Jeremiah 1:4-10
July 13
David A. Davis
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“Ah, Lord God! Truly, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” Jeremiah and his response to God’s call. “I am only a boy”. Jeremiah is hardly unique when it comes to his efforts to dissuade, deflect, or deter the call of God. “Only a boy”. Only. Standing before the burning bush, Moses said, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” “I am only slow of speech and slow of tongue”, Moses said to God. “How can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest…and I am the least in my family.” That’s Gideon responding to the angel of the Lord. “I am only from the weakest clan and I am only the least in my family,” Isaiah responded to the Lord, sitting on a throne high and lofty. “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips…” I am only a man of unclean lips. Only. I am only. “But the Lord said to me, ‘Do not say I am only a boy’. God said, ‘Don’t say only.”
The call stories of the Hebrew Bible can sound so… well, biblical. Moses and the burning bush. For Gideon, it is an angel of the Lord under an oak tree. Ezekiel’s call story goes on for chapters. It all starts with “a stormy wind that came out of the north.” Isaiah tells of an angel and some hot coals touching his lips. Here in Jeremiah: “Then the Lord put out a hand and touched my mouth.” These call stories, these theophanies, come with all the divine flair that a reader of the Old Testament has come to expect. The detail of God touching, angels acting, mouths and lips anointed, they sort of make Jesus’ call of the disciples sound rather pedestrian. The whole “drop your nets and follow” is kind of barren compared to the call of Jeremiah and his prophet colleagues. Prophets, angels, burning bushes, burning coals, voices, the touch of God, the Word of the Lord. The bible’s world seems so far from our world, our experience, and our relationship with God.
Yet, that strange old world of the bible hits surprisingly, uncomfortably, timelessly close to home, close to the heart when God says to Jeremiah, “Don’t say only.” Only. I’m only. God must hear it all the time, still. “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.” Don’t say only for I am with you. So far beyond prophets and preachers is the call of God. The God we know in and through Jesus Christ calls each one of us, sends each one of us, anoints each one of us, empowers each one of us to a deeper, profound life of discipleship in and through him. The last words of the Risen Jesus to his disciples, to the church, to you, and me in the Gospel of Matthew, “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Don’t say only.
Frank was a member of my first congregation. He was old enough to be my grandfather when we arrived. He was the church’s all-around handy person. Cathy and I still have the mailbox he put up for us at the manse where we lived right next to the church. I am guessing he didn’t quite understand, but he didn’t bat an eye when we asked him if he would add to the hardware store sticky letters on the mailbox frame he built that said “Davis” so it would say “Cook Davis”. One day, as Frank was putzing around the church doing some odd job or another, I asked him if he ever served as an elder on session. His response was swift and strong. “Oh, no, no, no. I’m not religious enough. I’m only a guy who is good at fixing stuff.” It didn’t take long for me to hear the stories about Frank back during World War II. For a reason I never knew and never asked about, Frank was unable to serve in the military. During the war, he was one of the very few men left in that small town. It takes a long time for me to start hearing stories from folks in the church and beyond. People are telling me how Frank pretty much took care of the whole town during the war. especially those whose husbands and fathers were serving overseas. Caring for widows and those whose husbands were prisoners of war or landed at Normandy. Serving as an elder may not have been for Frank, but don’t say the only. “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress.” (James 1). Don’t say only.
God’s call to Jeremiah continues: “Now I 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”. For a reader who likes to keep score, that’s four tear downs and two constructions. Four negatives and only two positives. Pluck up. Pull down. Destroy. Overthrow. Build, Plant. By any math, that’s a call with a lot of judgment and a bit of hope. It is an equation, a balance, a ratio that is reflected throughout the book of Jeremiah and the testimony of Jeremiah’s life. The call of God pushes against the worldview of nations and kingdoms. Pushing and bringing discomfort to the powers that be. The voice of Jeremiah, the Book of Jeremiah, according to the Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, “is a hard, demanding theological tradition, mostly unwelcome.” A line of teaching and perception not so fully “seduced” by the world’s promises that too often float around unchallenged or worse, unnoticed. The call of Jeremiah is a crisp and lasting reminder that the Word of the Lord will always be in opposition to the empires of this world. “I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms.”
A preacher doesn’t have to work very hard these days to affirm that all of us are pretty much up to our eyeballs, in over our heads when it comes to the ways of nations and kingdoms. With a nod to the hard and demanding theological tradition embodied in Jeremiah and his prophetic call, you and I are called to live out our faith amid the ongoing and ever-growing dissonance and discomfort that comes as we cling to the gospel of Jesus Christ and strive to live the everydayness of our faith in this blasted world. To use Brueggeman’s image, God is calling us to hear the teaching of Jesus, to follow him in a life of discipleship, knowing full well that it conflicts with the promises of the world that try to seduce us. God is calling each one of us to a life of discipleship in, to, and for the world. God is calling us to be part of the body of Christ, refusing to say “only” to the call of God on our lives.
Brian Blunt, the now-retired president of Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, VA, taught New Testament for many years here at Princeton Seminary. Brian raised his family in the Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church. In my early years of ministry at Nassau Church, Brian and I would have lunch at Karen’s Chinese restaurant on Witherspoon Street about once a month. Brian was instrumental in helping me understand and start to build a relationship with the Witherspoon congregation. At that point in time, Brian was beginning his work on the Book of Revelation. I attended a lecture he gave entitled “Preacher as Prophet”. Over lunch, a few weeks after the lecture, I brought up the subject of local preachers and the call to speak a prophetic word to their congregations. My own sense was that a preacher ought to establish a pastoral relationship first, maybe even over a few years (as I was attempting to do at Nassau back then). Tend to the pastoral things first, and then later say harder things from the pulpit out of a trusted pastoral relationship. “Brian, do you think preachers are called to be pastors first or prophets first.” Without missing a beat, Brian said “yes.” Firmly asserting that the gospel itself comes with a disconcerting word to the nations and kingdoms of this world, to you and to me…to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. And of course, Dr. Blount would be the first to add that the gospel’s call is not just for pastors, preachers, and prophets.
A bit more than a week ago, I was standing in the rain with a group of friends and colleagues from our presbytery on the wall that surrounds the city of Derry in Northern Ireland. We were there to learn about the history of the conflict and hear from those who are working hard to build and preserve a lasting peace. There in Derry, we listen to two men, Mickey and Peter, one catholic, one protestant. Both had participated in the violence. Peter, the Presbyterian who seemed to be a bit younger than me, had spent time in prison. He had been involved with a Protestant paramilitary group. Peter and Mickey were now reconciled friends, working to help others on both sides of the history build relationships and work especially with youth to try to stop the never-ending cycle of hatred and violence.
A member of our group asked Peter how he was able to move beyond the mindset of violence, bitterness, and hate. Peter told us that as Presbyterians, we would understand that he never had a Damascus Road experience (referring to the conversion of the Apostle Paul described in the Book of Acts). Peter told us of the day he went to visit the mother of a dear friend of his who had been killed in the conflict. In her grief and heartbreak, she said to him, “The violence, the killing, the conflict has to stop. How many more mothers have to suffer like this? You have to stop Peter.” Peter told us that he knew right then that she was right. His life was forever changed by the words of a mother with a broken heart. It was a Damascus Road-like experience coming from the voice of a grieving prophet who refused to say “only” and spoke in opposition to the powers of the present darkness.
The tradition defines “minor prophets” as the collection of the twelve shorter books of the Hebrew prophets in the Old Testament. Minor as opposed to longer books of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Minor as in Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. But what if a “minor prophet” could refer to something, someone other than a book in the Old Testament? What if a “minor prophet”
was simply a child of God who, in their way, chose to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. The Risen Christ has promised to be with us always to the end of the age. The Risen Christ is calling us to cling to the gospel of Jesus Christ and strive to live the everydayness of our faith in this blasted, broken world. The God we know in and through Jesus Christ calls us to not say only.
Indeed, God calls you and me to be minor prophets.