4th Sunday after Epiphany 2010                Christ Church , York

The call itself was nothing new. Down through the ages, God had called prophets to speak for Him, prophets such as Nathan who spoke to King David and Elijah who spoke to King Ahab, or Amos and Hosea, Micah and Isaiah and many, many more. So when the call came to Jeremiah, he should not have been surprised, for God spoke to him in the same terms as He had to others “I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” But Jeremiah was reluctant to respond to the call fearing, like so many of those other prophets, what it might mean in his life, fearful of the consequences, the responsibility and the implications. For if nothing else this call put Jeremiah in a difficult position. With deeply held feelings for his people and the things that he fears will happen to them, Jeremiah knows that the nation to which he was called to prophesy was not in a good position, surrounded as it was by a number of enemies and living in the shadow of the mighty Babylonian Empire which was seeking to expand its boundaries. The future of the nation called Judah was in doubt and Jeremiah knew in his heart that prophesying to a nation that was about to be defeated by its enemies and its people taken into exile and slavery was not going to be a fun thing to do.

But Jeremiah’s had a second reason for his reluctance – his age, for when the call came to Jeremiah he was barely 20 years old. Some may be flattered by the notion that they were being drawn into God’s service at such a young age but not Jeremiah who understood full well the task and responsibility that lay ahead of him. After all, Jeremiah had been raised in a rectory of sorts, since his father was a priest and he in turn had come from a long line of priests. But in spite of that clergy background and knowledge, Jeremiah still felt he was too young and inexperienced and therefore not ready to respond to God’s call.

And on top of the issue of his age, Jeremiah complained to God that he did not know how to speak nor did he know what to say under such circumstances, being that he was not only young but had little or no experience in this field. It was one thing to absorb the practices and rituals of the priesthood from his father and grandfather, but he did not believe that he had the ability to articulate the right words that would represent the thoughts of God for His people.

But Jeremiah was not the first person called by God to be so reluctant. In the long history of Israel during which God called some into the role of prophet to bear His holy word to the people, we often see those who are so called responding to that call with a good measure of reluctance even resistance. Too often God seems to be dragging His chosen candidates for the prophetic roles kicking and screaming into His divine service, seemingly oblivious to their protestations about their inadequacies or even their fear of their lives. For what God has to say to His people through the mouth of His prophets far outweighs any objections that an ill prepared candidate can muster in an attempt to make themselves exempt from service. And in the case of Jeremiah, God cuts the protestations and excuses off quickly, telling Jeremiah that he was chosen before he was even born! Therefore, says God, I have long known of your weaknesses and your strengths, your gifts and your graces, your abilities and your failings. But still I call you, still I name you and still I choose to make you my voice to my people. 

Over the objections of Jeremiah that he is too young or ill prepared, God’s answer is simply this: Look Jeremiah you are not on your own here, for I have chosen you; I am the one sending you; I will pick the places and the peoples to whom you will speak; and I will give you the words to say. The prophetic office is God’s work and therefore God would choose the mission, God would provide the words and God would be present to make it effective. Therefore Jeremiah, young and inexperienced as he may be, can take up this calling with confidence for it is God’s work and God’s words that will be spoken to God’s people.

And as an affirmation and confirmation of the calling which God has laid upon Jeremiah, God put out His hand and touched Jeremiah’s mouth, telling him that “You shall serve as my mouth.” Other prophets experienced the same sort of thing, especially when the coal was touched to the lips of Isaiah and he was ordered to speak. For the word of God is to be shared by word of mouth. It is to be proclaimed, dialogued, preached, taught, pored over in seminars and meditated upon in groups. Luther even had a special word for this spoken word; he called it the “mundhaus” or the mouth house. For Luther understood that the word is to be shared more by speaking than by writing, since the oral word is the word that is personally applied and personally witnessed and the place where this Word is spoken is indeed the mundhaus or mouth house of God.

Many of us have in one way or another sensed the inadequacy that Jeremiah felt when he was called to the prophetic office . We may hope and even pray that no one would ever call upon us to serve in our congregation’s evangelism efforts, especially when that means going out and speaking to others about our faith. And when asked to serve in some capacity or other within the life of the congregation, particularly when it comes to speaking or reading in public, we have our excuses ready, that we are simply not experienced enough or ready to do it. At such times we often feel our ineptitude, our lack of experience or our conviction that we just don’t have the right words to say. Indeed many may believe that they do not have the ability to talk about anything publicly, least of all their faith. But while these excuses may indeed be true or at least have some credibility for some, God has still called us to speak His words and to be His voice in this world, thereby making lame any excuses we may try to make. 

So it is that whenever and wherever we have the opportunity to share the Word, God calls us to do so. For just as Jeremiah was not called to share his own word but rather God’s word, so it is that we are called to do the same. In and through our baptisms God has given the word to us and now calls upon us to share that same word. And this is not as overwhelming or as frightening as it seems. For if you have known of God’s love and grace in the person of Jesus Christ who lived and died and rose for us, then you are asked to simply share that with others. If you have known what God’s forgiveness means in your life, when the weight of sin was lifted from you, then share that word. If you have known what God’s mercy has meant in your life, then share that. And if you know what it means to live in the midst of God’s promises for life everlasting even in the midst of the death of your loved ones, then share that word. These are the words that God has put upon your heart and placed upon your lips and He now calls you to share that Word with others.

Jeremiah’s timidity about speaking out on behalf of God faded with God’s assurance that He would equip him with the message to speak to others. So we too should not worry about we should say, for God has written the script and He has given us the Lord Jesus Christ to be His Word incarnate. And what Jesus has done for us says it all. Too often we think that we must find new or clever ways to express the truth of our faith or we think that we have to be great with words to get across the mysteries in which we believe. But we don’t! Instead what we need to do is to simply share our experience with others of being loved and cared for by God, of living in His new life and peace, of being His child whom He knew before we were even born. When we speak this word we are sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ who alone can breath new life into people’s lives.

Jeremiah listened to the call of God and went to speak to God’s people. We may never begin to match his level of proclamation or speak to whole nations. We may never achieve lasting fame or be renowned for our skills as an orator. But like Jeremiah we can take heart in knowing that what we do whenever we speak the word of God, we do in the name of God and for that reason alone it will be effective. For God has called each of us before we were born; at baptism He placed His hand on our mouths; and in those same waters He sends us out to proclaim the Good News of salvation to all who will listen. “Now the Word of the Lord came to me…to Reagan…to each of you…saying Before I formed you in the womb I knew you and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations. May the Lord bless His holy Word among us and may the Lord bless your proclamation of that Word. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.