Commissioned and Empowered by God

It is wonderful and exciting to be back in our sacred space for worship.  I am grateful to all of you for your patience during the months of our restoration project.  There are still some finishing touches to be completed but we are here and that is very good.  Today is also the date of our Annual Meeting when we take a look at our accomplishments during the past year, assess where we are at this moment in our life together, and begin to look ahead to the coming months.  We are here together, members one of another united by the Spirit of God.

The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah was called by God:  “The word of the Lord came to me 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.’”

Jeremiah was under thirty years old when God called him to be a prophet.  He didn’t want the job and gave his youthful age as a reason for rejecting it.  But God brushed aside Jeremiah’s objection.  Knowing that Jeremiah was the person he needed, God said  “I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”  Jeremiah had no choice but to accept the call and to say “yes” to what God asked of him.

As a prophet Jeremiah had to speak God's word to the people.  God appointed him "over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant."  God also assured him, "I am with you to deliver you.”  “Then the Lord put out h is hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, 'Now I have put my words in your mouth.’"

We learn later in the Book of Jeremiah that the power and success of Jeremiah's life resulted from his relationship with God.  God taught him what to tell the people and empowered him with the strength and courage to do the work he was given to do.

There are similarities between Jeremiah’s call and the anointing of Jesus.  If we had been here last Sunday our gospel reading was about Jesus who, like Jeremiah, was around thirty years of age when he preached in the synagogue at Nazareth.  Jesus opened the Hebrew Bible to 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 he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  The people who heard Jesus “were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”  Then, when he went on to talk about Elijah being sent to a widow at Zarephath they were not prepared to hear Jesus call himself the 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 around Jesus were then filled with rage. As Luke states, “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 his hometown.  He told them, “Doubtless you will quote me this proverb, ‘Doctor, cure yourself!’”  Then, in recounting this episode, Luke wrote that through some kind of miraculous intervention, Jesus was able to “pass through the midst of them and went on his way.”

Jeremiah learned to trust his relationship with God, to know that God called him to be a prophet and would support and sustain him.   Jesus knew 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.  Both Jeremiah and Jesus were willing to risk everything for the mission they were given.  The lesson for us is that we need to trust that God will always support and sustain us in our ministry to those in need.

Jesus’ message was that God’s love is for all people.  God’s desire is to minister with grace and healing to the physical hurts and spiritual needs of every person.  If we limit our understanding of the gospel to words on a page or the sermons we hear and keep it removed from actions of compassionate love and care, we become roadblocks to the advancement of God’s kingdom in place of being ministers of God’s love.

God is always working through us and through Christ in reconciling the world to God.  The plea for justice and dignity, the work of reaching out to the disadvantaged, the oppressed and the poor, is an integral part of the gospel that offers God’s forgiveness, grace and love.  We are commissioned and empowered by God for this ministry.  It is what we have been baptized and anointed to do, and it is how the Scripture is fulfilled in our hearing.  Amen.