God Calls a Prophet – Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost (Jeremiah 1: 4-10)
Earlier this month, I was watching my favorite Baseball team, the Chicago Cubs, playing a series of games in St. Louis against their rival the Cardinals. During the course of the broadcast the cameras found a teenaged boy in the crowd, several rows up behind home plate, who was dressed in full umpire gear. He had black shirt, gray pants, pads, and a mask. Not only that but he was calling each pitch along with the home plate umpire. He would emphatically signal balls and strikes, safe or out. The kid’s name was Bradley and he was 13 years old. Pretty soon he was being interviewed on the air by both team’s reporters, telling his story to their respective audiences. The next night he was there again, this was a national broadcast and so now he was getting a spotlight all over again. He was a viral sensation. So, he had the chance to tell his story several more times. During the many interviews he did that weekend he talked about how his dream in life was to become an umpire in the major leagues. So, he watched them closely and learned their mannerisms. He studied the rule book. He had even started umpiring T-Ball games back home in Florida. One of the broadcasters said he would definitely become an umpire one day. He loved it so much, it certainly seemed like he was born to do it.
Today we heard a reading from the book of the prophet Jeremiah. This is Jeremiah’s call story. Jeremiah’s story is unique among the prophets of ancient Israel. Unlike other prophets, such as Moses or Isaiah, Jeremiah’s call story begins early in his life. Very early. We are told that Jeremiah’s call begins in the womb. Perhaps even before that. Before he was even fully formed in the womb, God was making a prophet. Different translations use different words here, saying God “selected,” “knew,” or “chose” Jeremiah for this life. Still, the meaning is that Jeremiah was born to be a prophet. He is the only prophet we read about who is called before birth and set apart for life as a prophet. Other prophets of the Hebrew Bible are called away from their lives and different vocations to take up the work of a prophet. Jeremiah, however, seems to have been always destined for this work, made for this life.
God has been calling Jeremiah since the beginning. This is part of Jeremiah’s call story, and it is good that it is, because, like most prophets, Jeremiah is reluctant to be called. He knows it is a difficult life. It involves telling people things they don’t want to hear. It involves telling the people where they have gone wrong, what they need to fix to repair their relationships with God. Which usually means fixing their relationship with God’s people. I suppose in that way prophets are a bit like umpires or referees. Forced to tell the people when they have fouled and when they have struck out. Making sure certain governing principles are observed, so that everyone can play nice and relate to each other fairly and justly. Anyway, Jeremiah was reluctant to take up the task. His excuse is that he must be too young to be a prophet. He was young when he was called. Perhaps still a teenager. Who would listen to him? What does he know? But God does not accept this reasoning, and tells him not use his youth as an excuse. After all, it doesn’t matter. Jeremiah just has to go where God tells him to go and say what God tells him to say. That’s the arrangement. Speaking for God is Jeremiah’s specific gift. It is what he was born to do.
Of course, I think Jeremiah also might take comfort in knowing that he had been called to this life even before he was born. God had already reminded Jeremiah that God was with him since the beginning. This could be proof to Jeremiah that God has always been with him, and will continue to be with him during his time as a prophet. No matter where God sends Jeremiah to speak, he will not be alone. He never has been.
I wonder, if perhaps we can find comfort or, even, inspiration in this part of Jeremiah’s story. I think that sometimes we come to these call stories of the prophets and they may seem a little intimidating, a little distant. We see the value in them; we see the power in them. God is calling this person to an important task and to a life of service to God. They may lead us to recognize that there is a call on our life. Maybe you feel God whispering in your ear or tugging on your heartstrings to do something, to help someone, to make a change in your life. Maybe it’s something that goes completely against your status quo. And maybe that is scary, and maybe that means you react like the prophets do – you reject the call, you drag your feet, you say, “No, it couldn’t be me.” And that’s okay, because call stories can be intimidating. These stories are about specific people, called by God to say radical things and do things that shake up the world around them. Then we are offered more modern examples, like the stories of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mother Theresa. People who answered the call and lived lives that were extraordinary and unique. It puts a lot of pressure on the idea of being called by God.
The story of Jeremiah offers us another lens through which to look at calling. It is not just a charge given by God to go out in the world and do what God is telling you to do – however big or small that call might seem. Jeremiah was called from before birth. God was with him then and with him throughout his life as a prophet. So, a call can also be a promise. A promise that God will be with you, and has been with you. We don’t need to be scared of those things we think might be God calling us to something new. We can feel some comfort from them, because a new calling on your life can make you aware of God’s presence in a new way. That presence that is always with us, we just don’t often have the bandwidth or take the time to notice. And of course, that call can be anything, from Jeremiah’s call to speak God’s words to the people, to something as simple as Bradley’s call to call balls and strikes. What we put out into the world can make people comforted and aware of God’s presence even in hard times.
And the hard times will come, because God’s call -as much as we might find comfort in God’s presence- it is not guaranteed to be easy. Jeremiah knew this, and it was part of his prophetic message. He is not remembered as having a positive message. For instance, in verse ten of our reading today, there are four words used that are verbs that express a breaking down of some kind – “uproot,” “tear down,” “destroy,” and “overthrow.” However, after that, there is also the call to plant and build. These are positive actions leading to creation. These words, the positive and the negative, set the stage for Jeremiah’s work. This reminds us that, even though there may be some need to let go of or dispose of old ways – ways that no longer serve your life and your relationships in good ways- God’s call is always oriented in the direction of life and new life. The prophet’s message is a work of hope. Here at the end of this scripture we are reminded of that. However, in the beginning of this reading we were also reminded that a call story can also offer hope, as a reminder of God’s enduring love and presence in our lives. God is with us and God desires restoration.
A popular quote concerning the idea of God’s calling on our life comes from pastor and theologian Howard Thurman who once said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who come alive.” Some people will quibble with that statement, because after all, the world needs a lot of things. Food for the hungry. Shelter for the homeless. Peace for the violated and the persecuted. These are, admittedly, and these are things that can’t be provided by a baseball umpire. In response, but I would also say look at the world around you. Couldn’t it benefit from more people doing something that they love that much? Being able to do things that bring them joy? Makes them come alive?
Not everyone will perceive it that way. As you might have guessed, people online were not amused by Bradley’s umpiring. They were annoyed by this precocious teenager getting his fifteen minutes of fame. Which is not uncommon. I’ll admit that first game I saw him at I was a bit annoyed too. I thought it was a bit much. However, by the next night, when I was watching the second game I started to come around to Bradley’s story. (Of course, part of that may have been because the Cubs were losing throughout the first game and so I was a little irritated already, but in the second game they were winning convincingly and so I was in a much better mood.) I started to come around to the idea of Bradley’s passion and enthusiasm for umpiring as a good thing. There is a joy in seeing someone, especially a young person, know what they love and what makes them happy and then seeing them do that thing. As we said before, there is comfort and hope to be found in the sharing of the peace and purpose found in a good call story.
So, no matter what we are called to do, let it spread a story of hope and restoration. After all, this is also a story we come to know in Jesus. It is a story of God with us, in the spiritual and physical sense. It is the story of one who came in the tradition of the prophets of Israel to bring attention to where things had gone wrong, where suffering and oppression had taken the place of well-being and justice. We may not all be called to be a prophet like Jeremiah, but we have been given a story to tell and we have been given what is our to do. So, whatever our specific call may be, at a foundational level, our faith calls us to share these gifts.
Now, I don’t know if Bradley the Teen-aged Umpire comes from a Christian household. Whether the story of Jesus’s love is something that he has heard and taken to heart. It wouldn’t surprise me, though. When telling his story, this is what Bradley had to say about what inspires him in his quest to be a Big-League Umpire. He said, “My dad is my biggest inspiration. He tells me to work hard. If you fall down, always get up. And get up with joy, get up with pride and get up with hope.” I do not claim these are the words of a prophet (in the Biblical sense). They are the words of a boy who loves the rules of baseball, but they give us a pretty good idea of what to do with a prophetic message. A message that tells us that, in some way, we have fallen. So, what we must do now is get up. Do it with joy, with pride, and with hope. Because we have been formed and loved by God since our beginning. The God who calls us all, no matter where we are coming from in life, toward creation, restoration, and new life.
Amen.