The prophet's task
Commentary
The theme for today may be designated "The Prophetic Task." The first lesson records the commissioning of a prophet. The Gospel lesson illustrates the effect of prophetic ministry. The second lesson speaks of that which abides when prophecies cease.
Specific connections can be made between the first lesson and the Gospel: in both, there is an emphasis on ministry to the nations, a depiction of the prophetic task as both building up and tearing down, and a presentation of God's deliverance of the prophet from harm.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Here we have an account of the divine commissioning of Jeremiah. Next week, we will have the similar story of the call of Isaiah. Jeremiah had a long period of ministry, beginning when he was "only a boy" (v. 6). The commission reported here probably occurred in 627 B.C.E. (1:2). Thereafter, he would witness all of the events leading up to the Babylonian exile in 587. He himself was taken into exile in Egypt, where he died.
Form critics (who are picky about such matters) want to be sure we identify this text as "a commissioning" rather than as "a call." Jeremiah is not called to be a prophet, but commissioned to be a prophet to the nations (v. 5). The main point is his discovery that his ministry is to have a special focus. Indeed, he was consecrated for this particular task before he was even born. God has been preparing him for it, and now informs him of that plan.
The reference to pre-natal appointment is poetic and should not be read in terms of biology. It is intended to stimulate trust in the divine plan of God that takes everything into account and sets in motion today what will not be needed or useful for some time. It is compatible with an eschatological image of God who inhabits the future and reaches back to prepare us for what is to come.
The verse has become a favorite proof-text for opponents of abortion. Read in a literalistic way, this is preposterous -- Jeremiah does not intend to offer any insight on when life "begins." In another sense, though, it is applicable. A biblically informed perspective will always view conception as a sign that God intends life and regard every abortion as an instance of God's intention not being fulfilled.
The text gives us a good picture of what the Bible means by "prophet." God says, "I have put my words in your mouth" (cf. Deuteronomy 18:18). The prophet is not definitively one who predicts the future, but one who speaks God's words, who expresses God's point of view. As such, prophets evaluate the past, comment on the present, and offer projections regarding the future. The prophetic task is not simply to build and to plant, but also to pluck up and to tear down (cf. Ecclesiastes 3:2-3, our lesson on New Year's Day). This is reflected in the popular description of pastoral ministry: "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." The trick, of course, is knowing when to do which.
Jeremiah responds to his call (uh, commission) with resistance, protesting that he is only a youth and does not know how to do what God will require of him. There is a long history in the Bible of such excuses. Moses in Exodus 4:1-17 leaps to mind. The nature of the excuse is interesting. Jeremiah does not object that God's imposition of a plan for his life will interfere with plans that he might have had for his own life. Nor does he fear the suffering that obedience to God's direction might bring (chapters 36-45 of this book detail some of the personal suffering that Jeremiah will bear as God's spokesperson). No, Jeremiah's only concern is with whether he will be up to the task. Such concern actually qualifies him for the job. God would not want a prophet who was so sure of his (her) own abilities as to accept the job with confidence.
God overcomes this sincere objection with a promise of presence. It is all that is needed: "I am with you." I am reminded immediately of Matthew 28:20, which, when all is said and done, is the only verse of scripture that we need.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
One of the most popular chapters in the Bible, this text is often read on its own -- apart from the discussion on spiritual gifts where it is found in 1 Corinthians. It works well that way, functioning as a meaningful unit in its own right. In context, however, it presents love as "the more excellent way," as superior not only to miracles or to speaking in tongues, but also to knowledge, to wisdom, to prophecy, to generosity, and to martyrdom. Love has pre-eminence over all these things not only because it is more important for the present, but also because (like faith and hope) it endures forever.
The central section of the chapter (vv. 4-7) defines love. These are the key verses and they are certainly significant for our romance-addled culture. Every other song on the radio, every other magazine on the rack, every other film at the theater seems to present "love" in terms of emotion, drenched in sentimentality and steeped in passion. Not just sexual love either -- parent-child relations, friendships, all sorts of relationships are presented in terms of how people feel about each other.
In startling contrast, Paul describes love as unselfish behavior. Love is not described as feeling a particular way about people. It is treating people in a certain way, regardless of how one feels. This, of course, is the only sense in which love can ever be commanded. It is the only sense that gives meaning to "love your neighbor," much less "love your enemy." God is not primarily concerned with how we feel about our neighbors or our enemies (or even with how we feel about our parents or children or friends or spouses). God is concerned with how we treat them. "Love is feeling ..." John Lennon began a song. No, Paul argues. Love is acting.
We can go too far making this point. I've heard sermons that take on popular culture in a way that denies the validity of romantic feelings, that belittle the excitement of infatuation or the strength of sexual desire. M. Scott Peck does this in his best-seller, The Road Less Traveled. Drawing on his mentor, Erich Fromm, he describes romantic feelings as illusory, theorizing that they are probably the result of some chemical reaction tripped by the evolutionary tendency to encourage mating. He warns that such feelings will always be temporary. I pity him, knowing from my own experience (and from the testimony of a thousand poets) that he is wrong. But I concur with the point he ultimately wants to make, that the solid foundation of love is behavioral. Fromm described love as an art that can be taught, practiced, and learned. It is doubtful whether one can ever teach or learn how to feel a certain way, but with practice we can learn how to act in ways that are patient, unselfish, and kind.
Try to find contemporary examples, ones that uplift the behavioral definition of love without disparaging its emotive power. The ones that come to my mind betray my age. In 1978 Meat Loaf scored a Top Ten hit singing, "I want you, I need you, but there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you." Negative, but revealing. What is love, if it is not wanting someone, needing someone? It's treating them in a way that puts them ahead of yourself! Too bad Mr. Loaf wasn't up to following this "more excellent way," but at least he knew the difference.
Then there's that song from Fiddler On The Roof. "Do You Love Me?" Tevye asks his wife. Their marriage had been arranged before either of them were born ("The first time I saw you was on our wedding day"). She has to consider the question, especially in light of recent flutters in her teenage daughters' hearts. At last she responds: "I've lived with you all of these years, cleaned and cooked for you, nursed you when you were ill ... if that's not love, what is?"
Luke 4:21-30
We pick up this text where we left off last week, focusing now on the reaction of the crowd to Jesus' declaration that Isaiah's words are being fulfilled through his own life and ministry.
At first, they are impressed, assuming that the fulfillment of scripture he mentions is going to apply to them. He spoke of the poor, the blind, the lame, the oppressed -- the afflicted. But most people, when they put their minds to it, are able to identify themselves as afflicted in some way. So the people of Nazareth assume Jesus means that they are "the poor" to whom he intends to bring good news. Their reaction turns to violent rage when they discover this is not true. They hold a congregational meeting right on the spot and vote to throw the visiting pastor off a cliff.
Jesus had pinpointed their attitude by citing a couple of proverbs. "Physician, heal yourself" was apparently a popular saying of the day. It didn't mean (as we might think) that physicians are often sick and need to heal themselves, but rather that the wise physician will be self-serving -- use his medicine and his skills to improve his own health instead of just devoting his life to helping others. Jesus rejected this notion while he was in the wilderness with Satan. The Spirit has not come upon him to empower him to meet his own needs, but to empower him to minister to others. In place of the conventional wisdom, Jesus offers a new proverb: "No prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown." The idea of this saying reverses the logic of the first. Ironically, the people's anger at this change in perspective leads them to illustrate, literally, the truth of Jesus' statement.
The references to Elijah and Elisha stories are particularly telling, since both were commonly read as presenting Israel's superiority. Consider the latter: Originally, the story of Naaman the leper (2 Kings 5:1-14) appears to have been a nationalistic tale demonstrating the superiority of Israel's faith over Syrian religion. The commander in chief of all the armies of Aram must come to Israel and ask a favor, first of its king, then of its prophet. He and his king must admit that in their own country the powers that be are unable to help. Not only that but the help -- when it is offered -- comes in a humbling if not humiliating fashion: a bath in the Jordan River. The whole point of the story for Israel seems to have been to provide an excuse to tell the Syrians, "Our God is better than your gods and, for that matter, our river is better than your rivers."
This was a very popular story until Jesus came along and ruined it. And he did so not by preaching a whole sermon on this text but just by making an observation. He said, "You know, there must have been a lot of lepers in Israel at the time of Elisha, but we don't hear about any of them being cleansed. It seems the only one who was healed was that guy from Syria." That's it. Just one subversive little comment and the story is ruined. Because, of course, he is right. You can talk about who has the best rivers all day, but the bottom line is -- in this story -- God helps a foreigner. The effect of Jesus' comment was to deconstruct traditional readings of Naaman's story in a way that prepared for more explicit teaching on the universality of God's grace. As a result, the story came to mean almost the opposite of what people had wanted it to mean. The very story that had appeared to support the notion that "God's on our side" now seemed to challenge that perspective.
Nelson Trout, the great Lutheran bishop and seminary professor, had a trick of playing with his eyeglasses and pretending he couldn't read quite clearly. I heard Nelson read the Nazareth story from Luke's Gospel twice when I was a child, once in my hometown of College Station, Texas, and then again two years later in San Antonio. He did the same thing or almost the same thing both times. In College Station when he read the passage he said, "There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha, but none of them was cleansed except Naaman, the Communist, uh -- wait -- darn these bifocals! Not Communist, Syrian. I'm sorry." This was in one of the most conservative towns in America in 1962. Then in San Antonio when he read the lesson he said, "None of them was cleansed except Naaman, the Mexican, uh -- wait -- darn these bifocals!" This was in an all-
white church, of course. Both times Nelson's antics elicited obligatory chuckles, but I think there were some who wanted to hurl him off a cliff.
Over the years, when I have read this story or many other stories for that matter, I've developed the habit of asking, "What would Nelson's bifocals see? If he were reading here ... today?"
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Jeremiah 1:4-10
We modern-day Christians are not called to be prophets in the Old Testament sense of the term. We must remember that when preaching from this text. An Israelite prophet was one who had the ecstatic experience of standing "in the council (i.e., the heavenly court) of the Lord to perceive and to hear his word" (Jeremiah 23:18; cf. 1 Kings 22:13-23; Isaiah 40:1-8). He was then sent as a messenger of that council to tell where, when, and why God was at work in Israel's life. Old Testament prophets had new words from the Lord to proclaim, but we Christians believe that the Word of God has now been spoken and incarnated in its fullness in Jesus Christ, and we add nothing to that Word. Who can add anything to the cross and resurrection? Rather we simply spell out, expound, and explain the meaning of that full Word for our time.
Nevertheless, the God who called the youthful Jeremiah of Judah in 626 B.C. is also our God, and the revelation given in this text to the prophet at the beginning of his ministry can also be a witness to us of God's nature and purpose. Certainly the text centers on God. Six times the word "Lord" appears in the text.
Who is the God revealed through this call? First, he is a God of intimacy. There are no angelic mediators here, nor is Jeremiah overwhelmed with the vision of God's transcendent glory, as was Isaiah (chapter 6). Rather God himself fashioned Jeremiah in his mother's womb, like a potter working with a lump of clay (v. 5), as he has fashioned each one of us, and he knows Jeremiah and us through and through (cf. Psalm 139). Similarly, God himself reaches out his hand and touches the prophet's lips and puts his words in his mouth (v. 9).
Second, the God who calls Jeremiah is Lord of lords and King of kings. Jeremiah is called to be a prophet to "nations" and "kingdoms," and God can establish and build up those nations or pluck them up and break them down (v. 10). Like Jesus passing majestically through the midst of the lynch crowd in the gospel lesson, God in Jeremiah is the Almighty Sovereign in control. Thus, Jeremiah calls God "Adonai" (v. 6), that is, "Master" or "Owner."
This mighty Lord calls an insignificant youth from the Benjamite town of Anathoth to be his messenger. Jeremiah, at the time of this call, is a young man of marriageable age, about eighteen years old, and there is nothing about him that qualifies him to be the Lord's prophet. He has never spoken in public in his life. Indeed, throughout his ministry he is terrified by his task and argues constantly against it. The God of the scriptures, it seems, calls those who are weak and foolish and despised in the world (1 Corinthians 1:26-27), in order that it may be seen that it is God's power that works through them and not their own.
God always equips his ministers and messengers and disciples for their tasks, however, providing his sufficiency where they have none. To Jeremiah's "I do not know," the Lord replies, "I knew you." To Jeremiah's "I am only a youth," God answers, "I am with you," and then he gives Jeremiah the words he is to speak. As Paul says, God's grace is sufficient for us, and his power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
The reason for God's call to Jeremiah -- and to us -- is very clear. God is working constantly to make his creation good once again. We human beings ruin God's good world with our sin and rebellion against his will, attempting to be our own deities and to fashion our own future. The result is strife between male and female, between brother and brother, between nations, with God's creation marred by "thorns and thistles," the God-given gifts of beauty and work turned into ugliness and drudgery, all community become impossible, and over it all the sentence of death (Genesis 3-11). Now God works tirelessly to turn our cursed existence into blessing (Genesis 12:3) and to give to all humanity the gift of abundant life, in a community of justice and love and peace that knows how to live for the Lord.
God lays his plans for the salvation of his world very carefully. He tells Jeremiah, "Before I formed you ... before you were born" (v. 5). Before the prophet was ever conceived in the womb, God knew his task for Jeremiah, and "consecrated" him, that is, set him apart, to be his prophet. In like manner, God knew and planned each one of us for a special role in his purpose. God does not create human beings simply for nothing. For each of us he has a purpose before he ever makes us.
God equips Jeremiah for his task by putting his words in Jeremiah's mouth (v. 9). In other words, Jeremiah's prophecy is not the result of his own thought. He has not pondered the state of his society or read "the signs of the times" and decided that he simply must speak out against them. Nor has his prophecy been the result of his own religious zeal and indignation or even love for his people -- and he does love them dearly. No. Jeremiah's prophetic proclamations are words from the Lord, given to him as gifts from God. His prophecies come from God alone (cf. 15:16), and when Jeremiah tries to say something different, God rebukes him sternly (cf. Jeremiah 15:19). In the same manner, our tasks done for the Lord are gifts given us. In the epistle lesson of 1 Corinthians 13, the faith, hope, and love that Christians are to manifest in their lives are not products of their own thought and work, but gifts of the Spirit, as Paul makes very clear. Apart from God's equipment of us, we can not do the Lord's work.
The task given to Jeremiah is fearful. He is not only to "build and to plant," not only to comfort and give hope to his people, which he does after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 B.C. (Jeremiah chapters 30 and 31 are often called "The Book of Comfort".) Jeremiah is also to "pluck up and break down" (1:10), to utter those powerful, active words of judgment that will work their effect in Judah's life until they bring about the nation's downfall. (The concept of the Word of God in the Bible is that it acts in human life to bring about that of which it speaks. Cf. Isaiah 55:10-11; Ezekiel 12:28.)
The reason for the judgment of God in Judah's life, and in ours, is clear. God cannot give us new life without first ridding us of the old. New wine cannot be put into old wineskins, nor the new patch sewn on an old garment (Matthew 9:16-17). We cannot lead Christian lives while preserving our old habits of sin. God uses his judgments on us daily to rid us of our evil ways, in order that he may make us new creatures in Jesus Christ. He will not leave us alone in our evil, because he loves us and does not want us to die the death that our sin deserves. Rather, he constantly works to rid us of evil in order that he may give us a life of good.
It is not surprising that Jeremiah is told he will meet opposition. In fact, 1:18-19 tell us that all in Judah will fight against the prophet, because the Judeans, no more than we, do not like to hear that they are in the wrong. Christians in our day meet opposition, too. It is not easy to be good in our society, in which goodness is out of fashion. Divorce is rampant in our day, as are adultery and abortion, cheating and lying, selfishness and pride. Anyone who lives by God's word these days meets snickers and scorn and sometimes persecution. They are "nerds," "squares," and worst of all, "irrelevant."
But Jeremiah is given the promise of God that is given also to us. "Be not afraid of them," says the Lord, "for I am with you to deliver you" (v. 8). In the midst of every trial that confronts a Christian, who tries to live in faith, hope, and love, God is present with his own to strengthen and guide and reassure that his is the way to truth and abundant life.
Specific connections can be made between the first lesson and the Gospel: in both, there is an emphasis on ministry to the nations, a depiction of the prophetic task as both building up and tearing down, and a presentation of God's deliverance of the prophet from harm.
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Here we have an account of the divine commissioning of Jeremiah. Next week, we will have the similar story of the call of Isaiah. Jeremiah had a long period of ministry, beginning when he was "only a boy" (v. 6). The commission reported here probably occurred in 627 B.C.E. (1:2). Thereafter, he would witness all of the events leading up to the Babylonian exile in 587. He himself was taken into exile in Egypt, where he died.
Form critics (who are picky about such matters) want to be sure we identify this text as "a commissioning" rather than as "a call." Jeremiah is not called to be a prophet, but commissioned to be a prophet to the nations (v. 5). The main point is his discovery that his ministry is to have a special focus. Indeed, he was consecrated for this particular task before he was even born. God has been preparing him for it, and now informs him of that plan.
The reference to pre-natal appointment is poetic and should not be read in terms of biology. It is intended to stimulate trust in the divine plan of God that takes everything into account and sets in motion today what will not be needed or useful for some time. It is compatible with an eschatological image of God who inhabits the future and reaches back to prepare us for what is to come.
The verse has become a favorite proof-text for opponents of abortion. Read in a literalistic way, this is preposterous -- Jeremiah does not intend to offer any insight on when life "begins." In another sense, though, it is applicable. A biblically informed perspective will always view conception as a sign that God intends life and regard every abortion as an instance of God's intention not being fulfilled.
The text gives us a good picture of what the Bible means by "prophet." God says, "I have put my words in your mouth" (cf. Deuteronomy 18:18). The prophet is not definitively one who predicts the future, but one who speaks God's words, who expresses God's point of view. As such, prophets evaluate the past, comment on the present, and offer projections regarding the future. The prophetic task is not simply to build and to plant, but also to pluck up and to tear down (cf. Ecclesiastes 3:2-3, our lesson on New Year's Day). This is reflected in the popular description of pastoral ministry: "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." The trick, of course, is knowing when to do which.
Jeremiah responds to his call (uh, commission) with resistance, protesting that he is only a youth and does not know how to do what God will require of him. There is a long history in the Bible of such excuses. Moses in Exodus 4:1-17 leaps to mind. The nature of the excuse is interesting. Jeremiah does not object that God's imposition of a plan for his life will interfere with plans that he might have had for his own life. Nor does he fear the suffering that obedience to God's direction might bring (chapters 36-45 of this book detail some of the personal suffering that Jeremiah will bear as God's spokesperson). No, Jeremiah's only concern is with whether he will be up to the task. Such concern actually qualifies him for the job. God would not want a prophet who was so sure of his (her) own abilities as to accept the job with confidence.
God overcomes this sincere objection with a promise of presence. It is all that is needed: "I am with you." I am reminded immediately of Matthew 28:20, which, when all is said and done, is the only verse of scripture that we need.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
One of the most popular chapters in the Bible, this text is often read on its own -- apart from the discussion on spiritual gifts where it is found in 1 Corinthians. It works well that way, functioning as a meaningful unit in its own right. In context, however, it presents love as "the more excellent way," as superior not only to miracles or to speaking in tongues, but also to knowledge, to wisdom, to prophecy, to generosity, and to martyrdom. Love has pre-eminence over all these things not only because it is more important for the present, but also because (like faith and hope) it endures forever.
The central section of the chapter (vv. 4-7) defines love. These are the key verses and they are certainly significant for our romance-addled culture. Every other song on the radio, every other magazine on the rack, every other film at the theater seems to present "love" in terms of emotion, drenched in sentimentality and steeped in passion. Not just sexual love either -- parent-child relations, friendships, all sorts of relationships are presented in terms of how people feel about each other.
In startling contrast, Paul describes love as unselfish behavior. Love is not described as feeling a particular way about people. It is treating people in a certain way, regardless of how one feels. This, of course, is the only sense in which love can ever be commanded. It is the only sense that gives meaning to "love your neighbor," much less "love your enemy." God is not primarily concerned with how we feel about our neighbors or our enemies (or even with how we feel about our parents or children or friends or spouses). God is concerned with how we treat them. "Love is feeling ..." John Lennon began a song. No, Paul argues. Love is acting.
We can go too far making this point. I've heard sermons that take on popular culture in a way that denies the validity of romantic feelings, that belittle the excitement of infatuation or the strength of sexual desire. M. Scott Peck does this in his best-seller, The Road Less Traveled. Drawing on his mentor, Erich Fromm, he describes romantic feelings as illusory, theorizing that they are probably the result of some chemical reaction tripped by the evolutionary tendency to encourage mating. He warns that such feelings will always be temporary. I pity him, knowing from my own experience (and from the testimony of a thousand poets) that he is wrong. But I concur with the point he ultimately wants to make, that the solid foundation of love is behavioral. Fromm described love as an art that can be taught, practiced, and learned. It is doubtful whether one can ever teach or learn how to feel a certain way, but with practice we can learn how to act in ways that are patient, unselfish, and kind.
Try to find contemporary examples, ones that uplift the behavioral definition of love without disparaging its emotive power. The ones that come to my mind betray my age. In 1978 Meat Loaf scored a Top Ten hit singing, "I want you, I need you, but there ain't no way I'm ever gonna love you." Negative, but revealing. What is love, if it is not wanting someone, needing someone? It's treating them in a way that puts them ahead of yourself! Too bad Mr. Loaf wasn't up to following this "more excellent way," but at least he knew the difference.
Then there's that song from Fiddler On The Roof. "Do You Love Me?" Tevye asks his wife. Their marriage had been arranged before either of them were born ("The first time I saw you was on our wedding day"). She has to consider the question, especially in light of recent flutters in her teenage daughters' hearts. At last she responds: "I've lived with you all of these years, cleaned and cooked for you, nursed you when you were ill ... if that's not love, what is?"
Luke 4:21-30
We pick up this text where we left off last week, focusing now on the reaction of the crowd to Jesus' declaration that Isaiah's words are being fulfilled through his own life and ministry.
At first, they are impressed, assuming that the fulfillment of scripture he mentions is going to apply to them. He spoke of the poor, the blind, the lame, the oppressed -- the afflicted. But most people, when they put their minds to it, are able to identify themselves as afflicted in some way. So the people of Nazareth assume Jesus means that they are "the poor" to whom he intends to bring good news. Their reaction turns to violent rage when they discover this is not true. They hold a congregational meeting right on the spot and vote to throw the visiting pastor off a cliff.
Jesus had pinpointed their attitude by citing a couple of proverbs. "Physician, heal yourself" was apparently a popular saying of the day. It didn't mean (as we might think) that physicians are often sick and need to heal themselves, but rather that the wise physician will be self-serving -- use his medicine and his skills to improve his own health instead of just devoting his life to helping others. Jesus rejected this notion while he was in the wilderness with Satan. The Spirit has not come upon him to empower him to meet his own needs, but to empower him to minister to others. In place of the conventional wisdom, Jesus offers a new proverb: "No prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown." The idea of this saying reverses the logic of the first. Ironically, the people's anger at this change in perspective leads them to illustrate, literally, the truth of Jesus' statement.
The references to Elijah and Elisha stories are particularly telling, since both were commonly read as presenting Israel's superiority. Consider the latter: Originally, the story of Naaman the leper (2 Kings 5:1-14) appears to have been a nationalistic tale demonstrating the superiority of Israel's faith over Syrian religion. The commander in chief of all the armies of Aram must come to Israel and ask a favor, first of its king, then of its prophet. He and his king must admit that in their own country the powers that be are unable to help. Not only that but the help -- when it is offered -- comes in a humbling if not humiliating fashion: a bath in the Jordan River. The whole point of the story for Israel seems to have been to provide an excuse to tell the Syrians, "Our God is better than your gods and, for that matter, our river is better than your rivers."
This was a very popular story until Jesus came along and ruined it. And he did so not by preaching a whole sermon on this text but just by making an observation. He said, "You know, there must have been a lot of lepers in Israel at the time of Elisha, but we don't hear about any of them being cleansed. It seems the only one who was healed was that guy from Syria." That's it. Just one subversive little comment and the story is ruined. Because, of course, he is right. You can talk about who has the best rivers all day, but the bottom line is -- in this story -- God helps a foreigner. The effect of Jesus' comment was to deconstruct traditional readings of Naaman's story in a way that prepared for more explicit teaching on the universality of God's grace. As a result, the story came to mean almost the opposite of what people had wanted it to mean. The very story that had appeared to support the notion that "God's on our side" now seemed to challenge that perspective.
Nelson Trout, the great Lutheran bishop and seminary professor, had a trick of playing with his eyeglasses and pretending he couldn't read quite clearly. I heard Nelson read the Nazareth story from Luke's Gospel twice when I was a child, once in my hometown of College Station, Texas, and then again two years later in San Antonio. He did the same thing or almost the same thing both times. In College Station when he read the passage he said, "There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha, but none of them was cleansed except Naaman, the Communist, uh -- wait -- darn these bifocals! Not Communist, Syrian. I'm sorry." This was in one of the most conservative towns in America in 1962. Then in San Antonio when he read the lesson he said, "None of them was cleansed except Naaman, the Mexican, uh -- wait -- darn these bifocals!" This was in an all-
white church, of course. Both times Nelson's antics elicited obligatory chuckles, but I think there were some who wanted to hurl him off a cliff.
Over the years, when I have read this story or many other stories for that matter, I've developed the habit of asking, "What would Nelson's bifocals see? If he were reading here ... today?"
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Jeremiah 1:4-10
We modern-day Christians are not called to be prophets in the Old Testament sense of the term. We must remember that when preaching from this text. An Israelite prophet was one who had the ecstatic experience of standing "in the council (i.e., the heavenly court) of the Lord to perceive and to hear his word" (Jeremiah 23:18; cf. 1 Kings 22:13-23; Isaiah 40:1-8). He was then sent as a messenger of that council to tell where, when, and why God was at work in Israel's life. Old Testament prophets had new words from the Lord to proclaim, but we Christians believe that the Word of God has now been spoken and incarnated in its fullness in Jesus Christ, and we add nothing to that Word. Who can add anything to the cross and resurrection? Rather we simply spell out, expound, and explain the meaning of that full Word for our time.
Nevertheless, the God who called the youthful Jeremiah of Judah in 626 B.C. is also our God, and the revelation given in this text to the prophet at the beginning of his ministry can also be a witness to us of God's nature and purpose. Certainly the text centers on God. Six times the word "Lord" appears in the text.
Who is the God revealed through this call? First, he is a God of intimacy. There are no angelic mediators here, nor is Jeremiah overwhelmed with the vision of God's transcendent glory, as was Isaiah (chapter 6). Rather God himself fashioned Jeremiah in his mother's womb, like a potter working with a lump of clay (v. 5), as he has fashioned each one of us, and he knows Jeremiah and us through and through (cf. Psalm 139). Similarly, God himself reaches out his hand and touches the prophet's lips and puts his words in his mouth (v. 9).
Second, the God who calls Jeremiah is Lord of lords and King of kings. Jeremiah is called to be a prophet to "nations" and "kingdoms," and God can establish and build up those nations or pluck them up and break them down (v. 10). Like Jesus passing majestically through the midst of the lynch crowd in the gospel lesson, God in Jeremiah is the Almighty Sovereign in control. Thus, Jeremiah calls God "Adonai" (v. 6), that is, "Master" or "Owner."
This mighty Lord calls an insignificant youth from the Benjamite town of Anathoth to be his messenger. Jeremiah, at the time of this call, is a young man of marriageable age, about eighteen years old, and there is nothing about him that qualifies him to be the Lord's prophet. He has never spoken in public in his life. Indeed, throughout his ministry he is terrified by his task and argues constantly against it. The God of the scriptures, it seems, calls those who are weak and foolish and despised in the world (1 Corinthians 1:26-27), in order that it may be seen that it is God's power that works through them and not their own.
God always equips his ministers and messengers and disciples for their tasks, however, providing his sufficiency where they have none. To Jeremiah's "I do not know," the Lord replies, "I knew you." To Jeremiah's "I am only a youth," God answers, "I am with you," and then he gives Jeremiah the words he is to speak. As Paul says, God's grace is sufficient for us, and his power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
The reason for God's call to Jeremiah -- and to us -- is very clear. God is working constantly to make his creation good once again. We human beings ruin God's good world with our sin and rebellion against his will, attempting to be our own deities and to fashion our own future. The result is strife between male and female, between brother and brother, between nations, with God's creation marred by "thorns and thistles," the God-given gifts of beauty and work turned into ugliness and drudgery, all community become impossible, and over it all the sentence of death (Genesis 3-11). Now God works tirelessly to turn our cursed existence into blessing (Genesis 12:3) and to give to all humanity the gift of abundant life, in a community of justice and love and peace that knows how to live for the Lord.
God lays his plans for the salvation of his world very carefully. He tells Jeremiah, "Before I formed you ... before you were born" (v. 5). Before the prophet was ever conceived in the womb, God knew his task for Jeremiah, and "consecrated" him, that is, set him apart, to be his prophet. In like manner, God knew and planned each one of us for a special role in his purpose. God does not create human beings simply for nothing. For each of us he has a purpose before he ever makes us.
God equips Jeremiah for his task by putting his words in Jeremiah's mouth (v. 9). In other words, Jeremiah's prophecy is not the result of his own thought. He has not pondered the state of his society or read "the signs of the times" and decided that he simply must speak out against them. Nor has his prophecy been the result of his own religious zeal and indignation or even love for his people -- and he does love them dearly. No. Jeremiah's prophetic proclamations are words from the Lord, given to him as gifts from God. His prophecies come from God alone (cf. 15:16), and when Jeremiah tries to say something different, God rebukes him sternly (cf. Jeremiah 15:19). In the same manner, our tasks done for the Lord are gifts given us. In the epistle lesson of 1 Corinthians 13, the faith, hope, and love that Christians are to manifest in their lives are not products of their own thought and work, but gifts of the Spirit, as Paul makes very clear. Apart from God's equipment of us, we can not do the Lord's work.
The task given to Jeremiah is fearful. He is not only to "build and to plant," not only to comfort and give hope to his people, which he does after the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians in 587 B.C. (Jeremiah chapters 30 and 31 are often called "The Book of Comfort".) Jeremiah is also to "pluck up and break down" (1:10), to utter those powerful, active words of judgment that will work their effect in Judah's life until they bring about the nation's downfall. (The concept of the Word of God in the Bible is that it acts in human life to bring about that of which it speaks. Cf. Isaiah 55:10-11; Ezekiel 12:28.)
The reason for the judgment of God in Judah's life, and in ours, is clear. God cannot give us new life without first ridding us of the old. New wine cannot be put into old wineskins, nor the new patch sewn on an old garment (Matthew 9:16-17). We cannot lead Christian lives while preserving our old habits of sin. God uses his judgments on us daily to rid us of our evil ways, in order that he may make us new creatures in Jesus Christ. He will not leave us alone in our evil, because he loves us and does not want us to die the death that our sin deserves. Rather, he constantly works to rid us of evil in order that he may give us a life of good.
It is not surprising that Jeremiah is told he will meet opposition. In fact, 1:18-19 tell us that all in Judah will fight against the prophet, because the Judeans, no more than we, do not like to hear that they are in the wrong. Christians in our day meet opposition, too. It is not easy to be good in our society, in which goodness is out of fashion. Divorce is rampant in our day, as are adultery and abortion, cheating and lying, selfishness and pride. Anyone who lives by God's word these days meets snickers and scorn and sometimes persecution. They are "nerds," "squares," and worst of all, "irrelevant."
But Jeremiah is given the promise of God that is given also to us. "Be not afraid of them," says the Lord, "for I am with you to deliver you" (v. 8). In the midst of every trial that confronts a Christian, who tries to live in faith, hope, and love, God is present with his own to strengthen and guide and reassure that his is the way to truth and abundant life.
