An Impossible Call
A God Who Weeps - Part 1
Sunday, September 4, 2022
Jeremiah 1:1-10
The Lord’s word came to Jeremiah in the thirteenth year of Judah’s King Josiah, Amon’s son, and throughout the rule of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, Josiah’s son, until the fifth month of the eleventh year of King Zedekiah, Josiah’s son, when the people of Jerusalem were taken into exile.
The Lord’s word came to me:
“Before I created you in the womb I knew you;
before you were born I set you apart;
I made you a prophet to the nations.”
“Ah, Lord God,” I said, “I don’t know how to speak
because I’m only a child.”
The Lord responded,
“Don’t say, ‘I’m only a child.’
Where I send you, you must go;
what I tell you, you must say.Jeremiah 1:2-7 (CEB)
Listen to this week’s sermon here:
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God calls pastors. God calls missionaries. God calls chaplains. God calls prophets. Maybe God even calls seminary professors or Sunday School teachers. But what if I were to tell you that God has called you, that God is calling you, and that God will continue to call you until you breathe your final breath on earth?
The point of Jeremiah’s call story is not, as so many argue, to make a scientific claim about when life technically begins. The point is to show Jeremiah, and all of us, that God has been intimately involved in our lives from the very beginning, and even before the beginning.
This is not to say that God predetermines some to be born into riches and others to grow up as slaves or that God’s plan requires some to live healthy lives while others suffer and die as infants or children. God’s so-called “plan” for our lives is not a mystery to solve or a puzzle that can only be put together one way and requires that we somehow find all the right pieces hidden somewhere throughout our lives by making the right choices along the way.
What it does say, however, is that God knows and loves each and every one of us before we are born, and that God invites us to participate in God’s redemptive purposes for the world long before we could even hear or process such an invitation.
The question for us, as it was for Jeremiah, is how do our lives, our gifts and abilities, our heritage, our circumstances, our geographical and socio-economic position, our choices, and so much more shape us in ways that God can use for the sake of the world.
Jeremiah was not waiting as a baby soul in heaven for the right body to come along to be placed into on earth so that he could become a prophet. But Jeremiah’s location in life, as a member of a priestly family during a time of tremendous social, political, and religious upheaval and renewal in Jerusalem, prepared him well to proclaim God’s good news to the exiles in Babylon and to the remnant left behind in the ruins under foreign control.
What have you learned from your own experience that can help others?
Where do your gifts and passions intersect with the needs of the world?
Perhaps these questions are the beginning of hearing God’s call for yourself?
If we listen close enough, maybe even a child or teenager like Jeremiah will lead the way.