Going Where He Sends Us

Jeremiah 1: 1-10

           Imagine being eighteen or twenty years old and getting a very clear, pressing, non-negotiable call…from God. At any time, it is life changing. I can attest to that in my own life. But imagine at such a young age. Jeremiah had such an experience. He was called before he had an opportunity to do much living. God wanted him early.  He had big plans for Jeremiah as a prophet to God’s people.

          I’ve always thought that if I were given a choice between judge and prophet, I would take judge hands down. Judges had power. They were leaders. They could effect change. They had armies under their command. On the other hand, prophets were mouthpieces. They were like Doppler radar. They were the early warning systems for the people of Israel, but they weren’t predicting the weather. They did predict climate change, but it was the religious and political climate with which they were concerned.

          The Old Testament contains seventeen books written or attributed to the prophets. Twelve of them are called Minor Prophets, not because of their message, but because of their length. Five others, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel and Daniel, are called major because they are longer. They were called prophets not because they could see the future, but rather to call attention to the present. They were commissioned by God to warn God’s people that disobedience would come at a cost.

          Jeremiah, also called the weeping prophet because of all the bad news and times he lived through and prophesied about, covered a lot of ground. Some commentators characterize him as the persevering prophet. I think that is more accurate when we examine the life of this servant of God. His ministry, and yes it was most definitely a ministry, lasted a long time. It started in the year 627, about midway through the reign of King Josiah, the last “good” king of Judah, and ended in Egypt some forty one years later, when Jeremiah and his scribe Baruch were forced to go there with the leaders of the coup against Gedaliah, the governor of Judah appointed by the king of Babylon.

Jeremiah’s ministry witnessed the reign of good king Josiah, the fall of Assyria to the Babylonians, the rise of Egypt while the Babylonians consolidated their power, the further rise of the Babylonians, and a succession of kings of Judah including Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoichin and Zedekiah, followed by the appointment of Gedaliah, a Judean, by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.

          Confused? Don’t worry. Think of it this way, that Jeremiah was around at the fall of the Southern Kingdom (Judah) and that he prophesied to God’s people during the reigns of five kings and an appointed governor. The world changed greatly in the time of Jeremiah, and that indeed is part of his message, that God’s loyalty and justice never change, even in the midst of earthly turmoil.

          When God called Jeremiah, it was in the middle of good times. Josiah, the boy king, had united the people. He listened to God. Yet just twenty years or so after Josiah’s reign had ended, the country was mired in political, social, moral and spiritual decay. 

          I started out in the Navy as a deck officer aboard a ship. Part of my duties were to take care of the “aft” portion of the ship; the fantail, the stern, the back end, so to speak. What that entailed was, among other things,  painting. My division trained for many tasks, but before and after the training, there was painting. First, we painted with red lead, a red primer designed to seal rust. Then, we painted with Navy gray paint. That was one of my first lessons that much of what we do in this world is maintenance. It’s not glamorous, but it has to be done. “Red-leading” kept the rust off my ship.

Now what has my job as a painting superintendent got to do with prophecy? More than meets the eye at first blush. Think about your own experiences. What parts of your life need “red-leading?” Red-leading keeps the rust off your children and the way you do business with your life. The people of Israel forgot to do the maintenance of their culture and it rusted.

          Jeremiah was of the tribe of Benjamin, which was one of the two priestly tribes. He was born to go into the priesthood. But being called to be God’s prophet was entirely different. It would change Jeremiah’s life. If you look at the scripture for today, you can see four related but separate actions that God took when calling Jeremiah. First, we are told that that God knew Jeremiah. He knew him before he was born, before he was even formed in his mother’s womb. Before Jeremiah ever drew a breath on this earth, God had already begun a relationship with him.  Not only that, the “before” used here applies to Jeremiah’s call as well. God has claimed Jeremiah for his divine purpose before he enters the world. Thirdly, the scripture says that before he was formed or born, he was consecrated; and fourth, that again, before he was formed or born, he was appointed by God. Before Jeremiah was ever conceived by man, he was in relationship with God; he was claimed, consecrated and appointed by God…for kingdom work.

          All this is revealed to Jeremiah. The word of the Lord comes to him and tells him this much. And yet, Jeremiah acts in the way that you and I would most probably act. Put yourself in the shoes of Jeremiah. You’re walking home and the voice of God comes to you and tells you that you are appointed a prophet to the nations. Jeremiah starts with the disclaimers. Come on, God, I’m just a kid. This is special work. I don’t have the verbal skills. I just got out of high school. I’m just getting started here. I don’t know how to be a prophet.

          And what did God say? No sweat. Don’t even say all that stuff. I’m God, remember? “For to all to whom I send you, you shall go,” No fear! I’ve got your back. I’m with you. I will deliver you.

          For Jeremiah, God’s reassurance was swift and tangible. God reached out and touched Jeremiah’s mouth. One gets the impression of a physical act. Jeremiah is touched by God. It is reminiscent of the Incarnation of Christ, for here, divine meets human. In the case of Jeremiah, the human will never be the same.

          I don’t know about you, but I could use a sendoff like that. God says to Jeremiah that he is there; that he will deliver Jeremiah.

Wow! If only he would talk to me like that. Then I would know what to do.  

Jeremiah was lucky. He heard from God himself and it is inspirational to read about that event in his life. But for us to say that such is not available to us is to ignore the Scripture, the written Word of God. God’s promises are everywhere in the Bible. We can hardly turn a page without finding an example. Here are just a few.

Are you depressed? Wondering who cares? Look at Isaiah 41:10: “fear not, for I am with you…I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you.” Or Isaiah 54:10: “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love will not depart from you.”

Are you scared? Is there something or someone that threatens you? Call on Deuteronomy 31:8 as did Moses: “It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you.” Or claim the promise of Jesus himself in John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you…Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

Do you have questions about financial decisions? Look at Philippians 4:19: “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” How about health questions? You might want to claim God’s promise in Jeremiah 30:17: “For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord.” If God can restore a nation, he can handle you and me.

How do we get these messages from God? How do we begin to claim his promises? In the eleventh chapter of Luke’s gospel, Jesus has taught his disciples how to pray. Then he moves on to the subject of claiming God’s promises. He tells his disciples to: “ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” [Luke 11: 9]. That same promise remains an invitation to all who seek it. And Jesus goes on in that same story to explain that our heavenly father wants us to ask, wants us to seek, wants us to knock.  Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will be given to us in more abundance than even the love of a father for his own child.

So…while God may have not touched our mouths in the same way that he touched those of Jeremiah, he does find very effective ways to communicate with us, if only we are paying attention. Certainly one of the richest sources to mine his promises is the Bible. There are literally hundreds of promises to claim. The apostle Paul claimed them all. He was called, not at the beginning of his life, like Jeremiah, but well into his career as a persecutor of Christians. Writing to the church in Rome, he gives us this promise to add to our list: “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” [Romans 8: 38].

We are all called. Most of us will not prophesy to the nations like Jeremiah, but we might prophesy to our children or others with whom we come in contact. We might do quite a bit more if we will claim the promises that God has given us, for God’s loyalty and justice never change. God does put words in our mouths in the sense that he puts thoughts in our minds, in the way that the Holy Spirit can speak to our inner life.

Do not say, I am only a youth, or only one person, or old or weak or untrained. Do not be so presumptuous as to think that God cannot give you every tool required to do his bidding. Listen to what he is saying: “for to all whom I send you, you shall go.”