Who, Me?

Read: Jeremiah 1:4-10

 

Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost - August 25, 2013

The Rev. Kenneth R. Elkin

 

“You've got to be kidding!”

That's what Jeremiah says when God calls him.

He tries to hide behind his age: “I don't know how to speak, since I am only a boy.”

“Don't use that line on me,” the Lord responds to Jeremiah.

“Go...speak what I will give you to say.”

 

We would think:
“Now look, Lord, you're being unreasonable.

I'm really not interested.

I don't have the training.

I'm not experienced in this sort of thing.

I get tongue-tied in front of a group.

There must be someone else!”

And the Lord will respond:

“Now I put my words in your mouth, to pull down, and to build up.

 

God's voice to Jeremiah sounds like Jesus speaking to his disciples.

“You did not choose me, but I chose you.

And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last...”  [Jn 15:16]

 

Someone came up with this sentence that seems to summarize what the Bible says about leadership: God doesn't call the qualified; he qualifies the called.

Just think about person after person in the Biblical narrative.

The thing which they have in common is that they are unlikely leaders,

with very little to commend them.

 

1.Abraham – he is an itinerant cattle trader.

What is there that qualifies him to be the father of a new people?   

Nothing!

2.And Sarah his wife – she is mean and vindictive toward Hagar, the maid servant whom she had put forward to be a surrogate wife and mother.

She does not believe the message of the three visitors about the impending birth of her own son,

and then lies about her unbelief.

And still, she is called to be the mother of nations!

 

3.Then there is Moses, who has to have Aaron to speak for him.

4.And Barak who won't go out to battle without Deborah coming along like a good-luck charm.

5.And Amos is merely a tree-pruner and shepherd.

6.And Paul is an egotistical know-it-all.

7.And Peter is rash, jumping into things before he thinks things through.

8.And Mary is an underage peasant girl.

9.And you and I are...well, we know all the embarrassing details that we can fill in about ourselves.

 

The Lord responds to us just as he has done with those folks from the Bible:

“So what?  I know what you are and what you have and have not done, and the limitations that you have.

I know all about you!”

We should have caught on quite awhile back, because many of us were baptized as very young children, before we could have bragged about anything.

 

Jesus says, “I pick you.

You are henceforth my people, even if you are spectacularly unqualified.

I will take care of that problem.”

It all begins in the mind and intention of God, who said to Jeremiah:
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you ...and consecrated  you and appointed you a prophet.

God's choice tells us much more about the nature of God's love and determination than it does about any positive leadership qualities that we may have.

 

Do you think that Jeremiah would have come up with this career on his own?

Can you hear him saying to himself; “I think I will grow up to be an abrasive prophet who risks his life to go to the palace and tell the king he is a fool that that the kingdom will be destroyed.”

Humanly considered, it is poor career-planning.

But it is God's idea, and God gives resources sufficient to do the tasks at hand.

It does seem like God has gone out of his way to choose those who would appear not to be good leadership candidates!

Maybe God likes a challenge!

Maybe God, being a creator who make something out of nothing, considers the act of giving people difficult jobs like this a part of his continuing creation.

 

And so, through pastors and classes and synod committees and congregations, God said to me, Well, Elkin, you may think that you are an introvert and basically terrified of people and  uncharted waters.

Too bad, I'm going too make of you a pastor, and you will go, and say, and do what is not your own.

And so with fear and trembling I have the job of announcing to you “Thus says the Lord.....”

 

And God said to Mel Wentzel thru a not very eloquent pastor:

I know that you thought you were going to retire from the high school and that would be that.

Guess what? I'm going to take your years of training and experience and put them to work in a direction you had not considered, and lead The Way.

 

And God nudged Becky Pryor 7 years ago and said,

“Look, you have your own house, and you know how to manage houses.

You have organizational skills, and a heart for children and families.

Let's bring all of those things together so that you become one of the organizing persons in Family Promise in this community, and then also in this congregation.

And even though we all could say that we've never done this before, together with Becky we have done a wonderful thing that is ongoing.

It is much to the surprise of many persons.

 

I remember Pr. Brandau describing his first days here at St. Mark's.

He said to you: “I'm the pastor who didn't want to come here and I'm also the pastor you didn't want to have. Well, here we are!”

And God's Holy Spirit led you through 10 years of busy work together, and many additional years of friendship after that.

 

Are we getting the idea that we are not in control of this enterprise called “church?”

It is frightening...and exhilarating!    

We really shouldn't say that we haven't been asked about serving in the life of the church; it is much more likely that we haven't been listening very well..., or have been actively resisting when we have been called.

 

Please don't get annoyed with me.

It wasn't my idea.

It was God's plan to call us and pull us all together in the church and say “I have this and that for you to do at home, at school, at work, at play, and in the gathered congregation,

all kinds of things that will point your life toward the Father and encourage others to do the same.”

 

O Lord, open our eyes and ears and hearts and minds to understand what they might be, and to do them.

 

We all know folks who hang around the edge of things, knowing something about Jesus  but not committed to follow.

It is like swimming: one can read about it, and know all of the technical names for the strokes, and can watch and critique the Olympics, but the only way to be a swimmer is to jump into the water and do it!

 

The only way to be a  Christian is to Do it.

We don't have as much a crisis of leadership as a crisis of followship.                                                                  

 

Jesus began his ministry by assembling a gaggle of fishermen, tax collectors, and assorted peasants.

He turns to 12 of them, calls them by name, and says ”I'm going to call the whole world to myself.

And guess who is going to help me?” Amen