“Trembling but Obedient”
Jeremiah 1:4-10
N. T. Wright (commenting on the life and ministry of
Jesus): In every
gospel reading, not least [today’s reading from Luke], we see another facet of
his own prophetic call, humbly obedient to God’s will, sternly opposed to the
rulers of this age, gently building and planting new life, new hope. The way to discover contemporary vocation is
to stand in [Christ’s] presence, trembling but obedient.
[prayer]
In
the Twentieth Chapter of the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, Jeremiah utters
these words: “If I say, ‘I will not
mention him [The Lord], or speak any more in his name’, then within me there is
something burning like a fire shut up in my bones; I am weary of holding it
in.” Jeremiah had reached one of
those points in his prophetic mission where he was tired of being heckled and
abused by the very people to whom he has been called by God to preach. He didn’t want to do it anymore. He’d had it.
He had come to believe that God’s call to him was something akin to
seduction or rape, something he’d been tricked or forced into doing against his
will.
And
yet he could not quit doing it. He
couldn’t stop proclaiming God’s Word.
God’s message to
Jeremiah
never wanted to be a prophet in the first place. That was not the future he envisioned for
himself. He didn’t want the hassles that
came with speaking God’s Truth to people who mostly didn’t want to hear
it. Yet some time around his eighteenth
birthday God called him.
And
that call wasn’t some last minute, capricious act on the part of God. It was something that had been in God’s plans
for a long, long time – since before Jeremiah had been born or even
conceived.
How
did Jeremiah respond? Pretty much like
any eighteen year-old would: “I can’t do
this! I’m too young and
inexperienced. I’ve had no
training. I’ve acquired no skills for
the task at hand.” To which the Lord
God responded in verse seven from The Message, “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a boy’.
I’ll tell you where to go and you’ll go there. I’ll tell you what to say and you’ll say
it. Don’t be afraid of a soul. I’ll be right there looking after you.” And then, as a way of closing the deal,
The Lord reached out and touched Jeremiah’s mouth, literally putting his words
into his mouth – words that would burn within him for the rest of his life!
Was
it a smooth ride? No. Jeremiah would spend his entire ministry
fussing and feuding with, and complaining to God. There were to come days when Jeremiah not only
wished that he’d never been called, but wished that he’d never even been
born. He wasn’t God’s happiest camper. He was however one of God’s most faithful and
obedient servants. He didn’t want to
preach. He didn’t like to preach. He didn’t really care for all the abuse and
hardship that came with preaching. But
when push came to shove he was obedient; he went where God sent him and said
what God told him to say.
Some
of God’s greatest Old Testament prophets resisted God’s call. Moses thought that he couldn’t speak well
enough. Isaiah believed himself not to
be pure enough. Jonah was too stubbornly
self-righteous to proclaim God’s word of grace to people he hated.
What
did God do? He provided Moses with an
eloquent brother who would speak for him.
He symbolically burned any existing impurities out of Isaiah's mouth. He saw to it that Jonah had an up close and
personal encounter with a whale. Each of
them initially resisted God’s call. All
of them eventually answered it.
In
this morning’s Gospel lesson Jesus caused some consternation on the part of the
religious leaders of the day by breaking some silly rules that had nothing to
do with God’s original purpose in proclaiming the Sabbath as a day of rest and
worship. Did he pay a price for breaking
those rules? Indeed he did. Did that stop him? No, it didn’t. God’s will came first even when he knew that
doing that will would lead him to a cross.
God called. He answered.
A
story that I hope isn’t too personal.
Along about my sophomore year in college, when I was nineteen years old,
I started sensing the first stirrings of God’s call to ordained ministry in the
Presbyterian Church. I resisted. O how I resisted! I had no use for this preacher business. My life plans were pretty much set, and going
to seminary was not included in them. I
did not want to be a minister.
Be
that as it may, the sense of call persisted, as did my resistance to it. I finished college and started teaching. That blew up in my face. I went back to retailing, to doing what I
thought I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
But I wasn’t happy as I thought I would be. That ministry thing just would not leave me
alone!
So
one night I decided to show God just how unfit for ministry. I went out and got drunk. In the wee hours of the morning, after my bed
stopped spinning, I blurted out into the darkness, “See, God, I’m not who you want for this ministry thing.” I did not hear an actual voice, but in my
head I heard God saying as clear as day, “You
wanna bet.”
I
wish that I could tell you that I lived happily ever after. Can’t do it.
I went to seminary. I mostly
enjoyed it, but over the Christmas break of my first year I seriously
contemplated quitting. My degree in
Marketing Education hadn’t quite prepared me for the complexity of theological
thought.
Bedeviled
by my doubts and insecurities I returned to seminary. In February of that year I was introduced to
the Old Testament by Dr. James Mays.
Ta-da! The light came on. I fell in love with that stuff. The rest of the year went okay. I had a great summer of fieldwork following
it. I knew that I was doing what I was
supposed to be doing.
I
graduated. I accepted my first
call. I was ordained. Still there was no happily ever after. There lurked within me a spiritual and
emotional immaturity rebellious that caused me to do and say some really stupid
things. Those things eventually brought
me into conflict with some elders. That
and my ongoing inner conflict with my calling led me to try to walk away from
ministry. My basic message to God was, “I’m outa here! See, I tried to tell you that I didn’t belong
in ministry. Whatdaya have to say about
that?”
Well, God didn’t say anything.
He simply let me deal with the emptiness that came into my life. In time I realized that I could not not be a
minister. Some of Jeremiah’s fire burned
in my bones. I knew where I belonged. More than that I knew that being there
required a level of spiritual and emotional maturity that I did not
possess. So I went back to preaching,
and in time, grew up. Meeting
We all resist God’s call. We all
have our excuses. We all deal with an
ongoing inner struggle between faithfulness and rebellion. But through the saving faith made available
to us in our crucified and risen Lord and the power of God’s Holy Spirit we can
reach that place where we’re ready to surrender to God - to go where he wants
us to go, do what he wants us to do, and say what he wants us to say.
We’re not all called to the office of Minister of Word and
Sacrament. But each and every baptized
and confirmed Christian is called to serve God in some capacity. Each and every congregation of God’s people
is called to proclaim the Good News about Jesus Christ by word, deed, and
attitude. And in almost every case
obediently answering that call will require us to step out of our individual
and congregational comfort zones.
Do we have excuses for not doing so?
Well, we think we do. “I’m too young or I’m too old. I’m too busy or I’m too tired. I’m not ready or fit to fill a church
office. I can’t do this or I can’t do
that. Yada yada yada!” Those are just a few of our individual
responses to God’s call. But what about
congregations? What are their
excuses? “We’re too small. We don’t have
enough money. We’re afraid of upsetting
this, that, or the other member. The
people in our church’s neighborhood don’t look or sound or dress like we do.” And the most often heard congregational
excuse? “We’ve never done it that way before.” Thus we hide our fear of change by making up
insincere excuses or clinging idolatrously to tradition. Ultimately
it all boils down to being too scared to make the changes God is calling us to make
in our individual lives or the life of a congregation.
God knows we’re scared, but he never calls us to do what he doesn’t
empower or equip us to do. As he once
told Jeremiah he still tells us, “Do not
be afraid… for I am with you to deliver you.”
And our only faithful response is to stand before God, usually
trembling in fear, and joining with Isaiah in obediently saying to God, “Here I am; send me.” Amen.