Responding to God’s Word
August 3, 2014Does Religion Still Matter?
September 7, 201410
Aug.
2014
Not Just a Boy: The Prophet Jeremiah
In the popular TV show, The West Wing, Josh and Toby, two of the dedicated presidential staffers, are having an argument about the presidential nominee who will follow President Bartlet. The nominee is a man in whom Josh sees a good heart and strong character, with the gravitas to be a leader. But Toby questions his drive and leadership skills, saying that he’s not presidential material. Josh explains to Toby that when presented with the task at hand and the opportunity, the nominee stepped up. Toby passionately argues that “A man in that job shouldn’t have to be presented with anything: it’s for someone who grabs it and holds onto it, for someone who thinks the Gods have conspired to bring him to this place, that destiny demands of him this service. If you don’t have that kind of drive, that hubris, how are you going to make the kinds of decisions that stump every other person in the country? How are you going to hold that power in your hands?”
Josh interrupts him saying: “You don’t know that he’s not that man!” And Toby retort, “You don’t know that he is…” [i]
Now as much as I love Toby Zeigeler in The West Wing, I have to disagree with him on this, when talking about call, especially to one’s vocation. Sometimes, yes, one’s call is so strong that they know beyond the shadow of a doubt that they are in the right place at the right time, to do a specific task. And nothing can stop that feeling of synchronicity and momentum and divine inspiration to accomplish such a task or vocation.
But other times —a lot of times, it’s not that clear. There is a muddle of voices in our lives, and influences that drive decision. Often our callings are articulated in the subtle urging of a friend or a mentor, after much discernment and careful deliberation. But sometimes it’s a stranger, who speaks some truth into our lives, when we most need to hear it. And we don’t even understand it as a calling, until we look back over the course of events. Often it is years later when we begin to piece together an understanding of our journey and the way God’s hand was working and molding and shaping us. Or pushing and pulling us in one direction or another—this is the long view granted those who take the time to reflect on certain series of events in their lives.
So this hesitation to identify a calling, especially in ourselves, is normal. It’s true for Jeremiah; often it’s true for us, and for many who are identified and singled out for a particular role in the biblical story. It’s true also for the man that Josh and Toby were arguing about, but as Josh says in response to Toby— he stepped up! That’s part of the story too. When presented with the opportunity, he steps up to the task. The prophets step up to the task. They take on the mantle, the responsibility, the challenge of God’s word.
We see that the Hebrew Scriptures would more likely align with Josh’s understanding of vocational Calling, rather than Toby’s. Someone who is reluctant at first, like we saw last week with the prophet Jonah. But instead of running away from the task as Jonah did, typically after some reluctance and reassurance, the prophet steps up to the task. Scholars identify this objection as a feature of prophetic call narratives—a pattern even. After God initiates the Call, and the prophet objects, God reassures the prophet and finally God commissions them for the task at hand.
This pattern is present in the stories of Moses and the calling of Gideon and with variation it’s in Isaiah and Ezekiel’s stories and very clearly present in our passage for the day with the prophet Jeremiah.[ii]
That reluctance from the prophets perhaps reinforces that it is God who is doing this work, not the prophet.[iii] Thinking that he’s got it all under control.
It doesn’t matter to God that Jeremiah is reluctant, to take this kind of power into his hands. He says I am only a boy… I do not know how to speak… I don’t have any experience in this kind of thing. I’d rather just move along as I am … this seems really hard.
But God rejects that argument. In the call pattern, sometimes, God will chastise the prophet’s rejection. It’s less about the prophet and more about God. Here God says, “Do not say I am only a boy!” I formed you and I know you. And I promise to give you the words to speak, the courage to go out into the world and proclaim the words that I will give you. Even when it’s hard, and nobody wants to hear it. God know what we are capable of.
Jeremiah is not just a boy. Jeremiah is the right man for the job. God knows what he is capable of and continues with him through his journey, even though Jeremiah does not have an easy go of it. The last part of our scripture this morning foreshadows the story of what happens next. The plucking up and the pulling down, the destroying and the overthrowing… these are events seen in Jeremiah’s life time. Jeremiah is the prophet walking with the people in the years leading up to the destruction and fall of Jerusalem in the year 587 and he continues to write to them and speak prophetic words to them as they enter into the Babylonian exile.
Jeremiah and the other prophets are not fortune tellers, but the words Go gives him so deeply and intimately intertwine him in relationship and conversation with God that he can anticipate the future God will give, Jeremiah clearly sees the path they are walking as they head towards destruction.[iv] Which causes him to plead and to pray with them to recite long oracles to them and, eventually, to weep for them and lament their fate.
That message, as you might expect, met resistance. The people did not like him calling them to change their ways, to turn from their idolatries and worship of other gods, their disloyalty to God. People resist change. It’s human nature to like the way things are. We like the way we’ve always done things. When this Jeremiah comes in threatening the status quo, calling them out for their behavior… he is met with resistance, and treated poorly, plotted against, beaten and imprisoned.
So when Jeremiah gets fed up with it, he turns back to God, asking. Why are you doing this? The people reject me, mistreat me. I’d rather just keep my mouth shut…
After a particularly rough persecution by a priest where he was beaten and locked in the stocks in the temple (Jeremiah 20:2)
He calls out to the Lord, ready to quit the whole pursuit.
I have become a laughing-stock all day long;
everyone mocks me.
For whenever I speak, I must cry out,
… For the word of the Lord has become for me
a reproach and derision all day long.
[but] If I say, ‘I will not mention him,
or speak any more in his name’,
then within me there is something like a burning fire
shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
and I cannot. (Jeremiah 20:7-9)
Think about those times when you’ve bitten your tongue or couldn’t find the right words to say. Sometimes it’s on a big level of societal injustice, or more often it’s those everyday interactions we see and overhear. Someone getting picked on or made fun of, someone being rude or mean. When we want to say something, we try to say something, but the words stick in our throat … and the moment passes, the opportunity is gone, but we still feel it and carry the moment with us, wishing we had done something about the situation.
Jeremiah says here that those words unspoken become like a burning fire, shut up in his bones and holding those words in make him more weary than speaking, despite the consequences.
There is a muddle of voices in this world. Calling us in so many directions. Sometimes it’s hard to hear the truth among them, to discern which to follow and which will lead us down the wrong path. This was true also in Jeremiah’s time. There were prophets speaking all kinds of things, some false words, assuring the people they were doing okay. But Jeremiah, as a true prophet spoke against the norm. He spoke a foreboding word that was proven only over time. It was countercultural, and it was isolating for him.[v] Even his close friends were watching and waiting for him to stumble and whispered about him, and laughed at him (20:10).
Those protests and reluctance from the prophet at the beginning, were a real thing! He is vindicated as a true prophet only in the end of the story that he never gets to see. After the words were collected and oracles remembered[vi] by those who survived the fall of Jerusalem, those who went into exile who got the opportunity for the look back, the long view. It’s like the Oscar Romero prayer that says we plant the seeds that one day will grow. We may never see the end results, but that’s the difference between the master builder and the worker.[vii]
At first the people heard the word and rejected it; but as the faithful persevered in the exile, the letters Jeremiah wrote to them brought words of hope. There is an often quoted scripture from the prophet Jeremiah, that comes from one of these letters. He writes to the exiled and encourages them to live fully in the land to which they are exiled, to set up their lives there, not to give up, but persevere in faithfulness to the God who calls to them. Jeremiah’s letter from chapter 29 tells the exiles: “For surely I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord, “plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” (29:11).
This is the vision of the master builder not the workers.
Jeremiah continues to write letters during the exile. Here the message turns from despair. He offers “a word beyond the exile.”[viii] The long view. He offers hope, in the promises of God’s steadfastness, God’s constancy. Glimpses of transformation emerge in the story, among the weeping for the destruction of what once was… hope remains.
And the underlying truth is that it is not the prophet, but God who offers this message. It is God who effects transformation in our lives.[ix] It is God who offers restoration to our broken dreams and broken hearts and broken spirits. God is the one working in and through humankind, calling us and pulling us towards new understandings of ourselves, our community and our role in this world.
Each generation makes its own “connections between the reality of God and its own life in the world.”[x] For that first generation it was not to give up, but to live fully in the land where they were exiled, not to turn away from God, but to learn to live and worship God in new ways, not from a central temple where God dwelt before, but in their everyday lives, their comings and goings.
And in our generation, it is our task to look for those glimpses of God—those loud and clear callings and those soft and gentle urgings.
Identify those glimpses of hope and opportunities for truth telling in our time, in our communities, moving towards a God who is steadfast throughout the generations. As we persistently intertwine ourselves in God’s story, our stories become stories of transformation. Of new hope and new life and new energy . . . sometimes even from the midst of despair. When we intertwine ourselves with God’s story, we become a part of that hope, of those plans that God has for us, and for all of humanity. Amen.
[i] Undecideds, The West Wing, Season 07, Episode 08. Warner Bros. Television. Aired 4 December 2005.
[ii] Bruce C. Birch. Jeremiah 1:4-10, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 3. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. (Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press: 2010), 365.
[iii] Steadgald, 366.
[iv] Brueggemann, 161.
[v] Thomas R. Steagald. Jeremiah 1:4-10, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 3. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. (Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press: 2010), 366.
[vi] Brueggemann, 159.
[vii] Prayer attributed to Oscar Romero. However it was written by Bishop Ken Untener of Saginaw. http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/prayers-and-devotions/prayers/archbishop_romero_prayer.cfm, accessed (9 August 2014).
It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent
enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of
saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the Church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an
opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master
builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
[viii] Birch, 369.
[ix] Steadgald, 366.