Jeremiah 1: 4-10
Exodus 4: 1-3, 10-13
Genesis 12: 1-5
I remember my first day at school. Seminary that is!
I had driven three hours to get to my first class by 9:00 am in Newton
Centre, MA. I had a brand new
Bible, paper and pencil to take notes and my class schedule. I hadn’t been to school in 23 years. I was to take a course in the Book of
Judges from the Old Testament and a survey course in the New Testament. I already knew who my professors were
going to be.
A group of us new students sat down for lunch to get to know
one another. It was scary and
intimidating I have to admit. Our
lunch conversations centered around getting to know one another through our
‘call’ stories. Or rather, what
(or who) made you come to seminary?
To be ‘called’ is a term that is used a lot in the field of
ministry. You trot off to seminary
and are asked to articulate how you were called by God to this ministry. And believe me there are some pretty UNbelievable
stories. I remember listening to
some of them and feeling so inadequate because my story really was unremarkable.
No flashes of lightening for me. No scales falling off of the lenses of my eyes. Just here I am Lord, here I am – I get
it now. It was merely a feeling
that became more and more pronounced as the years wore on until I could no
longer ignore it and all seemed to be in place, more or less. I had three young kids in tow as a
single mom when I trotted off to seminary.
The theme of call is articulated throughout your years as a
seminarian. First by fellow
seminarians, then by probing professors and ecclesiastical committees, by
curious congregants, and by those who, too, think they hear ‘the call’.
We are all called.
Like Abraham, Moses, Jeremiah, we are all called to a higher purpose in
our lives. We will explore these
three servants of God in scriptures today, all ‘call narratives’. What they
have in common is that they really are somewhat of a ‘rag-tag’ and ordinary
group of individuals who finally, in the end, give in!
The Call of Jeremiah from the Book of Jeremiah
The word of the Lord
came to me, saying,
“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.”
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
“Alas, Sovereign
Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too young.”
But the Lord said to
me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and
say whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and
will rescue you,” declares the Lord.
Then the Lord reached
out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in your
mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear
down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”
To make a long story short – God knew way before Jeremiah
was born that he was to be called.
When the opportunity is presented to Jeremiah, he argues with God, ‘I’m
way too young.” God argues back,
“Don’t say that, don’t worry, I’ll be with you, I’ll rescue you if needs
be.” The rest, they say, is
history! Jeremiah, of course,
prophecized at a raucous time in the history of Israel and he heralded a new
understanding of Yahwah to the people.
The Call of Moses from the Book of Exodus
Moses answered, “What
if they do not believe me or listen to me and say,
‘The Lord did not
appear to you’?”
Then the Lord said to
him, “What is that in your hand?”
“A staff,” he
replied.
The Lord said, “Throw
it on the ground.”
Moses threw it on the
ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it.
Moses said to the
Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the
past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and
tongue.”
The Lord said to him,
“Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives
them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you
speak and will teach you what to say.”
But Moses said,
“Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”
To make a long story short – Moses doubts that people would
believe him as a prophet but God demonstrates to Moses how he’ll be able to do
it. That didn’t work so Moses
argues that his speech is not so great.
God argues back, “Who gave you that mouth anyway?” Then God reassures, “Now go, don’t
worry, I’ll be with you.” The
rest, they say, is history! Moses,
of course, leads the people Israel out of Egyptian bondage, through the Red Sea
waters toward the land of milk and honey.
The Call of Abram from the Book of Genesis
Now the Lord said to
Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the
land that I will show you. I will
make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so
that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who
curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be
blessed." So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot
went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran. Abram
took his wife Sarai and his brother's son Lot, and all the possessions that
they had gathered, and the persons whom they had acquired in Haran; and they
set forth to go to the land of Canaan.
To make a long story short – God comes to Abram and his wife
Sarai (later Abraham and Sarah) and tells them when they were up in their
golden years to literally pull up stakes and move on. While it is not recorded that Abram k’vetched and argued, I
certainly would! You know when you
get older you just want to stay put.
But Abram followed God’s command, he moved and wandered and eventually
was made the father of many nations.
The rest, they say, is history.
Moses was slow of speech, Abram was just a plain old geezer,
Jeremiah just a happy go lucky, uneducated kid - all of them had something
going against them. Unlike the
candidates that we have just seen in the Republican and Democratic conventions
who can’t say enough good about themselves, the candidates that God calls are
quick to point out all of their faults and argue with God about their
qualifications.
But guess who wins?
God of course! It was once said
that, ‘the task does not depend on the leaders ability, but on the leader
depending upon God.’ No matter how
inadequate you might feel about yourself, the truth is with trust and faith in
God, you can accomplish a lot.
Which is true in all of these narratives, what God wanted
was someone who would rely on him, to depend on God with all their heart that
what they were being asked to do was within God’s realm of glory and plan, and
that they would be able to handle it or at least stick with it. God wanted someone who trusted that
their life was going to be used to the benefit of others. It didn’t matter their ability. That was secondary. What mattered was their faith.
And as the beautiful hymn from the Iona community says, ‘Take me as I am, summon out what I
shall be’. That is, take me just
exactly as I am today and call forth from me what you need, that is what I will
become and that is how I will live my life.
Being called by God doesn’t necessarily mean a life to
ministry. But it does mean
awakening others to God’s love by the life you lead.
Brother Roger of the Taize community in France asks, “Will
you, for your part, be one of those who open up the ways of the Risen
Christ? Or will you hesitate and
say, “Why do you ask me to prepare ways of the Gospel for others? Can’t you see that I am quite helpless,
like a child?” He later says, “You
awaken others to Christ above all by the life you lead…..You communicate the
life of the Risen Christ through a profound personal unselfishness, by
forgetting about yourself.”[i]
I do believe that if we are to call ourselves Christians it
means then that all of us are called to exemplify God’s love and forgiveness,
Christ’s unquenchable thirst for justice, and the Holy Spirit’s energy in our
every day world and each day that we live out. We are called to be.
And we are called to do.
Will you, through your actions, tell the Gospel that you
have been called to tell? Because
when you say, “Who Me?” God says, “Yeah! YOU!”
Amen!
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