Fulfilling the Scripture

“The word of the Lord came to [Jeremiah] saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’”

God called Jeremiah to be a prophet when he was still very young.   Jeremiah didn’t want the job and gave his youthful age as a reason for rejecting it.  But God brushed aside his objection.  God was well aware of women and men who felt inadequate to life’s tasks.  So God, knowing Jeremiah was the person he needed said,  “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”  There is no higher calling and Jeremiah finally had no choice but to accept the call and to say “yes” to what God asked of him.

Imagine young Jeremiah -- minding his own business, when suddenly God broke into his life -- when he heard God's call to him.  Calling him to be a prophet, to speak God's word to the people.  Moreover, he was not called to be just an ordinary prophet.  God would set him "over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant."

Jeremiah resisted God’s call, and like Moses, Noah, and Jonah before him, he was reluctant to obey this call.  However, God would not accept "No" for an answer.

God and Jeremiah had a conversation.  God said, "I chose you to be my prophet even before you were born."  Jeremiah replied, "Ah, Lord God!  Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am young, not even in the over thirty crowd."  “I am only a boy.”  God countered, "Do not say ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you."

Jeremiah was afraid.  Who wouldn’t be?  God spoke to assure him, "I am with you to deliver you."  Then, recalled Jeremiah, "The Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, 'Now I have put my words in your mouth."

This story poses a question for me, and perhaps you have the same question: Why would God enlist a young and inexperienced person like Jeremiah for such an awesome task of being “appointed over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant?”

The answer is that God called Jeremiah for qualities other than his youth.  It is evident that Jeremiah's success rested not within himself, but with God's word and God's strength.  Jeremiah trusted in God’s call.

We learn in the later chapters of the Book of Jeremiah that the power and success of Jeremiah's life resulted from his new relationship with God.  As his dialogue with God continued, and as God taught him what to say to the people, God empowered Jeremiah with strength and courage to do the work he was given to do.

Last Sunday we read that Jesus, like Jeremiah, was around thirty years of age when he preached in the synagogue at Nazareth.  Jesus opened the Hebrew Bible to the Book of the Prophet Isaiah where it says,

“’The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

              to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

             and recovery of sight to the blind,

             to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.’”

Then, having read this passage, he rolled up the scroll,

gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.

Today our gospel passage continues where last week’s left off.  “Jesus began to speak in the synagogue at Nazareth: ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”  Jesus tried to explain his call to the people in the synagogue.  Those who heard him “spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”  They couldn’t believe this was Joseph the carpenter’s son.  They were not prepared to hear Jesus refer to himself as a successor to Elijah.  Instead, they adhered to the popular belief that Elijah would return in the last days to announce the coming of the messiah.

The people had been living with three and a half years of a severe famine; there were a number of unclean lepers in Israel at the time.  They needed a miracle, a cure to all the turmoil and hardship they were experiencing.  What Jesus said to them was, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”

No wonder the people around Jesus reacted with anger. They were outraged and ushered him out of the synagogue and drove him out of town.  As Luke reported, “All in the synagogue were filled with rage.  They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.”

Jesus had tried to explain what he meant by saying that no prophet is acceptable in the prophet’s hometown.  He told them, “Doubtless you will quote me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’”  Luke concluded that through some kind of miraculous intervention Jesus was able to “pass through the midst of them (perhaps in a manner like the Israelites who passed through the Red Sea to escape the Egyptians) and went on his way.”

What do we learn from these stories about Jeremiah and Jesus?  How is the Scripture fulfilled in our hearing?

Jeremiah learned to trust his relationship with God, to know that God wanted him to be a prophet and would support and sustain him in his call.  Jesus knew who he was and what it meant to be anointed by God to bring good news to the poor, to heal the sick, and give liberty to the outcasts and downtrodden.  Both Jeremiah and Jesus were willing to risk everything for the mission they had been given.  What we learn is that life is full of risk and we need to trust that God will always support and sustain us in our ministry to those in need.

Jesus proclaimed the message of God’s love for the world and for all people.  That message was and is that God’s desire is to minister with grace and healing to the physical hurts as well as the spiritual needs of every human being.  We learn that if we limit our under-standing and use of the gospel to preaching and keep it separate from doing acts of compassionate loving and caring, we become roadblocks to the advancement of God’s reign rather than vessels of God’s desire.

Jesus reminds us that the Spirit of God is not limited to our understanding.  God is always seeking to expand our relationship with him; always working through us as in and through Christ to reconcile the world to God.  Jesus reminds us that the plea for human justice and dignity, the work of reaching out to the displaced, the oppressed and the poor, is an integral part of the gospel that offers the forgiveness, acceptance, grace and love of God. 

You and I are commissioned and empowered by God for this ministry.  It is what God expects.  It is what we have been baptized and anointed to do, and it is how the Scripture is fulfilled in our hearing.  Amen.