God's calling
Text: Jeremiah 1:4-10
Have you ever noticed that with a great deal of Biblical characters, particularly with the Old Testament, none of them ever seem to want to take on what God calls them to? They always seem to provide a litany of excuses as to why they’re not suitable for the task, and that really God should be looking for someone else… someone better suited than they. When Moses encounters God in the burning bush, he’s pretty blunt… tells God off and says, “please, send someone else!” Yet we know how that turned out. Moses is basically dragged kicking and screaming back to Egypt where he confronts pharaoh, and it leads to the freedom of his people. Imagine what would have happened had God actually listened to all the excuses that Moses provided, I would suspect that the Hebrews might still be living in slavery… and the world that we have today would be much different.
Yet Moses isn’t the only one. Jeremiah is just as good at putting up excuses as to why he can’t be a prophet as Moses is, and if anything, his excuse is even better. “I’m too young! I don’t have the experience! I’m really naïve God, and I don’t think I will do a good job!” I’d say that Jeremiah is much more canny than he leads on… He is all to ready to provide a list of excuses as to why he can’t do what God is calling him to do.
I think this a serious issue in our churches today. We are well prepared to come, to sit, and to listen… but at any time when it seems that God actually pays attention to us, and calls us into some kind of service, how ready are we with the excuses and reasons that we can’t… or that it’s someone else’s job… or that it’s not our responsibility? Is it that we can’t… or that we won’t?
The story of Jeremiah’s call is a great example of this kind of thing. Of the prophetic books, Jeremiah may be the second-largest in terms of chapters, but gives us the greatest insight into the life and mind of someone who became a theological giant. When we encounter him in the opening chapters of the book, he is anything but. Through the opening narrative, Jeremiah’s dialogue with God reminds us that as far as he was concerned, he was very much a nobody. He seemed to be rather perplexed that God would actually pay attention to him.
The call to Jeremiah comes simply enough: “Jeremiah, I am your creator, and before you were born, I chose you to speak for me to the nations.”
Jeremiah then begins with his excuses.
“But… but… wait… hang on…” He stammers… “I can’t do this! I’m inexperienced! I stammer and I stutter… I’m not a great speaker… Besides, I’m too young… I’m just getting my career in order… I have my plans of what I want to do with my life. You know… the usual, get a job, get married, maybe make a good living for myself!”
His litany of reasons why he is not a good candidate fills the air. He tries to shift the attention somewhere else… to try and distract God, who in fact had so rudely interrupted his own plans.
God, by contrast, has heard it all before. After all, Moses was very eloquent about how horrible a speaker he was… but look where that got him. God lets Jeremiah say his peace, and then says, “I don’t buy it… Don’t say you’re too young. You’re going to go where I send you, and don’t worry about what you’re going to say… the words will come. Don’t be afraid, because I will be with you… always.”
Then we get an insight into what Jeremiah’s call will entail… preaching both the doom of Judah, but also the hope that something new is coming even when all seems lost.
We’re not entirely sure what Jeremiah’s reply really was. We presume that he gave in, because the rest of the book proceeds from there… but it would take some time for him to grow into his role… and it’s not something that he did without some personal struggle. Yet ultimately, he did follow his calling, instead of trying to hide from it. While he may have offered many excuses as to why he could not go, God calls Jeremiah on it. Evidently Jeremiah hadn’t learned from Moses or others that offering excuses wasn’t going to work. The question that God asks back, “is it because you can’t… or that you won’t?”
Is it because you can’t… or you won’t?
It wasn’t because Jeremiah couldn’t… but initially he had convinced himself that he was not the person that God was looking for. He was not famous, he was not powerful, he was not skilled at speaking, he wasn’t any of those things. Yet God reminded Jeremiah that none of that matters, because God would provide him with the tools and training he needed to fulfill that calling. The door was all open, and all Jeremiah had to do was walk through it.
How often do we make excuses as to why we cannot do one thing or another? How often are we like Jeremiah, providing a litany of reasons why we are not well suited for a given role? Is it because we genuinely can’t… or is it because we won’t, because we’re too afraid of walking through that door to see what God has in store for us?
Particularly in our society today we have convinced ourselves that we are small… that we’re not extraordinary… I’m just a humble person trying to eke out a living in my own little corner of the world… leave me alone and let me be on with my plans. God, go and bother somebody else! We spend our lives making excuses, but God isn’t buying it.
Yet what are we afraid of? What frightens us about the prospect of following God’s call? Even though Jeremiah made up a number of excuses, he never openly reveals a sense of fear to God… and yet God tells him to not be afraid. We know that his calling would take Jeremiah into some pretty dark places, and even his own life would be threatened… and yet God says to him “don’t be afraid, for I am with you” not in the midst of this, but at the beginning. So what was he afraid of? What are we afraid of?
There is a quote that has often been attributed to Nelson Mandela, maybe you’ve heard it. It was originally written by Marianne Williamson, and goes something like this:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”[1]
Regardless of who wrote it or who said it, it’s a great quote… and in many ways this is what God was trying to get across to Jeremiah then, and us, now. We don’t do anybody any service by shrinking away from what God is calling us to be. We don’t do anybody any good by not being the best that God calls us to be. Not only that, our calling is not dependent upon what we might think of ourselves… but upon what God sees in us, and what potential we have to truly be children of God. Jeremiah became a giant in the faith not because he believed in himself, or even in God. Jeremiah became a giant in the faith because God wouldn’t take no for an answer.
It is no different for us… each one of us is a child of God, uniquely gifted… and God calls each one of us to use those gifts to truly be a light to those around us, so that they may also discover and be an active part of the life that God has given us.
God’s calling… how will we answer?
Amen.
[1] It is apparently an urban myth that Nelson Mandela actually used these words in public. It has made its rounds on the internet, and has now been attached to Mandela as something that originated with him. Regardless of their origins, there is a power to these words that made it appropriate for this sermon.
Have you ever noticed that with a great deal of Biblical characters, particularly with the Old Testament, none of them ever seem to want to take on what God calls them to? They always seem to provide a litany of excuses as to why they’re not suitable for the task, and that really God should be looking for someone else… someone better suited than they. When Moses encounters God in the burning bush, he’s pretty blunt… tells God off and says, “please, send someone else!” Yet we know how that turned out. Moses is basically dragged kicking and screaming back to Egypt where he confronts pharaoh, and it leads to the freedom of his people. Imagine what would have happened had God actually listened to all the excuses that Moses provided, I would suspect that the Hebrews might still be living in slavery… and the world that we have today would be much different.
Yet Moses isn’t the only one. Jeremiah is just as good at putting up excuses as to why he can’t be a prophet as Moses is, and if anything, his excuse is even better. “I’m too young! I don’t have the experience! I’m really naïve God, and I don’t think I will do a good job!” I’d say that Jeremiah is much more canny than he leads on… He is all to ready to provide a list of excuses as to why he can’t do what God is calling him to do.
I think this a serious issue in our churches today. We are well prepared to come, to sit, and to listen… but at any time when it seems that God actually pays attention to us, and calls us into some kind of service, how ready are we with the excuses and reasons that we can’t… or that it’s someone else’s job… or that it’s not our responsibility? Is it that we can’t… or that we won’t?
The story of Jeremiah’s call is a great example of this kind of thing. Of the prophetic books, Jeremiah may be the second-largest in terms of chapters, but gives us the greatest insight into the life and mind of someone who became a theological giant. When we encounter him in the opening chapters of the book, he is anything but. Through the opening narrative, Jeremiah’s dialogue with God reminds us that as far as he was concerned, he was very much a nobody. He seemed to be rather perplexed that God would actually pay attention to him.
The call to Jeremiah comes simply enough: “Jeremiah, I am your creator, and before you were born, I chose you to speak for me to the nations.”
Jeremiah then begins with his excuses.
“But… but… wait… hang on…” He stammers… “I can’t do this! I’m inexperienced! I stammer and I stutter… I’m not a great speaker… Besides, I’m too young… I’m just getting my career in order… I have my plans of what I want to do with my life. You know… the usual, get a job, get married, maybe make a good living for myself!”
His litany of reasons why he is not a good candidate fills the air. He tries to shift the attention somewhere else… to try and distract God, who in fact had so rudely interrupted his own plans.
God, by contrast, has heard it all before. After all, Moses was very eloquent about how horrible a speaker he was… but look where that got him. God lets Jeremiah say his peace, and then says, “I don’t buy it… Don’t say you’re too young. You’re going to go where I send you, and don’t worry about what you’re going to say… the words will come. Don’t be afraid, because I will be with you… always.”
Then we get an insight into what Jeremiah’s call will entail… preaching both the doom of Judah, but also the hope that something new is coming even when all seems lost.
We’re not entirely sure what Jeremiah’s reply really was. We presume that he gave in, because the rest of the book proceeds from there… but it would take some time for him to grow into his role… and it’s not something that he did without some personal struggle. Yet ultimately, he did follow his calling, instead of trying to hide from it. While he may have offered many excuses as to why he could not go, God calls Jeremiah on it. Evidently Jeremiah hadn’t learned from Moses or others that offering excuses wasn’t going to work. The question that God asks back, “is it because you can’t… or that you won’t?”
Is it because you can’t… or you won’t?
It wasn’t because Jeremiah couldn’t… but initially he had convinced himself that he was not the person that God was looking for. He was not famous, he was not powerful, he was not skilled at speaking, he wasn’t any of those things. Yet God reminded Jeremiah that none of that matters, because God would provide him with the tools and training he needed to fulfill that calling. The door was all open, and all Jeremiah had to do was walk through it.
How often do we make excuses as to why we cannot do one thing or another? How often are we like Jeremiah, providing a litany of reasons why we are not well suited for a given role? Is it because we genuinely can’t… or is it because we won’t, because we’re too afraid of walking through that door to see what God has in store for us?
Particularly in our society today we have convinced ourselves that we are small… that we’re not extraordinary… I’m just a humble person trying to eke out a living in my own little corner of the world… leave me alone and let me be on with my plans. God, go and bother somebody else! We spend our lives making excuses, but God isn’t buying it.
Yet what are we afraid of? What frightens us about the prospect of following God’s call? Even though Jeremiah made up a number of excuses, he never openly reveals a sense of fear to God… and yet God tells him to not be afraid. We know that his calling would take Jeremiah into some pretty dark places, and even his own life would be threatened… and yet God says to him “don’t be afraid, for I am with you” not in the midst of this, but at the beginning. So what was he afraid of? What are we afraid of?
There is a quote that has often been attributed to Nelson Mandela, maybe you’ve heard it. It was originally written by Marianne Williamson, and goes something like this:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”[1]
Regardless of who wrote it or who said it, it’s a great quote… and in many ways this is what God was trying to get across to Jeremiah then, and us, now. We don’t do anybody any service by shrinking away from what God is calling us to be. We don’t do anybody any good by not being the best that God calls us to be. Not only that, our calling is not dependent upon what we might think of ourselves… but upon what God sees in us, and what potential we have to truly be children of God. Jeremiah became a giant in the faith not because he believed in himself, or even in God. Jeremiah became a giant in the faith because God wouldn’t take no for an answer.
It is no different for us… each one of us is a child of God, uniquely gifted… and God calls each one of us to use those gifts to truly be a light to those around us, so that they may also discover and be an active part of the life that God has given us.
God’s calling… how will we answer?
Amen.
[1] It is apparently an urban myth that Nelson Mandela actually used these words in public. It has made its rounds on the internet, and has now been attached to Mandela as something that originated with him. Regardless of their origins, there is a power to these words that made it appropriate for this sermon.
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