Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.” Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”
(Jeremiah 1:4-10)
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Jeremiah was a fascinating man who led a fascinating life. He was perhaps the most notable of the Hebrew prophets, because the call he received from God was an almost impossible task, and yet - after initial hesitation and perhaps even some fear - he remained faithful to it throughout his life, even in the face of that almost certain failure. Jeremiah’s life might be the prism that helps us to redefine success and what it looks like. Today - probably far too often - the church adopts a bottom line mentality for defining success; a business approach to the work of the Kingdom; a worldly way of looking at spiritual realities. So if we don’t have a lot of money and we don’t have a lot of people and our message often seems to go unheeded by those around us, then we must be failing. That’s an understanding of “success” that the prophets of the Old Testament (and certainly Jeremiah) couldn’t have even begun to comprehend. For them - and for the church in the earliest years of its history - the definition of “success” was much different, and it was really quite simple: Is the Word of God being proclaimed? That was all that mattered. People might respond to the Word of God or not, but the faithful proclamation of that Word was all that mattered. The more worldly mindset of the 21st century church has difficulty with that idea. Being popular often seems to be our primary concern. It’s too often all that counts for us today. But in the ancient Hebrew faith (and in the early Christian faith) this concern with being popular would have been sneered at. “Who cares about being popular,” would have been the attitude. “We care about being faithful to God’s Word.” That was what mattered - and even if it came with a price to be paid, that was still all that mattered.
Jeremiah wasn’t concerned about being popular. His primary concern wasn’t even whether people or society responded to his message. All he cared about was sharing this message he had been given by God. R.K. Harrison of Wycliffe College in Toronto described the difficulty of Jeremiah’s mission and the consequences of his faithfulness to it in this way:
His task was to try to recall the people of Judah to an observance of divine law at a time when they were poised on the brink of national and spiritual catastrophe. For many years the influence of pagan Canaanite worship had exerted a corrupting influence on the Judeans … Religious apostasy had been followed by social and moral decay, and it fell to Jeremiah to present the implications of [God’s] covenant fearlessly in a desperate attempt to stem the tide of destruction. But because the nation was indifferent … Jeremiah soon found that he had acquired a reputation for pessimism and gloom. For his fidelity to his vocation he was rejected, hated, persecuted, and even feared by those whom he was most anxious to recall to the covenant.
I liked Harrison’s point that Jeremiah had to engage in his mission fearlessly. God does not call prophets to easy tasks. Truthfully - God does not call any of us to easy tasks. If our work for God is too easy and requires little struggle and little sacrifice then we need to question whether whatever call we feel we’ve received from God is authentic. Jeremiah was given a difficult task by God. He was called to be fearless for God. So are God’s people today called to be fearless for God.
Jeremiah had come from a religious family. Jeremiah was a “preacher’s kid” - a PK. His father Hilkiah had been a priest, so Jeremiah would have been aware of the growing indifference of the nation to its covenant with God and of the concern that must have caused his father. We’re told that at a young age Jeremiah received a call from God to proclaim a message of judgment and repentance, forgiveness and love to a nation that had become largely indifferent to any of it. And we see that Jeremiah’s initial reaction was one of fear. God had known Jeremiah before Jeremiah was even in his mother’s womb and God had consecrated Jeremiah to this task before he had been born, and yet Jeremiah resisted the call from God. He found excuses for not serving God as God asked: “I am only a boy,” Jeremiah said in response to God’s call upon his life. And since Jeremiah began with an attempt to escape from God’s call, we learn a lot about God from God’s response. God’s reply to Jeremiah’s excuse is, in turns, encouraging and challenging and comforting and (in the best, non-psychological meaning of the word) enabling. I want to think about each in turn, because I believe that God still calls women and men to serve, that service is still difficult and I believe that we’re still as reluctant as Jeremiah to respond, and I believe that God still responds to our reluctance in the same way.
God began with encouragement to Jeremiah. It was, of course, possible that Jeremiah’s concerns had been more than just an excuse. Maybe Jeremiah really did believe that he was too young and too inexperienced and too immature to serve God as God was asking. And so God’s reply began with a gentle word of encouragement: “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy.’” Don’t put yourself down, in other words. Don’t fall into the trap of feeling unworthy; don’t believe that God couldn’t possibly want to use you. No child of God should ever feel unworthy of being called to serve God. Jeremiah was not “only a boy.” He was a precious child of God. He was loved by God. When any of us fall into the trap of feeling that we’re too unimportant or unprepared or incapable to be called to serve God, we need to remember that the Bible from beginning to end is a reminder to us of just how important we are to God. We are not unworthy. We are beloved children of God! That’s the encouragement!
But encouragement wasn’t enough.God didn’t stop by just boosting Jeremiah’s self-esteem. God continued by giving Jeremiah a challenge. Sometimes today the gospel seems reduced to little more than a feel-good message with a lot of warm fuzzies with God resembling something like a giant cosmic teddy bear inviting us for cuddles, but with few real calls to challenging service. But God - while pumping Jeremiah up - didn’t stop with that. God told Jeremiah what his service was to be, and didn’t give Jeremiah any options. It wasn’t “you can do this or that or whatever you want.” Jeremiah was given a specific task and was told to get on with it. God’s call in our lives is never just one option among many from which we can choose. We are called to serve God as God wants us to serve, fear and hesitation notwithstanding. That’s the challenge.
But God also moved beyond the challenge. It was a difficult task to which Jeremiah was called - an almost impossible task, as I mentioned earlier. Jeremiah would labour for a lifetime with few visible results, making many enemies, becoming something of an outcast among his own people. This was not a very comfortable way to live. But God promised to provide the comfort to see Jeremiah through his hardships. “I am with you to deliver you,” was God’s message to Jeremiah. And God continues to be with us to deliver us, and troubled, tough times don’t change that. The final promise that Jesus made to his disciples was “I am with you always …” We should have no fear or hesitation in our hearts as we go about God’s business, no matter how challenging the circumstances may be, because we believe that “God is with us; we are not alone” as the United Church’s New Creed reminds us.
But God moves even beyond comfort. God could have encouraged and challenged and comforted Jeremiah and set him on his task and accomplished nothing, because acting in his own power Jeremiah most likely would have accomplished nothing. But God went one step further. “I have put my words in your mouth,” God said. God is more than merely with us as one who walks alongside us. God is with us in a far more intimate way. God is with us through the power of the Holy Spirit. God is acting through us. God’s power and wisdom are upon us. God’s words are in our minds and on our tongues - if we’re truly open to the presence of God in our lives. Whether we’re called as witnesses to nations and kingdoms (as Jeremiah was) or whether we’re called as witness to our families and friends, God will work through us and equip us for the task that faces us. We don’t depend on our own talents and abilities, because God’s power will work through us. So, if you ever begin to think that God has called you to tasks that are too great for you - think again! If God has a job for you it isn’t going to be you doing the job; it’s going to be God doing the job through you. God’s strength always accompanies God’s call. That’s the enablement.
Serving God is a great privilege, but it’s also a great challenge, and when God calls, it’s easy to try to escape and hide. Many of the great figures of the Bible were called by God and found it difficult to accept - but ultimately God’s will prevailed. Moses didn’t want to go to Pharaoh, but eventually Moses went to Pharaoh. Job didn’t want to go to Nineveh, but eventually Job went to Nineveh. Jeremiah didn’t want to preach to an indifferent and sometimes even hostile nation, but eventually Jeremiah did preach to an indifferent and sometimes even hostile nation. Even Jesus preferred not to go to the cross, but eventually Jesus accepted the cross, and the table set as a commemoration of Jesus’ death as it is today - is a reminder to us that there is a cost involved in being faithful to God. It’s easy to let fear take over. But when we remember what a blessing we have been given - to have been called children of God and to have been assured of God’s presence - how, truly, can we be hesitant or afraid to respond?
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