This morning,
our reading comes from the opening of the book of the Prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah was very young when God told him that
he would be a prophet. Jeremiah tried to wiggle out of the “call” God had for
him by declaring he was too young. In this morning’s reading, we hear God’s
response to Jeremiah’s plea.
Hear the word of God as it is found
in Jeremiah Chapter 1, verses 4 through 10:
Scripture Reading Jeremiah
1:4-10
The word of
the Lord came to me, saying,
“Before I
formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”
“Alas,
Sovereign Lord,” I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am too
young.”
But the Lord said
to me, “Do not say, ‘I am too young.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and
say whatever I command you.
Do not be
afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares
the Lord.
Then the Lord reached
out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, “I have put my words in
your mouth.
See, today I
appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to
destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.”
Here ends this reading of the word of God
for the People of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Prayer for Understanding
O God, by your Spirit tell us what we need to hear, and show us what we ought to do to obey Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
For many
students, including those who attend Perkiomen Valley Schools, this will be the
last free week before school starts. On Wednesday at noon, the middle school schedules
were released on the PV website. Lucia called me at 11:41 and stayed on the phone
with me until her schedule loaded onto the screen. She wanted to know which
language she will study (French), who her homeroom teacher will be, and if she
will have classes with her friends.
Our young people are supported in their
academic efforts by their teachers, aides, bus drivers, janitors, and other
school staff. You can’t send your kids
to school without the adults who support them. When we were in the early days
of the pandemic, and students were suddenly learning “online,” they still had
many adults involved in supporting their efforts. The tech support people were
incredibly busy getting tablets and computers to all of the kids, and then
making sure they worked. Lucia had to have several replacement computers. Most
of the kids did. The teachers and instructors quickly learned new skills so they
could teach and supervise the kids remotely.
The people who work for schools –
the teachers, staff, aids, everyone – they all could make more money if they worked
elsewhere, in a different type of profession. They are not in it for the money. They are not
in it for the glory, either. Teachers are not universally liked or appreciated
by their students or the parents of their students. Instead, if you speak to
people who work in schools, people who work with children, many of them talk
about their work as a vocation. They fee a strong inclination to become
teachers or school employees. They feel “called” to do their work. And, despite
the challenges they face, they stick to it because they can’t imagine any other
way to live. They are supposed to work with kids or young people.
In our reading this morning, Jeremiah
doesn’t want to become a prophet. He is one of the many people in our
scriptures who was reluctant about their calling from God. Moses told God he
couldn’t be a prophet because he was a stutterer. Jonah literally ran away from
the work God called him to do. Mary said
she couldn’t be pregnant with Jesus because she was only a virgin, only a young
girl. Paul said he couldn’t become an
evangelist for Christianity because he had previously persecuted Christians,
and he was too much of a sinner.
Jeremiah said he couldn’t become a
prophet because he was too young.
God wouldn’t take Jeremiah’s no for
an answer. God told Jeremiah that God would place the words he needed to say
into his mouth. And, after this conversation, Jeremiah spent many years as a
prophet, preaching all over the land of Judah. He lived over 80 years, and travelled throughout
the land sharing that God wanted the people to do better. Jeremiah was
persecuted for his work – even his own relatives plotted to kill him to keep
him from prophesying. Jeremiah was beaten by Temple officials and put into stocks
to punish him for speaking out. But, Jeremiah could not shut off his calling,
he couldn’t turn off his vocation. In Jeremiah 20, he said:
But if I say, “I will not
mention God’s word or speak anymore in God’s name,” God’s word is in my
heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it
in; indeed, I cannot.
If Jeremiah tried
to hold God’s words in, he felt the insides of his body were on fire – he had
to say God’s words.
Many of us feel like Jeremiah, we
have to fulfil our vocation. We have to do the work God calls us to do. This past
winter, many of us gathered over Zoom for a discussion of the “God at Work” materials.
Some of the people who participated didn’t feel that their paid work was their
vocation, was their calling. Instead, it was what the needed to do in order to
get a pay-check so that they could take care of their families and have the
resources they needed to accomplish the things they truly felt called to do…play
music, craft, paint, care for animals, care for grandchildren, bike, run,
volunteer, cook, care for the environment, climb mountains, travel…Each of us
has things we feel called to do.
Jeremiah could not say no to God. As
we consider our relationship with God and with our faith, I hope we will all
say “Yes” to God. Part of our work as the faithful is to find ways to live out
our faith in Jesus in our day to day lives. We are God’s embassies on earth. We are here to tell others about God and Jesus.
We are here to explain to others why we believe and what we believe. We are
here to live according to God’s teachings to us. We are here to scatters seeds
of faith as we live according to the scriptures.
Let us say Yes to God and live out
our faith in love. Amen.
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