You Have Everything You Need

Jeremiah 1:4-10 

Let’s imagine ourselves at a reception or a cocktail party.  We meet someone new and make small talk.  They ask us about our lives.  Where have we lived?  What was it like growing up?  What did you like doing as a young person?  Where did you go to school and what did you learn?  What kind of work do you do?  What are your family and friends like?  What do you do in your free time?  And so we tell some version of our life story.  And often when we tell this story, we tell it as if our lives are the result of a series of choices we’ve made, decisions we’ve taken, paths we’ve followed. 

 

I wonder how our stories would change if we looked back on our lives as a long series of our responses to an experience of God calling to us.  What does your life look like when you re-imagine it in that way?  Responding to God’s call to family life or to friendship.  Responding to God’s call to begin discovering and using our gifts.  Responding to God’s call to delight, pleasure, and beauty.  Responding to God’s call to singleness or to marriage, to raising children or to excellence in the workplace.  Responding to God’s call to live here rather than there.

I don’t mean that you haven’t made any decisions or choices in life.  Of course you have.  But what if the way we gather up our energies to make decisions in life just is our way of responding to God?  I think that’s what poet Wendell Berry had in mind when he said, “All choosing is a being chosen.”  Our unfolding lives may feel like it was all “choosing.”  But sometimes when we look back, we can see things in a new light.  Sometimes, we can see that even our choosing is not a first move, but rather a response to a deep sense of what God is calling us to be and to do.

When we read about God’s call to the prophet Jeremiah, the first thing we should notice is that God is the one who gets the story going.  God takes the initiative.  “Before you were formed in the womb I knew you.”

God called Jeremiah, even before Jeremiah was born.  And God calls us, even before we’re born.  This isn’t a claim about how all the details of your life are determined ahead of time, as if you are nothing but a passive pawn, floating along; as if you have no agency and no responsibility for the way your life unfolds.  No, the point is that our lives are deeply shaped by our experience of being called to a meaningful and faithful life by a God who knew us intimately, even before even our parents knew us. 

“Before you were formed in the womb I knew you.”  These words are not just for Jeremiah the prophet.  They are words taken up by the Psalmist in Psalm 139.  They are words that become meaningful for all of God’s people, including us.  Often we are overwhelmed by our own smallness and the insignificance of who we are and what we do.  We wonder whether there is any point in our trying to live a good life.  We wonder whether we are of any use to our neighbors and our community.  We wonder whether all our effort has been worth it.  This word from God – “Before you were formed in the womb, I knew you” – can strengthen our resolve.  It reminds us that God is like a loving parent and a wise friend who elevates us by calling us to share in important work.

Now think of your own life as an unfolding story.  Has it really been a random and unguided bounce through life – zig-zagging here and there – propelled by circumstances and your own choices?  If we live our lives with no sense of calling, no sense that God has invited us into important projects and tasks, we will not be able to sustain our energy for the long term. 

God called Jeremiah to a life-long project of preaching a difficult message to Judah and Jerusalem.  He was to announce to Judah - its Kings, its priests, and its people - that God would punish them for their unfaithfulness by allowing them to be conquered by the Babylonian empire and taken captive to live as exiles far from home.  Needless to say, this message angered Jeremiah’s hearers.  They didn’t like listening to his preaching.  And so they ridiculed him, tried to kill him, and eventually imprisoned him.  If we take Jeremiah’s specific call as a model, we learn that God may in fact call us to a project that lasts a life-time.  We also learn that God might ask us to do difficult things that involve faithfulness and obedience rather than success or popularity.

But we need to stay open to the great variety of ways in which God might call us.  While God may call us to difficult work that lasts a life-time, God is free to call us to projects of shorter duration, as well as to tasks that are as pleasurable as they are difficult.  There is no reason to dread being called by God, as if God’s call will always be a life-time prison sentence to something you find terribly hard.  Just as often, God’s call will come to us an invitation to use our capabilities in a way that contributes to something larger than our own lives.  And it will likely be hard and joyful at the same time.

Now let’s at least be honest and admit that we are good at making excuses when God calls us.  When God called Jeremiah, Jeremiah said, “Lord, of course I’d love to, but I just can’t.”  Have you ever said something like that?  Jeremiah’s objection had to do with his age and lack of experience.  The message God wanted him to deliver was difficult.  And he would need to preach to powerful people who were much older than he was. 

In almost all the call stories we find in Scripture, the person called feels inadequate to the task.  Like Jeremiah - Moses, Isaiah, and others respond to God’s call by explaining why they can’t possibly do what they’ve been called to do.  Of course they were being honest, on one level.  Moses didn’t speak well.  Jeremiah was too young.  And Isaiah was unworthy for such important work.  And yet this confession of inadequacy can become a confession of our reliance on God.  Only the God who calls us can equip up and strengthen us for the work we have to do.  Thomas Steagald puts it this way: “God equips the called . . . God doesn’t call the equipped.”  In other words, God will always give you the courage and ability to do what you’ve been called to do.  But you’ll probably need to walk into that calling before you will realize that you have everything you need.

Common sense may well caution us against saying yes to our calling.  Even your family and friends may try to talk you out of doing what God has called you to do.  And yet the God who calls us is well aware of our weaknesses and inadequacies.  In these situations, we have to learn to move forward into the work God gives us to do, not always knowing what it’s about, or why we were the ones called to this particular work.

For Jeremiah, God communicates rather directly.  Somehow, God speaks and commissions him to his task.  It is highly unlikely that God will deal with us in such a direct way.  More often, we will experience God’s call in an indirect way.  It will come to us through conversation with others; through a prayer or song or Scripture reading at church; through a nudge or intuition that comes to us in the middle of life.  And so we have to make ourselves open and available for God to call us in these ways.  I am quite sure that I have missed many opportunities to serve God and others by not listening.  And by not listening, I missed an opportunity to grow, to enlarge my life by compassion and service, to stretch myself and take risks, to learn to rely on God for what I need.

Jeremiah was called beyond his own village to a prophetic ministry of speaking to people in a wide geographic area.  Some of us may be called to projects that are of wide-ranging and public significance.  But most of us are called to be faithful in our own places.  And like Jeremiah, God’s call will take us into challenging and uncomfortable situations, contexts that are unfamiliar and require us to depend on God’s promises.

The things God may call us to are as different as we all are different.  The things God may call us to will change across the course of our lives.  God can call us to large things and God can call us to small things.  But God’s call, God’s gracious invitation, God’s powerful summons, is a constant feature of our lives.  

And so we might as well get used to imagining our own lives as a series of responses to God’s call.  There is the call to faith and trust in Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and now with us in the power of the Holy Spirit.  There is the call to a life of active worship and service alongside others within the ministry of the church.  There is the call to the habit of prayer – which is nothing more than the practice of keeping ourselves open, flexible, and attentive to what’s going on in us and around us, and attentive to the needs of others.  There is the call to use our gifts and strengths for the benefit of others.  There is the call to live simply and to share generously.  Those expressions of God’s call come to all of us and keep coming to us throughout the course of our lives.

But there are other ways in which God calls us to a specific task or project or ministry.  There are calls to submit ourselves to training or practice so that we can become skilled in some way.  There are calls to renewal and growth that we might experience during a special time of year like Lent.  There are calls to leadership and service we might experience when we’re asked to serve or to participate in some ministry.  There are calls to family life and parenting.  There are calls to friendship and to adventure. 

I have seen some of you called to care for parents who are dying.  I have seen some of you called to care for spouses or friends who are sick.  I have seen some of you called to be allies with someone who is lonely or depressed.  Some of you have been called to serve on various leadership committees or service organizations.  Some of you have been called to a craft or a skill of some kind – called both to the practice of that craft as well as to the offering of your talent to make something beautiful or useful to others.  Some of you have been called to lead or teach.  Some of you have been called to a life of prayer.  Some of you have been called to walk away from dysfunctional families and forge a new path.  Some of you have been called to serve as foster parents.

But all of us have been called by God to a life that is meaningful.  All of us have been called to a life in which we’re using our strengths to serve others.  And all of us are in the process of responding to God with a joyful “yes” when we hear that call.

Your whole life has been a response to the different ways God has called you.  It may well be that now and then you have missed an opportunity to respond.  Perhaps God has called you to a task or a project or a challenge; and you sensed that call - you felt it - and yet you said “no” instead of “yes.”  You closed down instead of opening your heart.

But far more often, God has called and you have responded with a “yes” to that call.  Now and then we will have the sense of being pulled, or nudged, or spoken to.  We will experience ourselves in the grip of something larger, something loving, something beautiful.  We will feel ourselves under the influence, or yielding to persuasion, or find ourselves committing ourselves to a task or a ministry or a way of serving others.  These are all ways that we might experience God’s call.

And so when your next call comes, say “yes.”  When your next call comes, gather up your questions and your fears, your excuses and your inadequacies, and say “yes” anyway.  Walk forward into the life to which God calls you.  God will give you everything you need to do your work.