A Future and A Hope Plus One

Author Parker Palmer took an old Quaker saying, “Let Your Life Speak” and in turn asked, “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you.” Perhaps that’s one of the lessons we hear in today’s scripture from the prophet Jeremiah. Parker contends that our call comes from listening.

In the first scripture we read, Jeremiah describes a difficult conversation with God. God reminds Jeremiah that before he was born, God loved him and named him as God’s own. God says, “Even then I called you to be a prophet.” God underscores that before Jeremiah was able to choose for himself, God chose him.

This is our baptismal covenant that God chooses us as his beloved, even before we understand our purpose. Can we possibly believe that God, before we were born knew us enough, cared for us enough and loved us enough to say, “I have a purpose for you in your life.”

Soon, however, Jeremiah begins a familiar exchange with God that we may have tried ourselves. Even though God calls and sets Jeremiah apart, Jeremiah responds with that thing that we do when we think we are not capable of doing what God asks, whatever that might be. Jeremiah complains, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”

Jeremiah’s counter seems relevant, I’m not the person for the job. That’s often what we might think. I am not prepared or qualified. The feelings of being inadequate: I’m not enough, I don’t have the skills, I can’t do this because (fill in the blank). Jeremiah stated his internal doubts, those internal challenges that also keep us from believing that God has a purpose just for us.

God responds to Jeremiah by affirming him saying, “I knew you, I prepared you, and I have put the words in your mouth to say.” There is no guesswork here, but significant clarity about how God prepares us for what God is asking us to do.

God reassures Jeremiah, “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.”

Jeremiah spoke at great personal cost in a climate of hostility and rejection. In verse 5, God appointed Jeremiah a prophet “over nations.” The Hebrew word for nations means “the enemies of Israel.” He was to speak a word of truth to the opposition. God was indeed calling Jeremiah to a risky venture.

Jeremiah is asked to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, seemingly brutal actions for ministry but necessary before building and planting. At first, I thought it was God that was doing the plucking and planting and destroying and building up but Jeremiah has to do that. In the same way that God had known Jeremiah and called him before Jeremiah knew himself, the same is true for the nation to whom Jeremiah was called to address. There is good news even in the midst of destruction. What do we have to do away with, to pluck up, pull down, destroy, overthrow for God to be able to create a new future within us?

The Gospel of Luke continues the story we read last week. At the beginning of Jesus' ministry, Jesus went to his hometown synagogue and was given the scroll of Isaiah’s prophecy to read. Jesus chose the text he read from Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” In the temple in Nazareth, his listeners were amazed at his reading but that quickly turned to conflict.

The Isaiah text is proclaiming Jubilee, “the year of the Lord’s favor”. The Jubilee occurred every 50 years. All the slaves were set free, all debts were canceled, and the poor were given back land that was previously theirs. Jesus declared, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” What Jesus meant is that he is the Jubilee, and he is going to fulfill these acts in his ministry. Jesus was aware that his message would not be accepted.

Jesus continued, “But the truth is…” Even though there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, God sent Elijah, during a devastating famine, to a poor Gentile woman, the widow at Zarephath in Sidon, who was faithful to God, willing to give the last of what she had so that her household might receive God’s blessing. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian. In the same way, Jesus was called to minister to “outsiders” that defied the religious and social norms of those in the synagogue. Jesus’ ministry threatened to disrupt the status quo and frightened those incapable of including marginalized outsiders. And says Luke “they were filled with rage.” They drove Jesus out of town and would have pushed him off a cliff had he not escaped.

Jesus challenged everything the hometown crowd knew and thought they knew about their faith and how that faith was lived out. When they left the synagogue, they expected nothing about their lives or society could be any different.

Does Jubilee, “the year of the Lord’s favor” when slaves were set free, debts were canceled, and the poor were given back land sound like something that happens only in an old Bible story? How does Jesus’ description of his ministry move from what happens “out there” to what happens in each of us and what we are called to do? Our purpose as a person of faith is simply to love God and love my neighbour as myself. What does that look like for me this week?

Do we often believe it is the church that is supposed to do something? The church is supposed to reach out to families. The church is supposed to take up money for people in critical situations. And the church is to do those things collectively but not at the exclusion of each of us individually. I think what Jesus is saying to us and what was being said of Jeremiah, you are the one. You are not qualified but this is what I will do through you. We often avoid the personal input, the personal interaction, and our personal responsibility when we yield to the church to “do” the work. We are the church. We are the hands and feet and face of Christ. Unless we personalize that, the year of Jubilee will never happen. We will never pluck up and plant. Those are our things to do.

Churches often do not know it, but they need a Jeremiah, somebody who questions their qualifications, who wouldn’t speak or pray in public if their life depended upon it. Perhaps, a homebound who makes connections with others better than most or perhaps a cynical parishioner, willing to stick close to the hope that God who knew and called us by Name before we were born now has something that only we can do for Him.