God Calls You to Be The Real You

I shared this sermon at Grace United Church, Sarnia, ON on August 25, 2019. The readings for that Sunday are included below.

Now 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.”
Then I said, “Ah, Lord GOD! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”
But the LORD said to me, “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.
Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.”
Then 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.
See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

Luke 13:10-17

The first reading today is from the beginning of the book of Jeremiah. This excerpt is Jeremiah’s introduction to the Jewish people, and it’s a beautiful, poetic description of God’s calling Jeremiah into prophet-hood. The book continues in the story of Jeremiah calling Israel back to the laws and traditions of Moses – and away from their worship of a foreign idol named Baal.

Sometimes I think that it would have been great to be a prophet for God as Jeremiah was. I’d get to have a direct chat with God regularly, and maybe there’d be some status involved – after all, if you’re the conduit for God’s word on Earth, people would have to look at you with a bit of admiration, right? Unfortunately this wasn’t the case for Jeremiah.

It turns out that prophets are often bringing bad news to the people to which they are sent, and it also turns out that “don’t shoot the messenger” is a common saying for a reason. Jeremiah had people plotting to kill him early on, and when he complained about it to God, God responded that, well, it was only going to get worse for him. But why was this? Why did people hate Jeremiah’s message so much that they were willing to persecute him? As with most things it had to do with people not hearing what they wanted to hear. Jeremiah didn’t come with a happy message telling people that they were doing great things. He came to tell the people that they had fallen off the path and away from God. Weirdly, people didn’t like hearing that.

We hear a similar story in our second reading as well. The New Testament scripture finds us midway through the book of Luke where a series of Jesus’ parables are thrown together, with this story of Jesus’ healing ministry slotted in the middle giving us an example of Jesus’ new way of understanding the laws to which the Jewish people of the time adhered. Jesus cures a woman who had suffered from an ailment which caused her to be bent over for eighteen years, but because it happened on the sabbath – the day that the law set aside as a day of rest – the local religious leader was outraged! Jesus points out that even farm animals can be cared for on the sabbath, doesn’t a human being deserve that level of dignity – to be cured on the sabbath? The people around Jesus are impressed and the religious leader is cowed.

There’s a common thread between Jesus story and that of the prophet Jeremiah. They both came to share God’s words, but neither of them were accepted because they didn’t fit into the mould of what people expected or wanted to hear.

In Jeremiah’s case the people would have rather heard nothing and continued in their ways without being reminded that they had strayed from worshipping God. In Jesus’ case, people expected a Messiah who would lead a violent revolution to fight off Roman rule and rule over the world from a golden throne. What they got was a man who healed the sick, asked people to pray for their enemies, and who was crucified by those same enemies he prayed for. So much for expectations.

Today we experience this in our own lives. Who hasn’t heard stories of the person who was expected by their parents to take over the family business or pursue a particular career when they had completely different aspirations for their life that weren’t compatible with their parents’ ideas?

Today we see the same misplaced priorities that first century Jews had when expecting a Messiah who would come with a sword to destroy the Roman occupiers. Rather than courageous, and caring leaders, instead we see people vote for the greedy, self-absorbed, and fearful politicians who fail to care about those with the least and seem only to want to help themselves and their well-connected friends. We have elected leaders who thrive on creating conflict and anger. Instead of working toward healing the world and building God’s Kingdom, we see leaders who would literally burn down the Amazon Rain Forest, pollute clean mountain water with oil, and pave over forest and farmland in the name of profit. We are left wanting for a leader who fits the mould of Jesus at every turn.

Sometimes we too find ourselves listening to those around us and we let ourselves be pushed and prodded until we squeeze ourselves into the mould that they’ve made for us… but it’s painful.

I can think of my own experience of working through the process of becoming an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada. I’ve been very involved in the church since I was a young teen – in fact, it was my experience at November Rally where Pat Morrison was the theme speaker for the weekend when I was a 13 year-old punk that kept me from drifting away from the church after confirmation. All through my teen years I helped in the church with Sunday school and volunteering with the Inn of the Good Shepherd, and eventually leading the Worship Committee. Frequently people would say to me, “you should be a minister! You’re so involved and interested in being here – you’d be great at it!”

Then one Christmas-time our church was in between ministers and we couldn’t find anyone to fill in, I felt a push in my heart that said “You can do this – you can lead!” I listened, and using some pre-prepared liturgies and sermons graciously provided by Sue Woodhouse when she worked here at Grace, I led worship at High Park through Advent and Christmas that year. It was nerve-wracking, amazingly satisfying… and somehow it felt natural as I was doing it.

Shortly after that I started the discernment process to see if being in ordered ministry was something I should do. I spent a year with a committee of amazing church people considering my skills and talents and together we discerned that I should take the path of ordained ministry. This meant I had to go to school.

To make a long story shorter, I picked up my life in Sarnia, moved to Waterloo and completed an undergraduate degree in Religious Studies while working part time in IT and running a youth group at Emmanuel UC where I attended church. After completing my degree I took a year off to spend time with my new partner, Vanessa (our first year of marriage was my last year of undergrad which meant thatIt must be kept away from sunlight so as to avoid any kind of damage. cost of sildenafil This is why most men look for safer and better options than ever before with the buy viagra in usa advancement in medical science. Many companies realize the benefits of recognizing employees who perform exceptional tadalafil india online cute-n-tiny.com work and duly publish their reward and recognition programs on their websites. Two-dimensional ultra-sonic backscatter pictures cheap levitra were obtained utilizing an on the web traditional densitometry deal, integrated within the same picture program, from the parasternal short axis view in the papillary muscle level. between me in school and working two jobs, plus her working odd hours at a job, we didn’t see each other much).

I started part time studies at Emmanuel College to begin the final phase of my education in ministry, working toward a Masters of Divinity. In my second year I took a course about Christian Education which would focus on how we teach different age groups in the church. When the week for children and youth ministry came around, the instructor let us know that we would be skipping that lecture because we were running behind, so we could do the readings on our own but it wouldn’t be discussed in class.

That moment became a crystallizing moment for me when I realized that the education I was receiving was not preparing me for where my passion in ministry lies – working with youth and young adults. I discovered in that moment that I was being crammed into a mould that wasn’t mine. I was being shaped into a minister who would likely work as the solo minister of a pastoral charge and that meant I likely wouldn’t be able to pursue the ministry which gives me the most joy and that I’m best at. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoy preaching and leading worship, and I could probably learn to enjoy pastoral care with older folks… but my energy and my passion are focused on walking and talking with young people in the church, showing them what a life with the Gospel as a guide can be like. Unfortunately for me, that meant that I needed to change course.

In the story from Luke we see Jesus actions illustrate his work of bringing the Gospel to the people, specifically the idea that loving our neighbour is more important than strict adherence to a law. Despite the fact that the people around him expected him to lead a revolution and be a military leader, Jesus couldn’t be authentic unless he was himself – the wise, merciful saviour that we now understand him to be, and whom God knew Jesus to be all along.

In the passage from Jeremiah it says “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you”. This is the crux of it all. God knew who Jeremiah was meant to be. God knew who Jesus was meant to be.

Later in the book of Jeremiah, in chapter 20, Jeremiah writes “If I say ‘I will not mention God, or speak any more in God’s name,’ then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in and I cannot.” God’s calling to Jeremiah is so strong that he feels like he is burning up inside if he isn’t actively living out his calling to share God’s message. In my experience this is the same feeling I get when I’m not living into what God created me to be. I feel like I’m stuck in a box and just want to shout who I am from the rooftops.

For Jesus’, he could only be what he was created by God to be – God incarnate. Jesus couldn’t be the military Messiah that people wanted him to be. He was born to be a healer, a teacher, a friend, and our Redeemer. Jesus could only live fully if he lived into what God intended for him, sharing his Gospel message with those around him. That Gospel message said that the way things are now will be inverted in the Kindom of God – the last shall be first, the poor shall be rich, those who have much will have little, love your neighbour as yourself.

What does this mean for us? Right now the news headlines are focused on fires in the Amazon; Fires that are being set intentionally by people clearing land for cattle ranching and other farming for profit. Every other day we hear a new headline referring to tipping points in the global climate crisis where scientists tell us that we’re reaching or have even past points of no return and if we want to keep the Earth habitable for human beings we need to change very very quickly and decisively. Unfortunately, it seems that in a lot of the world the voting population is in deep denial and we have elected leaders who have abdicated their responsibility to keep people safe and either push policies that do nothing to help avert catastrophe or even actively make things worse. These leaders are not growing into the image which God has for them.

What we find instead is a gospel inversion. Instead of the world’s expectation of old men leading the way, we see a young woman – a 16 year-old Swedish girl named Greta Thunberg calling the world to account. Greta has been leading a global movement with a weekly school strike – a walkout to draw attention to global inaction and the very real consequences that are looming over us. I have no idea what, if any, religion, Greta follows, but she seems to have heard the same call that Jeremiah did. Jeremiah (1:6-7) said “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But the Lord said “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. Do not be afraid of them for I am with you to deliver you”. In listening to some of her speeches, you can hear that she is a reluctant prophet just like Jeremiah was. She doesn’t want to be the one who is the focus of attention, but she recognized that it was her calling and her duty to speak out on behalf of the young people of the world – those who will be the most affected by the climate crisis.

For me it meant that I recognized that I couldn’t continue my studies at Emmanuel College and feel like I was living into my true God-created self. The formal discernment process which I worked through with members of High Park United Church and Lambton Presbytery didn’t end when we sent away a bunch of completed paperwork. (And it’s important to note that I don’t think that we discerned a path that was incorrect for me at the time. Starting down the path toward ordination brought me new friends, new experiences, and new understandings.) We are meant to continually look and listen for God in us, encouraging us, or sometimes dragging us toward who we are meant to be.

Withdrawing from school at Emmanuel College meant that I changed my focus so that I could continue my work in youth ministry and balance it with my other passions. Now I work in IT full-time, youth ministry as a part-time commitment, and I fill in on the odd Sunday when I’m asked and have the energy. It turns out that this made my life better in so many ways, not the least of which was improving the quality of my marriage since I actually have time to focus on us.

As a younger person I had an idea that once you became an “adult”, everything about you was set in a mould and would never change again. You’d know what kind of foods you liked to eat, you’d know what sort of career you were meant for, you’d know the people you loved and that would be that – everything about you would never change because you had fit into the mould you’d designed. Strangely it turns out that that’s not the case – God knows the the shape you are meant to be, and if you’re able to be with yourself, you’ll continue to grow into that shape for your entire life, and hopefully not get squeezed into too many uncomfortable positions along the way.

One of these best things that we adults can do for young people and eachother as we all continue to grow is that we should leave room for that growth and understand that people will change over time. My decision to withdraw from the ordination process was agonizing at the time, but I never felt that I couldn’t speak openly and honestly with my family and friends, or the Education and Student’s committee here in Lambton about where I was in understanding my growth. We should all strive to be like that for other people – people will be exploring their sexuality, or gender, their career aspirations, or any of a myriad of mundane things. It’s our duty as Christ’s followers to give them room to grow. To put their well-being ahead of any notions of binding them with laws which might be unhealthy.

Finally, I’d like to close with a prayer that’s written in the style of Reinhold Niebuhr’s famous “Serenity Prayer” which was popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous. This prayer was written by a friend of mine, Devon Spier who is a Jewish poet and rabbinical student, and she happened to share it on Twitter late Friday night as I was writing this sermon. This prayer is called “The Affinity Prayer”:

Amen!