“Don’t Say I’m Only…”

A Sermon Based Upon Jeremiah 1: 1-19, NRSV

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

9th Sunday in Ordinary Time,  June 3rd, 2018 

(1-12) Sermon Series: Jeremiah

“Now the word of the LORD came to me….”  (Jer. 1:4)  How could anyone think such a thing?   What if someone here today, among us, would stand up and say, “I have a word from God?” 

Even though I’ve had 9 years of education beyond High School, have been specifically trained to interpret the Bible and preach God’s word,  I would still be very reluctant to claim that I, myself, have a special ‘word from God’.  While I can preach the word, teach the word, and try to live the word (even God’s word of truth too) as best I can, but I must leave the final interpretation of what the word is, and what the word means, to the inspiring work of God’s Holy Spirit in you.   Besides, I’ve known some people who have said they heard God speaking to them who needed to see a psychiatrist, or they were already in the hospital.   For that reason alone, aren’t most of us reluctant to make or accept such a claim that God is speaking through us, or through them?

Still, contrary to what we might call normal or abnormal,  in this text we encounter a priest’s son, Jeremiah, saying, not once, but four times, that ‘the word of the LORD came’ to him (1:2, 4, 11, 13).  What kind of ‘word’ was this, and how can it have anything to do with life today?   

For these weeks of summer, we are going to think about what the ‘word of the LORD’ meant then and what it might still mean for us now.  Jeremiah claimed that God ‘put out his hand and touched his mouth’ to ‘put the words into (his) mouth’ (v7).    Could God, still ‘put his word into’ our hearts, our mouth’s today? Could God still be speaking truth to us through this ancient prophet?

BEFORE I FORMED YOU (5)

The great preacher Fred Craddock died just a couple of years ago of a ripe old age.  Not long before he died, Fred was asked to write about his own call to preach, when he was a boy growing up in eastern Tennessee.   In that book about his ‘Call to Preach”,  Fred first spoke of informing his father. When his father heard that his son had decided to study for the ministry, all he could answer was, “At least don’t be like John the Baptist….Don’t lose your head.”  Fred said:   “I realized that sometimes God’s calls in a voice that is not loud enough for the whole family to hear.”

Fred’s mother was different.  She told Fred that she was ‘proud’ of him and she assured Fred that his father was proud too, though he didn’t know how to say it.  On the Sunday before the Monday Fred was to catch the bus to go off to college, his mother said she had something to say to him now, that she could not tell him earlier. 

Most of the words I repeat now come from Fred Craddock himself, as he told the story his mother told him:  When Fred “was about eight months old (he) contracted diphtheria. It was in the winter of 1928-29.  At that time, diphtheria was a killer of babies and children.  If you visit old cemeteries today, you may find a number of stones marking the graves of children, stones bearing dates within the same period of twelve to eighteen months.  You would be safe in guessing that diphtheria had moved across the area and taken away its children.”  

“At the first fear of the disease, all children in the family and in the communities were told sternly, "Don't go near the baby." Then came all the home remedies volunteered by grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Remedies wrapped in moaning prayers.  If you recited all the concoctions poured into the throat of children in those days, the remedies themselves would have been enough kill most babies." Vinegar, honey, homemade whiskey, kerosene, sugar, seltzer-all in various combinations and around the clock.  "Give him a sedative so he can sleep." "No, don't let him sleep.  As long as he is crying and coughing the diphtheria cannot smother him." There were all kinds of confusing contradictions in the treatments, but there was no confusion about what the illness did.  The disease formed a membrane over the air passages to and from the lungs.  If the membrane completely covered the air passages, breathing stops and the child dies struggling.  It could be a horrible death, and few survived.

Fred’s momma said “the remedies were not working; Fred’s breathing became increasingly labored. A medical doctor had to be found.  Remember this was 1928-29.  Country people were very confident about their own home remedies.  Doctors cost money, a very scarce commodity.  Doctors were few, and miles away.  There was no hospital, even at a distance. To say, "Get a doctor," meant desperation and fear; all else has failed. There was a telephone about a mile away.  Fred’s daddy ran the mile. There was a doctor five miles away. He got to a telephone and the operator connected him with a doctor.  

Fortunately, the doctor had recently traded his horse and buggy for a Ford automobile.  He was there in a slow flash.  His name was Dr. Penn.  Dr. Penn attended to Fred with his best medicine, his best methods, and his most comforting words.  He even hummed "Blessed Assurance" the entire night.  Fred heard that country doctor still humming it years later. The old gospel tune was apparently good for what ailed you too.

As the night wore on, little Fred’s breathing came with increasing difficulty. Each breath was a rattling gasp. Fred was growing worse, in spite of Dr. Penn's bag of cures, his repeated application, his effort to be reassuring, and "Blessed Assurance."  Fred’s momma refused to leave the room, in spite of the doctor's insistence.  She needed rest and could not rest. To her, leaving the room would be giving up. Dr. Penn gave Fred a shot, with the look of a doctor who had reached the extreme edge of his resources.

Again, the doctor firmly insisted that Fred’s mother leave the room.  "I will sit with him until daybreak," he assured her.  Fred’s mother did not go into go into the next room where Fred’s daddy was already sitting upright and sleepless.  She left the house and went to the barn, hoping the distance of about one hundred yards would be beyond earshot of my choking.  It was not.  Fred’s mother lay on loose hay, crying and praying.  In her prayer, she said, "Dear God, if you will let him live, I will pray every day that he will serve you as a minister." The endless repetition of this prayer relaxed her and she went to sleep.

When daylight waked her, she heard no sounds from the house. She ran. As she rushed into the room, Dr. Penn stirred from a half-sleep. He answered the question before she spoke: "The crisis is over; he is sleeping."  Thank you, Dr. Penn. Thank you, God.   Handing Fred’s mother a few bottles with instructions, the doctor assured her, "He'll be all right, but don't hesitate to call if you need me."  With that, he closed his bag, put on his coat and hat, as Fred’s daddy cranked the Ford, being successful on the first turn, "We will pay you, Doctor, when we can," Fred’s father promised.  "I know you will. I will send you a bill."  How much was it?  He never sent the bill.   He just kept humming, "Blessed Assurance."

When Fred heard his mother tell this story, on the day before he went off to begin to answer the call to become a preacher, Fred asked: "Momma, why didn't you tell me this when we talked last year?"   "Well, I guess there are two reasons, Fred’s mother told him.   “In the first place, I felt guilty for bargaining with God.  We should not try to use prayer to bargain with God. It's disrespectful,” she said. “I hope you never do what I did, even if you are desperate as I was.   But the main reason I did not tell you until now is that I didn't want you to become a minister because you knew I was praying for you to become one.  That would be like your being a minister to please me. It's nice for children to want to please their parents, but not like this. It is too important. I wanted you to say "Yes" to God, not to me."

Fred Brenning Craddock. Reflections on My Call to Preach: Connecting the Dots (Kindle Locations 214-247). Kindle Edition.

Most preachers, ministers, whether it be Fred Craddock, Jeremiah, me, or the preacher up the road, would probably try to explain to you, that the reason they have a ‘word’ from the LORD, would have been in the works long before their own personal decision.   Jeremiah said that even ‘before’ he was ‘formed in the womb’ God knew him.  “Before he was born” God “consecrated him” (5).   In ways that can never be fully explained, nor explained away, God is at work, calling, someone to be his voice in the world.  The question is not ‘is God still speaking’, but the question is really, ‘Who is still listening?’  “I know that the Spirit of God is the brother of my own” the great poet Walt Whitman said.  Are we still so sure that God’s Spirit speaks within our own? (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-versionSong of Myself, 1892). 

TODAY I APPOINT YOU…. (5, 10)

When God called Jeremiah, it was during some of the most difficult times of Israel’s history.  Jeremiah good reason not to answer: “Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy (6),” he responded.   

Biblical scholars suggest that Jeremiah was no more than 23 years old when God called him to become “prophet” to “the nations” (5,10).   Jeremiah was to take God’s message to kings, princes, religious leaders and to a whole nation, and what’s more, this was a message no one wanted to hear.  This message was that the nation was doomed; and about to be overthrown by its enemy.  Such a message was not only repulsive to everyone, it would be considered treason by the government.   After saying what Jeremiah said, one wonders how he ever made it out alive.  How could God ‘appoint’ or ‘call’ someone like this?      

It’s seems this kind of dangerous call also came to a 26 year old single mother, Ashley Smith back in 2005.   It was 2:00 a.m. and Ashley needed a smoke.  But she was out of cigarettes. And so she decided to go to a nearby market in order to feed her addiction.  As she was leaving her apartment, she noticed a blue truck in the parking lot with a man in it. She didn’t think too much about it. She had only moved into that apartment two days prior. So she thought maybe he was a neighbor coming home or something.

"She got into her car and went to the store. She came back to her apartment about five minutes later. And the truck was still there. And he was still in it.  Ashley got out of her car and rushed to her apartment. As Ashley started to put her key in the door of her apartment, a man stuck a gun in her ribs. She began to scream, but he told her if she did what he asked he wouldn’t hurt her. 

At first she didn’t know who her assailant was, but when he took off his hat, she recognized him from a news report. He was Brian Nichols. Brian Nichols was a prisoner brought to court for the retrial of a rape conviction. When he arrived at the courtroom he overtook his guard. In the melee he took her gun and shot and killed the presiding judge, the court reporter, a deputy and a federal agent. Then he escaped. 

Now this man who had earlier in the day killed four people in cold blood was in Ashley Smith’s apartment. He tied her up with masking tape, a shower curtain and an extension cord. Ashley pleaded with him not to hurt her. She told him that she had a 5-year-old daughter who she was to meet at 10:00 a.m. the next morning. And that her daughter would be very upset if her mother didn’t show up. She also told him that her husband was murdered four years ago, and if she too were murdered, her little girl wouldn’t have a mommy or a daddy.

Ashley Smith spent hours talking with Brian and listening to him. He told her that he deserved to have a bullet in his back. She said, “No one deserves that!” He said that he felt like he was “already dead” so it didn’t matter what happened. She told him he wasn’t dead. He was standing there before her very much alive, which she pointed out to him was a miracle. They talked about what he had done, and they watched television coverage of the manhunt. It made him sad to see what he had done.

Sometime during the night Brian untied Ashley, and she asked him if she could do some reading. He asked her what she wanted to read, and she pulled out her Bible and a copy of Rick Warren’s best-selling book, A Purpose Driven Life. That night she opened the book to Chapter 33, her reading for the day. She read aloud the first paragraph. Brian interrupted, “Stop.” He said, “Read it again.” The paragraph raises the question: “What is your purpose in life?”  There ensued a deep discussion about purpose and failure and sin. Brian said he didn’t have any purpose. His life was over. She told him that his life wasn’t over, that he might get caught and that his purpose from now on might be to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to fellow inmates.  Finally Ashley told Brian that it takes more of a man to surrender and pay for what he has done than to kill others and himself.

In the morning Brian put the guns he had stolen under the bed, and Ashley made pancakes for his breakfast. She asked him again if she could go and meet her daughter. He told her she could. When the police arrived Brian Nichols held up a white towel in surrender and went peacefully.  This man, who had burst into Ashley’s apartment claiming to be a soldier on a mission, now walked out gentle as a lamb, thanks to Ashley Smith’s humble courage.  How did she do it?  How did Ashely keep her cool?  Ashely later commented to reporters that she wanted Brian’s mother to be able to say “Thank you” that no one else had to die, including him.   We also know, that Ashely herself struggled with methamphetamine addiction, and desperately felt she was already on a mission to see her child and be her mother  (From a sermon, “Humble Courage,” by  Reverend Ruth Harper Stevens, preached at chapelhillumc.org).

Hearing about people like Fred Craddock’s, or about the courageous response of Ashely Smith, we encounter something of what it might mean to hear and answer God’s call today.   Maybe we haven’t experienced exactly this way, but haven’t we found, either through fortune or misfortune, that we too have been given something to say or something to do, that no one else can or will do.   Hasn’t something in life asked us all, if not even forced us to reflect upon our own ‘calling’ or ‘purpose’ in life?   

 Charlie Brown once said in bewilderment, “I feel like I was born on the wrong planet!”   Life can surely seem like that at times.   I’m sure Jeremiah must have felt like he was born at the wrong time too.   God had ‘put his words’ into Jeremiah’s mouth but this did not make answering God’s call easy or delightful.   It was a message to ‘pluck up and pull down’ as well as to ‘build up and plant’.   

Maybe, what finally encouraged Jeremiah to answer God’s call, is what most of us also finally come to learn about life too.  When we answer God’s call, it doesn’t always mean we discover what we ‘want’ or ‘wish’ to do.   Sometimes it means having to do something we don’t necessarily want to do, but we know we have to do.   That’s what it was like for Jeremiah, for Moses, or and how was for many others, both then and now.  When the call comes, it doesn’t stop ringing until we have to ‘pick up the phone’ and answer.   

I WILL BE WITH YOU… (8, 19)

Jeremiah answered God’s call, even though it wasn’t easy for him to answer.   Perhaps the reason Jeremiah did answer, was because the call also came with God’s promise:  “Do not be afraid of them,  for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord (8).   …they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you…. (19).”

When Dr. Robertson McQuilkin resigned as President of Columbia International Seminary, to care for his ailing wife, Muriel, the Seminary told him they would make sure she was cared for.  “She doesn’t know who she is,” seminary officials and board members argued.   McQuilkin responded: “No, she doesn’t know who she is, but I know who she is.”   Later McQuilkin explained to a Christianity Today. “When the time came, the decision was firm.  It took no great calculation. It was a matter of integrity.  Had I not promised, 42 years before, "in sickness and in health . . . till death do us part"?  This was no grim duty to which I stoically resigned, however.  It was only fair.  She had, after all, cared for me for almost four decades with marvelous devotion; now it was my turn. And such a partner she was!  If I took care of her for 40 years, I would never be out of her debt.”

http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/june/died-robertson-mcquilkin-columbia-president-alzheimers-ciu.html

How will the call of God come to your life?  Will it come to care for a sick child, a family member, a neighbor, a spouse, or perhaps to teach, preach, or conduct some kind of ministry to others, which will never pay you what it’s worth?  How will the call come, and when it comes, how will you answer and know God is with you in this?   

Since I’ve already introduced Fred Craddock to you again, I want to conclude how he came meet Dr Albert Schweitzer, the famous missionary doctor.  What you may not know in some of his theological views, Albert Schweitzer was not always very orthodox.  Today, we might even have called him---a liberal.   

“I think I was twenty years old,” writes Fred Craddock, “when I read Albert Schweitzer’s Quest for the Historical Jesus. I found his Christology lacking--more water than wine. I marked it up, wrote in the margins, raised questions of all kinds.    Then, one day I read in the Knoxville News-Sentinel that Albert Schweitzer was going to be in Cleveland, Ohio, to play the dedicatory concert for a big organ in a big church up there. According to the article he would remain afterward in the fellowship hall for conversation and refreshment.  “I bought a Greyhound bus ticket and went to Cleveland. All the way up there I worked on this Quest for the Historical Jesus. I laid out my questions . . . I made references to the pages . . . I figured, if there was a conversation in the fellowship hall, there’d be room for a question or two.

“I went there; I heard the concert; I rushed into the fellowship hall, got a seat in the front row, and waited with my lap of questions. After a while he came in, shaggy hair, big white mustache, stooped, and seventy-five year’s old. He had played a marvelous concert. You know he was a master organist, a medical doctor, philosopher, Biblical scholar, lecturer, writer, everything. He came in with a cup of tea and some refreshments and stood in front of the group, and there I was, close.

“Dr. Schweitzer thanked everybody: ‘You’ve been very warm, hospitable to me. I thank you for it, and I wish I could stay longer among you, but I must go back to Africa. I must go back to Africa because my people are poor and diseased and hungry and dying, and I have to go. We have a medical station at Lambarene. If there’s anyone here in this room who has the love of Jesus, would you be prompted by that love to go with me and help me?’

“I looked down at my questions,” Fred Craddock said, “and they were so absolutely stupid. But  I learned once again, in that moment, what it means to be Christian and had hopes that I could be that someday.” (From Craddock Stories, Mike Graves and Richard F. Ward, eds. (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), pp. 125-126.)

Perhaps the best way to answer God’s call is not by trying to figure what everything or everyone else, but perhaps the best way is ask yourself how God wants you to ‘be a Christian’ and to be 'with you' right now.   I doubt that any of us will dare ask and answer any kind of call until we also realize that God’s promises to be ‘with’ us: “I am with you….to deliver you”?  God told Jeremiah.  It is not going to be easy.  But I am with you.   Are you with me?   How do you answer?  


PRAYER: “Lord help us to answer your call in our lives.  Even when it is not easy, help us to know that you are with us and you will work through us, to do your will and to bring us promises of hope that are filled with love and grace.  Amen.”