ENTERING THE TEXT: Jeremiah 1:6

Vocation

"Then I said, `Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak,for I am only a boy.'" (NRSV)

Ordination and Installation Sunday is a big event in the life of the congregation I serve. The chancel is full of elders and deacons elect, all kneeling, and ordained elders, deacons and clergy members of the presbytery who come forward for the traditional "Laying on of Hands." It is such a great Presbyterian moment when we act out liturgically some of the very basic principals of our tradition.

It always seems a shame to ignore it homiletically. So I always try to bring together the occasion and a text that addresses the important matter of vocation.

I believe the matter of vocation—What to do with the rest of my life?—is on the minds and hearts of many, maybe even the majority of people who are in the pews of Fourth Presbyterian Church on Sunday morning. They are eager to hear a word from the Lord on the topic.

I chose the Jeremiah text because it frames the personal concern many people have: namely personal inadequacy to respond to a sense of God's call. (JMB)

CONNECTING TEXT, SERMON, AND CULTURE

Callings

We read the call of Jeremiah with a mixture of dread and excitement, for there is something deeply familiar about this business of call. Jeremiah's call is grounded in the particularities of time and place, shaped by the specificities of a mission. Yet, his call is also archetypal, mirroring the elements of call found throughout biblical tradition and in our own lives. We see the familiar dance: God moves toward Jeremiah, Jeremiah steps back while reciting a litany of excuses, God persists with promises, encouragement, charm, and flattery, Jeremiah accepts the duties and tasks of the call. This exciting-rejecting-embracing process of call is universal as it mirrors those moments when God invites us to move deeper into a life of authenticity and meaning. Like Jeremiah, we hesitate. Our reluctance lies, in part, in the knowledge that to move forward means that we must let something go. Loss is a part of the fabric of any call. Indeed, the refrain that runs through Jeremiah's story is a lament of loss and desire. Israel had been moving steadily toward loss and deeper into denial when Jeremiah entered the picture.

In the first few verses of Jeremiah, we are told that he comes from a priestly family from the village of Anathoth, which was located a few miles northeast of Jerusalem. Von Rad suggests that though Jeremiah's village was close to Jerusalem, the fact that it was a part of the tribe of Benjamin would mean that a different set of traditions would be emphasized there. Jeremiah's religious tradition would focus more on the stories of Exodus, covenant, and conquest than on the primacy of kings and Jerusalem.¹ Jeremiah answers his call out of a unique mindset that will influence his prophecy, yet he is called to move beyond his provincial concerns or biases to address more global questions facing the whole nation of Israel.

Located at the crossroad between Egypt and the ancient eastern civilizations, Palestine was where Israel evolved from a people governed by covenantal agreements to a country lead by a monarchy. In time the strength of Davidic rule began to wane, and one kingdom became two, dividing along regional lines, with Israel in the north and Judah in the south. The growing power of the Assyrian Empire became a real threat as the Assyrians seized first Samaria in the Northern Kingdom and later Jerusalem in the south. Judah struggled to maintain its footing under the pressure of Assyrian power, and to some it seemed that in time the Assyrians were loosing their hold on Judah. The reforms of King Josiah provided temporary hope that things were changing for the better. The people of Judah would soon discover that their hopes of being out from under foreign domination were unfounded, for Babylon would merely pick up where Assyria left off.² Jeremiah's prophecies seemed to provide a corrective for the naïve optimism of those who misjudged Babylon's power. Things would get much worse, Jeremiah warned, before they got better.

Exploring Alternative Possibilities

For Preaching

As the preacher reflects on the nature of call, s/he might explore the qualities of leadership necessary to respond to God's call. Jeremiah is called to be a spokesperson for God in a time of great upset and anxiety. His is the work of the poet: to name the unnamable, to speak the unspeakable. The people will not welcome the prophecy he offers. His is a voice out of sync with the perceptions and interpretations of the community. Called to be a truth-teller when then truth will not be welcomed, Jeremiah naturally resists. His will be a path of intense loneliness. In this context, it becomes clear that in order to provide faithful leadership, one must develop the capacity to tolerate the displeasure of others. Jeremiah will not win friends when he describes his vision of the wasteland to come; yet he speaks the unwelcome word. Jeremiah models good leadership in his ability to tell the truth regardless of whether it is heard and welcomed or not.

When churches are considering candidates for ordination, they explore the issue of pastoral authority. Where does the candidate's sense of "authority" come from? Generally speaking, the approval for ordination is given when the authority is seen as twofold: internal and external. The internal authority comes from that sense of being called personally by God. The candidate for ordination will have a story that chronicles God's activity in their life, which culminates in a call to a particular form of ordained ministry. But it is not enough for a person to say that they feel called by God. The internal call is validated by the community, who affirms the call with their own call to a particular ministry. This external, or conferred, authority is given as the candidate demonstrates gifts and competencies for ministry. When internal and conferred authority coincide, then the ordination proceeds: the call is affirmed.

It is hard to say how much external support Jeremiah received for his prophetic message. In time, when events unfolded as he said they would, he gained credibility and helped to shape the theology of a nation. But it seems that in the early stages of his ministry, when the conferred authority was withheld, he had to suffer intense loneliness. How did he manage to speak the prophetic word in the face of rejection and disbelief? William Holladay suggests that Jeremiah did not mindlessly accept the task God set before him, but engaged in a lively connection with God throughout his ministry. Jeremiah "…saw his relationship with God to be a problem to be grappled with, more than an obligation simply to be taken for granted."³ Those who belong to the clan of Jeremiah will recognize this capacity to question and to doubt, and know that these things can be the signatures of an authentic relationship with God. Such uncensored authenticity is a mark of our connection to God, the source of our deepest authority. Jeremiah can only witness to the unraveling of creation, can only say what others do not want to hear, can only tolerate his loneliness if he holds fast to a living, vital, ongoing meeting with God.

As the preacher reflects on these issues of call, authority, and authenticity posed by Jeremiah's call, the congregation can be invited to find parallels in their own vocation. To state the obvious, questions of call and vocation are not limited to ordained ministry. Each Christian is ordained into ministry at their baptism, and each person is given the opportunity to clarify how they might spend their lives in a way that is true to God's path. As in John Buchanan's sermon, Called, dealing with how to clarify one's call can be lifted up in a sermon. Each believer must wrestle with the ques tion of discernment, or how they clarify God's call for one's life. In inviting the congregation to think about their callings, one might use a variety of examples which reflect the diversity of experiences of women and men. How might the "adjectives" of our lives (male, female) affect how we experience God's call?

Jeremiah's "Yes" to God is similar to all of our yeses in that we never know what we have set in motion when we step onto the path God offers. A sermon could explore the place of trust in the life of faith. Perhaps Jeremiah's capacity to trust God can only be fully appreciated when his call is viewed in relationship to his entire ministry. Jeremiah intuits correctly that his path will be a difficult one. It quickly becomes evident that his resistance was well founded. As his ministry unfolds, we see that it is characterized by loneliness and isolation, punctuated by great periods of groping in the dark. Jeremiah comes to the edge of the great abyss, where God seems absent and silent. By the end of his ministry, Jeremiah is an expert on despair. All of this makes Jeremiah's ability to continue to trust God seem like a remarkable feat.

An exploration of trust might involve the naming of our fears and expectations. What do we fear the most when God calls us into a new direction? Is it the loss of the familiar? Do we fear being shamed by our inadequacies? Do we fear coming face to face with the naked truth of our helplessness? We name our fears not to trivialize them with a "there, there, you have nothing to fear" attitude, but rather to sort out which fears are real and which are unfounded. In the same way, we sift through our expectations of God to identify which are realistic and which are the results of magical thinking or irrational beliefs. Do we expect God to rescue us, saving us from all harm, or do we expect God's redemptive activity to be at work in our lives no matter what happens to us? No Pollyanna promises here, for Jeremiah's religion is a mature faith, which reminds us that God does not exist to do our bidding. Jeremiah also stands as a reminder that as Christians, we are called to follow a crucified Christ. Discussions of trust in this context take on a deeper level of meaning in that much more seems to be at stake.

Another direction the sermon might take is to examine the difficult theological issues around the view of "suffering as punishment from God." Though Jeremiah ultimately affirms that God is fundamentally loving, just, and forgiving, he also appears to believe that the political suffering of the people of Israel was at least allowed by if not orchestrated by God. Jeremiah surveys the destruction of Jerusalem and sees in it the unraveling of creation, the return to chaos. What is God's role in this? What is the role of God's people in this? These are complicated theological issues, which we cannot seem to smooth away, and we struggle with the questions Jeremiah raises about the nature of God. At the very least, Jeremiah has some negative things to say about the nature of humanity. In writing of the circumstances surrounding Jeremiah's ministry, Brueggemann speaks of the chaos and some complex interpretations of its meaning. "The root cause of the massive threat is disobedience, greed, indifference, injustice, lack of compassion, false security, deceptive assurance. We had presumed the world to be given, and now it comes to us inordinately fragile. The fixed points tremble and we with them." ⁴ Jeremiah brings us to the edge of our fragile realities and wrestles with God on our behalf. How do we preach about chaos, defeat, suffering, and hope in relationship to God? Who is God, and who are we, really?

Considering Jeremiah's call in light of his whole ministry challenges our most rudimentary theological assertions. What is the foundation of our theology: hope, or else despair? In the midst of Jeremiah's theology of desolation there shines also a theology of consolation. The community of faith can only hear Jeremiah's word of hope after they see his worst predictions come true. Jeremiah earns credibility after the crushing destruction of Jerusalem, so his word of hope carries weight and promise. When Jeremiah says that God plans a future that is good and not harmful (Jeremiah 29:11), he reveals that his posture is one of hopeful living. This hope is hard won for Jeremiah, which makes his a credible witness to God's redemptive power.

Margaret B. Hess
Nashua, NH

1. Gerhard Von Rad, The Message of the Prophets (New York: Harper &Row, 1963), p. 161.

2. William Holladay, Jeremiah: Spokesman Out of Time (Philadelphia: United Church Press, 1974), pp. 13-15.

3. Ibid., p. 12.

4.Walter Brueggemann, Texts Under Negotiation: The Bible and Postmodern Imagination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), p.84.

PREACHING THE TEXT: Jeremiah 1:4-10; Mark 1:16-20

Called

In the motion picture, Chariots of Fire, there is an unforgettable scene and line about deciding between what one has to do and what one is called to do. The story is about the 1924 Olympic games and a Scottish runner named Eric Liddell. Liddell is the son of a minister. He's a theological student at the University of Edinburgh, preparing to be a missionary. But he can run, and to compete in the Olympics, he must discontinue his theological studies in order to train properly. The scene I will never forget occurs on a windswept hilltop…Arthur's Seat, I believe, in Edinburgh. Liddell and his sister are talking about his decision. She is arguing that he ought to forget about running and listen to God's call to the mission field. Liddell replies, "I believe God made me for a purpose; but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel his pleasure. To give it up would be to hold him in contempt; to win is to honor him."

So Liddell decides to run—to feel the pleasure of God, to honor God by running. The reason the movie was made was Liddell's decision to drop out of the 100-meter dash because the event was scheduled for Sunday, and his strict Scottish sabbatarianism would not allow it. Coaches, politicians, teammates, even British royalty, tried to persuade him to run, but he would not budge. Finally, a teammate, Harold Abrahams, who was Jewish and the British 400-meter champion, suggested that he and Liddell swap events. Liddell agreed and entered the 400, a very different and obviously longer event. Abrahams entered the 100. Remarkably, both won gold medals. Liddell set a world record in the 400, which stood for more than a decade.

It's a great story, and the best line in it is, "I believe God made me for a purpose: but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel his pleasure. To give it up would be to hold him in contempt; to win is to honor him."

It is, of course, the most important question of all: What should I do with my life? What is my purpose? What am I supposed to be doing? Is what I'm doing the right thing? Does it matter? It is the question of vocation. To put it in a theological context and theological language: What does God want me to do? Or, does God really have an agenda for me, a plan, a program? There simply is no more important question for any of us than that.

One of the best and boldest ideas in the Christian religion is that God does have something in mind for us, each of us, individually. "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good," Paul wrote to the early church in Corinth—words we use as we ordain and install officers for the congregation. And long before that, in the history of God's people, prophets are called.

The year is 627 B.C. The last strong leader of the Assyrian Empire has died, and there are major changes on the horizon for Israel. At that moment a young boy hears a voice: "Before I formed you I knew you, before you were born I consecrated you to be a prophet to the nations."

It happens several times in the Old Testament, as does the boy's reply: "Ah, Lord God! Truly, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy."

The pattern is consistent. God calls. The candidate declines. Moses is tending his father-in-law's flock in the wilderness, when a bush goes up in flames. A voice tells him his job is to go to Egypt and liberate his people. Moses says, in effect, "Who me? Thanks, but no thanks." God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh, and Jonah heads out in the other direction. God calls Jeremiah, and Jeremiah stammers, "I don't know how to talk. I'm not up to this. I'm only a boy."

God calls. Candidate declines. God won't take no for an answer. God is persistent.

God keeps after Moses, tracks Jonah down all the way to the belly of the whale. God says back to reluctant 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."

Then there's the gracious promise: "Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you." Jeremiah, years later, looked back at that amazing time and remembered: "Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth."

· God calls: Candidate declines on the grounds that he or she is not up to the demands of the assignment.

· God persists

· God promises God's presence and the resources needed to get the job done.

In some ways that is an odd notion—perhaps even bizarre. The voice of God? To me? To you? A real voice? What does God sound like? I used to think God sounded like Charlton Heston, maybe, until he became involved with the NRA. I never heard the voice of God—at least as a recognizable human voice. I've come to the conclusion that maybe it wasn't quite that distinct and clear for Moses, Jonah and Jeremiah either. I've concluded, as I look back at pivotal events and important decisions in my own life, that things look a lot clearer in retrospect than they do at the time. At the time, it's pretty confusing, disturbing even: you lie awake at night wrestling with options, you take long walks to sort it out: "Shall I do this or that? What if I go that way? What if I stay put?"

An acquaintance came to see me recently and after preliminary small talk got right to the point. "What I want to talk with you about," he said, "is this. I'm successful. I'm doing exactly what I always knew I wanted to do. Everything in my life is in place. But I'm restless. Is it okay to be forty-five, successful, and restless?"

What a great question. Of course it's okay to be forty-five and restless, or thirty-five, or fifty-five, or sixty-five, or seventy-five and restless, for that matter. Maybe it isn't a clear distinct voice telling us what to do at all. Maybe it's restlessness.

When Jesus walked along the lakeshore, found Simon and Andrew, said, "Follow me," and they dropped their nets and followed, I've always thought there was more to it than that. I've always supposed there was some restlessness in their souls, some sleepless nights wrestling with the meaning and purpose of their lives. I've always believed God was stirring up the souls of the disciples—all of whom, by the way, were second-career people—making them restless, preparing them for the day when Jesus said directly, "Follow me."

Dr. James Fowler, Professor of Theology and Human Development at Emory University, writes that "vocation is bigger than job or occupation or career. Vocation refers to the centering commitments and vision that shape what our lives are really about."¹

Sometimes centering commitment and vision can take the form of a job. God called J. S. Bach to write music and Michelangelo to create art. But sometimes it doesn't work that way. Sometimes the challenge is to find a way to earn a living in order to be able to respond to your true vocation.

There was a wonderful article in Sports Illustrated a few weeks ago about Perry Reese, a remarkable basketball coach in Berlin, Ohio, a small, all white, mostly Amish and Mennonite community, which hadn't changed much in 200 years. Reese was an African-American, in fact the only black person in eastern Holmes County. He was also single and Roman Catholic. He was hired by the local high school in Berlin to be an assistant coach. When the head coach resigned unexpectedly and Reese, by default took his place, Hiland High School began to win basketball games in unprecedented numbers, and finally, unbelievably, they even won a state championship. Along the way, Coach Reese won the acceptance, affection, and respect of the community because of his quiet grace, his personal strength, and his loyalty to the youngsters. High school kids loved him, hung out at his house, and when some of the basketball players made a big mistake—they broke into and stole merchandise from a hardware store—Reese took personal responsibility for them and visited them daily in the juvenile detention center. He made good friendships, was a good neighbor, and wore his love and his passion for his job and his kids on his sleeve. When he was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, the town of Berlin discovered that it had changed deeply and profoundly because of Perry Reese's work. When he died, Berlin knew itself to be a community in new ways. A star player decided to "reverse Coach's path and teach and coach black kids in Canton." A scholarship fund Coach Reese established with his own life's savings took off. And of all things, white, rural, Mennonite Berlin families started to do something unthinkable after he died.

"Shelly and Alan Miller adopted a biracial boy. The Keims adopted two black boys, the Shrochs adopted four black girls, the Masts—two black girls, Chris Miller in the next town over, adopted a black girl."

Coach Reese's job was teaching and coaching. But his vocation was building a community of love and respect.

At his funeral, the entire community gathered in St. Peter's Catholic Church, and the priest did something as unusual ecclesiastically as a black coach leading a team of short, cropped, Mennonite kids to a state championship: he invited everyone to come to the sacrament of Holy Communion. They came—Mennonites, Baptists, Catholics—"busting laws right and left," the Sports Illustrated writer wrote, "busting straight into the Kingdom of Heaven."²

How do you know? How do you know what you are supposed to be doing? Professor Fowler is helpful in observing that Christians ordinarily cast the topic in negative terms. That is, God's will, God's call—is not something you would choose if left to your own devices. To respond to God's call is self-denial, self-sacrifice. Well, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe God's will is what you most powerfully and profoundly want.

I love something Frederick Buechner said about vocation: "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."³

Or, as Eric Liddell put it, "I believe God made me for a purpose; but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel his pleasure. To give it up would be to hold him in contempt; to win is to honor him."

After the Olympics, Eric Liddell returned to school, became a missionary in China, and died in a Japanese prison camp just a few weeks before the camp was liberated by American troops in 1945.

God has something in mind for you, work to do, community to create, people to love, lives to save, the kingdom of God to build. The promise is that once you know what it is, there is nothing to fear. God will be with you and give you the resources you need. It may or may not be the work for which you are paid. But it is God's precious gift to you—your vocation—God's call. Amen.

John M. Buchanan Chicago, IL

Notes

1. The Chicago Sunday Evening Club, January 7, 1999.

2. Gary Smith, Sports Illustrated, March 5, 2001.

3. Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1993), p. 119.