Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
August 26, 2007

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

The passage we just heard is known as a prophetic call story. This one is Jeremiah’s. Most of the prophets have a call story. Sometimes it’s as brief as something like “the word of the Lord came to me.” Sometimes it’s a lot more elaborate. Isaiah’s is probably the most elaborate. It’s set in the throne room of God, with flying beasts, clouds of smoke, and burning coals. Jeremiah’s isn’t that elaborate, but it has some very interesting features that got me thinking about some things this past week—always a dangerous activity I’m sure you’ll agree. Still, I want to share some of those thoughts with you this morning. So let’s start by taking a closer look at Jeremiah’s call story to see what we might learn from it.

There are, I think, three interesting aspects to that story. The first is that God says not merely that God is calling Jeremiah to be a prophet but that God had intended Jeremiah to be a prophet from before Jeremiah’s physical conception as a human being. The Lord says to him I knew you before I formed in your mother’s womb and that before you were ever born I had “consecrated” you and “appointed” you as a prophet. Most prophetic call stories don’t go back that far in the life of the prophet. In most of them the prophet is called as an adult. Here, however, Yahweh tells Jeremiah that although he may not have a known it, a prophet is who he has been since before his birth. Indeed, God created him precisely to be a prophet. Prophet isn’t merely something to which God calls Jeremiah, it is who Jeremiah is in the very core of his being.

The second interesting thing is Jeremiah’s reaction to this news, and here Jeremiah’s call story is similar to at least many of the other prophetic call stories in the Bible. Jeremiah, you see, wants no part of this prophet business. His response to God is a lot like Moses’ response was several hundred years earlier. When Yahweh told Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let the Hebrew people go Moses said: “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” Exodus 4:12 Jeremiah’s similar response in an effort to get out of his prophetic vocation was “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” Jeremiah 1:6 NRSV His response wasn’t as extreme as Jonah’s. When God called him to go as a prophet to the enemy capital of Nineveh, Jonah said: No way. I’m outta here. You want me to go to Iraq? No way. I’m going to Spain, in exactly the opposite direction. And off he went, with unpleasant albeit it quite amusing consequences. Jeremiah didn’t run like Jonah did, but like many other prophets he did try to get out of it, pleading lack of ability as his reason.

The third interesting thing about Jeremiah’s call story is God’s response to Jeremiah’s protestations. God said: “Do not say ‘I am only a boy….’” Jeremiah 1:7 NRSV You will be my prophet, God said; and God also said you need not be afraid, “for I am with you to deliver you.” Jeremiah 1:8 NRSV That’s basically what Yahweh said to Moses too. It’s what God always says to God’s people when they are afraid to answer God’s call.

And as so often happens with these ancient Bible stories you are probably saying: Well isn’t that nice. For Jeremiah. But what does it have to do with me? And I answer, as I so often do about these ancient Bible stories: This story isn’t merely about something that happened to someone else a long time ago in a place far away. It is about us and about our relationship to God, although I grant you that just how this one is about us and our relationship to God requires a good deal of unpacking. So let’s get unpacking.

In our reading God tells Jeremiah that prophet isn’t just something to which Jeremiah is called, it is who Jeremiah is. Prophet is his true identity. My study and more importantly my life experience tell me that we all have a core identity like that. We all have something or someone at the core of our psyches that is who we really are, that is our true identity. That identity probably isn’t prophet, although it might be. It can be anything. It can be so many things that I won’t even try to list any of them. Rather, I’ll briefly tell you my own identity story, which is the same thing as a call story. Some of you already know it. For years I tried to be someone I am not, namely a lawyer; and it very nearly killed me. Then one day in a kind of a day dream a voice from deep within me said: “You’re a preacher.” And so I was, although it took me years to admit it and even more years to make it a reality.

You all have an identity like that too. It probably isn’t preacher, although it might be. We have walked these past few years with Kim as she admitted, struggled with, and worked hard to realize her identity as teacher. I suspect that Diana may have an identity as some kind of professional minister, but I haven’t been able to talk her into going to seminary just yet. What is your true identity? Maybe you have already discovered it and made it a reality in your life. Or maybe you haven’t. That’s for you to say. No one else can tell you, yet I suspect that when Jeremiah says God told him he was a prophet that what really happened was that he had an experience very like mine when my inner voice told me I was a preacher. Our true identity lies deep within us, and it will arise from deep within us if we let it.

And when it does we fight it. We fight it hard, like Jeremiah. We all have our “O Lord God, I am only a boy” lines. Mine were “I’m too old” and “I can’t afford it.” I don’t know what yours are, but if you have discerned a core identity that is struggling to come into the light I bet you have some. Maybe they’re my I’m too old and I can’t afford it. Or maybe they’re How can I be sure, or I don’t know how, or What will my family think, or some other of the infinite number of excuses we can come up with for staying in our rut, for being satisfied with the ordinary and not reaching for the extraordinary life that can be ours if we will act to become who we truly are.

We use those lines to fight becoming who we truly are, I think, because becoming who we truly are is scary—really scary. So many of us have landed in the life we have by chance, or because it was easy, or because it was what someone else or society as a whole expected of us. It may not be the life we really want; but at least it’s familiar, and it feels safe. Becoming who we truly are requires us to move beyond that place where we’ve landed, to strike out into unknown territory, to risk not making it. To risk failure and rejection. It’s very scary indeed.

Let me tell you another story about myself to illustrate this point. One of the things that I am discovering at this late stage of my life that I am is an author. I’ve written a book, as many of you know, and I want to get it published; but it took me months to screw up the courage to send the book to some publishers and risk being told no, risk having my work rejected, which can feel very much like having myself rejected. One day when I was whining about this fear to my very wise daughter she said to me: Dad, do you want to be the kind of person who comes to the end of his life and has to admit that he didn’t even try? So I’ve sent the book out into the world, and it still isn’t published. One publisher said no. I survived. One has said we’ll think about it, which is nice. Another has not replied at all. But whether the book is ever published or not I will always have the satisfaction of knowing that I took the risk, that I acknowledged my fear and did it anyway, acting to become who I really am.

And here’s the thing. The spiritual rewards of acting to become who you really are, to become the man or woman God created you to be, are rich beyond description. The rewards may not include a lot of money. They sure don’t if who you really are is a small church pastor and theology writer, or if you’re a poet, or a teacher, or one of the other things that society doesn’t truly value no matter how valuable they may actually be. But those rewards include things money can’t buy. They include things that are true fruits of the Spirit, satisfaction, peace, joy, a sense of meaning in your life, a sense of wholeness that you can’t really describe to someone who’s never felt them.

And here’s one more thing. God tells Jeremiah in our reading this morning “Do not be afraid…, for I am with you to deliver you.” Jeremiah 1:8 NRSV It is possible for us not to be afraid as we strike out into life seeking to become fully who we are because when we do, we realize that God will be with us too. God will gladly walk with us every step of the way because we are walking in the way God has always wanted us to go, the way of the abundant life Jesus came to give us (John 10:10), and way of the perfection in completeness, in wholeness, to which Jesus calls us (Matthew 5:48). That doesn’t mean it will all be easy. It doesn’t mean we won’t fail. It doesn’t mean we won’t end up with a big student loan to pay off. It does mean that we can face whatever we encounter on our road to wholeness because we know that God is encountering it with us and helping us get through it.

So don’t say “I am only a boy—or a girl.” Every one of us is infinitely creative in coming up with reasons why we can’t fully be the person God created us to be. So stop being so reasonable! Let’s all stop saying “I am only a boy—or a girl” and get on with becoming who we really are, who God intends us to be.

And by the way: Everything I just said about each of us individually is true of all of us together as Monroe Congregational United Church of Christ as well. Amen.