings - old turf wars - old issues. It needed to hear or experience or sense a vision of what the positive possibilities were. Could it be that God might want to use the church? Could God be calling the church to be the embodiment of that prophecy? I thought at the time it was an interesting thought and the church was in a position to embark on a wonderful journey of exploration with the larger community.
"Is that you, God?" wasn't actually Jeremiah's question either. He knew it was God creating the tension he was experiencing in his soul. He knew it was God providing the thoughts that were coming into his mind about the situations his people were facing. As Jeremiah thought back to when it all began he described his encounter with God as a conversation in which God announced to him that his lot had been cast even before he had been born. "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." What Jeremiah came to understand was that there was no mistake who had issued the call on his life and that it was not something he had desired for himself. His call was both unmistakable and unsolicited.
What we need to understand is that this is not just an explanation about Jeremiah's reality. It is our reality also. All of us are known by God before we are born - God is the initiator of all of life. We are formed - we are known - we are consecrated - we are appointed before we are even conceived. We are a people of the call - all of us. St. Augustine phrased it in a prayer this way: "Thou has made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee." The question is not is God knocking on the door of our lives, but how and when in our freedom will we hear the call and respond.
No, Jeremiah's question was not, "Is it you, God?" - he just didn't want the role. He didn't think he was the right one for the task - "Come on, God - surely you jest - you must not know what you are doing - you must have me confused with someone else." And he made some excuses: "Remember, Lord, I'm only a kid. I'm no public speaker. No one's going to listen to me, Lord."
In his book Anguished English, Richard Lederer has a chapter listing excuses parents have written to schools explaining their children's absences:
"Teacher, please excuse Mary for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot. Mary's mom."
"My son is under doctor's care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him."
"Please excuse my son's tardiness. I forgot to wake him up and did not find him until I started making the beds."
"Please excuse Ray from school. He has very loose vowels."
"Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father's fault." (1)
Excuses, excuses.
Many years ago I read the little book "Are You Joking, Jeremiah?" In the book the author tries to capture some of the humor that might have been part of this encounter between God and Jeremiah - especially Jeremiah's reluctance:
"God, there must be some mistake.
I can't do work like that.
After all,
I'm only in my teens
Sporting jeans
And lounging on the rooftops.
I've had no training
In diplomacy or politics,
In how to speak,
Or how to pray in public.
You'll soon be sorry, God,
If you pick someone like me.
Well, God?
Well, can't you see?" (2)
William Quick, former senior pastor of Metropolitan Church in Detroit, wrote that the three worst words in the english language are "I am only..." "I am only a teen - I am only 5' 2" - I am only a resident of ... - I am only a graduate of the eighth grade - I am only a Croy - I am only ...."
It seems to be one of the characteristics of those God calls into service. Moses said: "I'm not smart enough." Saul said about David: "He's not strong enough." Isaiah said: "I'm not holy enough." And Jeremiah claimed: "I'm not old enough."
And we, well, we claim busyness: "I just don't have the time." We claim lack of discernment: "If God would just tell me what He wants me to do - if God would just be a little clearer, I'd do it." We claim lack of skills: "I just can't stand in front of people - I don't know my Bible well enough - I don't know how to hold a saw." We claim other priorities: "I have to work - my kids are in so much - I serve on so many other committees in the community."
Now, to be fair to Jeremiah, prophets did have a difficult role in life. Jeremiah knew enough about prophets to know what was coming. He had reason to be afraid - to be reluctant. And maybe that's our situation as well. We know what God is calling us to is not going to be easy for the most part - that we are going to have to make some sacrifices - that there will be changes in our family life. And we really want the question to be: "Is that you, God?" We hope God has made a mistake - will ask someone else. We hope those urgings in our heart and mind are really signs of an upset stomach and not God-nudgings.
But lo and behold, Jeremiah does prophecy. The reluctant, ill-equipped one does it anyway. In Frederick Buechner's book "Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who" he describes Jeremiah's activity like this: "There was nothing in need of denunciation that Jeremiah didn't denounce. He denounced the king and the clergy. He denounced recreational sex and extramarital jamborees. He denounced the rich for exploiting the poor, and he denounced the poor for deserving no better. He denounced the way every new god that came sniffing around had them all (falling all over one another to follow); and right at the very gates of the temple he told them that if they thought God was impressed by all the mumbo-jumbo that went on in there, they ought to have their heads examined.
"When some of them took to indulging in a little human sacrifice on the side, he appeared with a clay pot which he smashed into smithereens to show them what God planned to do to them as soon as He got around to it. He even denounced God Himself for saddling him with the job of trying to reform such a pack of hyenas, degenerates, ninnies." (3)
And wow, did Jeremiah pay for saying what God wanted him to: He was beaten - thrown in jail - thrown in an open cistern with, well, stuff up to his armpits - and tradition has it that his own people finally stoned him to death. Knowing that this was what he was in for, why did he do it? Why did he keep seeking God's will for his life? What happened to cause this teenager who suffered from an inferiority complex to be willing to put up with public ridicule time and time again?
Again from the book "Are You Joking, Jeremiah?" we hear God answer Jeremiah's plea:
"Keep quiet son,
Don't answer me like that.
Don't say you're only in your teens,
For you will go wherever I decide,
And you will say
The words which I supply.
Don't be afraid
Of anyone at all,
For they are just as scared as you
If you could see inside
Their hardening hearts
And hardening arteries.
And more than that,
Don't be afraid to fail,
As most people seem to be,
For I am with you
Even when you do.
Yes, I am,
I am." (4)
You see, God didn't just call Jeremiah to the role of prophet - God equipped him - provided him the resources to carry out the work. Jeremiah became a prophet of God because God let Jeremiah know S/He had confidence in him - S/He had his back. S/He reassured Jeremiah that he truly was who S/He wanted and that S/He knew he could do the job. If God is calling us, God has confidence in us and we will be able to do the job.
Jeremiah became a prophet of God because God promised to be with him. God practices "presence ministry." God doesn't just call us to go out and take on the world alone - God promises that with the summons comes assurance - strength -encouragement - rescuing presence. Oh, people, if God is calling us, God will be with us wherever we minister.
Jeremiah became a prophet of God because he realized that he was no more inept than anyone else. Everyone in life is among the walking wounded. Everyone has self-doubts. What you feel is no different than what others feel. People of God, the world is in need of the wounded healers to walk among them that they might sense they are O.K. just the way they are. If God is calling us, then God can use our walking woundedness to make us be the wounded healers the world needs.
And then, I think Jeremiah became a prophet because God acknowledged that He expected failure. At no point does God promise Jeremiah success in his work. God only calls him to obedience - no promise of popularity - only a promise of being with us. Faithfulness is the call - not success - process, not results. Yes, friends, we will often fail in our attempts to follow the call of God - others surely will make fun - some will turn away. We may not feel rewarded for our efforts - but, that's not what obedience and faithfulness is all about.
So, what about this thing we refer to as call - what is it?
In the Servant Leadership effort that helped form many of my more recent attitudes about life in the church and the community at large, one of the several books that I found exceptionally helpful was the book Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community. The authors note several things about call that I think help:
"People call us to get our attention, to make contact with us, to draw us closer to them. So it is with God. A call may come as a gradual dawning of God's purpose for our lives. It can involve an accelerating sense of inner direction. It can emerge through a gnawing feeling that we need to do a specific thing. On occasion, it can burst forth as a sudden awareness of a path that God would have us take." (5)
"God calls each of us. There are a variety of calls, and no one call is inherently better or higher than any other. The call of a priest, monk, or nun, however sacred, is, in and of itself, not superior to the call of an architect designing a house, a mechanic repairing a car, or a nurse caring for the sick. It is our faithfulness to God and not our station in life that honors call." (6)
"God speaks to us through the language of everyday events. Each new moment of life, each new situation, the present condition of a person or community, of events, time, place, people, and circumstances - all hold clues to God's call. Thus, we often find our calls in the facts, circumstances, and concrete experiences of daily life." (7)
"Not only is every call unique, but the hearing of every call is unique also. One sign that God may be calling is a certain restlessness, a certain dissatisfaction with things as they are. Other signs of God's call may be a sense of longing, yearning, or wondering; a feeling of being at a crossroads; a sense that something is happening in one's life, that one is wrestling with an issue or decision; a sense of being in a time of transition; or a series of circumstances that draw one into a specific issue." (8)
"While role models are helpful, we are not called to copy other people. Rather, we are to become fully the people God created us to be, living our own lives in response to our own calls - as Jesus lived out his life faithful to God's cal for him. So it is that hearing one's call is akin to discovering one's self." (9)
"Call usually involves service or benefit to others. In fact, a sense of call may be suspect if it does not involve service." (10)
Finally, through the journey of faith venture the authors of this little book came to define it as "the experience of being led by God into ministry that would meet a need in the lives of others." (11)
The question is not: "Is that you, God?" The question is: "will we be obedient - will we follow - will we fulfill God's call on our lives - as individuals and as the corporate/institutionalized church?"
Peace, friends, as we all continue to live in tension call and our lives!
1. Richard Lederer, Anguished English (Layton, UT: Gibbs-Smith, Publisher, ebook, 2006), pp. 29-34.
2. Norman Habel, Are You Joking, Jeremiah? (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing Co., 1967).
3. Frederick Buechner, Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who (San Francisco: Harper, 1979), 66-68.
4. Habel.
5. Suzanne G. Farnham, Joseph P. Gill, R. Taylor McLean, Susan M. Ward, Listening Hearts: Discerning Call in Community (New York: Morehouse Publishing, ebook, 1991), 177/1905.
6. Ibid., 186/1905.
7. Ibid., 186/1905.
8. Ibid., 211/1905.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., 224/1905.
11. Ibid.,
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