January 30, 2022
First Lesson: Jeremiah 1:4-10
4 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
5 “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.”
6 Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” 7 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.
8 Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
says the Lord.”
9 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.
10 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.”
Second Lesson: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Parker’s third grade teacher Mrs. Zeltmann, gave a wonderful assignment to her class; to find an object over fifty years old and then learn about it and the person it belonged to. The best part for me as a parent was showing Parker some of the many treasurers in our home, that are well over 50 years old; like the crystal antique pitcher that sat on my mother’s table, my great grandfather’s beaver skin top hat, or the old family pictures like the one at the funeral of a soldier who died at Gettysburg. These artifacts had not been of great importance to Parker until this project. I even got out the quilt my mother made me when I was 8, the same age Parker was at the time, and the High School jacket my mom had painted which she and I both wore during our High School years. But the item that Parker decided to write about was my father’s World War II Naval scarf. My father passed away when I was 13 so my boys never knew him, but I so enjoyed telling stories about him, his family and the kind of man he was. Before this project, Parker knew nothing about my Dad, but through stories Parker learned how charming, musical and funny my Dad was.
Our Old Testament lesson tells the story of the Call of Jeremiah and how he was known by God. He is one of the Major Prophets who warned the nation of Judah of the impending doom from the Babylonians. His prophetic words, given during the beginning of the sixth century BCE, ultimately did not save the people or their temple from destruction in 586.
Yet we see in Jeremiah’s calling, God’s intimate relationship with him. For while he was in his mother’s womb, and before he was even born, God knew Jeremiah. This idea begs the question of predestination and free will. As Calvinists and Presbyterians we are known for predestination- or God preordaining certain people to belong to God. If God calls us in such all-encompassing ways, how would one have free-will? Yet we do. God can and does lead people in the direction of God’s choosing. Yet at every turn we can choose to deny that path or surrender to God’s will.
A good way to think about this is when we see someone whose vocation seems to match their personhood to a “T”. For example, could you imagine Bob Hope not telling jokes or Leonard Bernstein not composing and conducting music? When vocation and personhood match so undeniably, that person has found their calling. We might not find our calling right away, but when we listen to the things that truly bring us energy and excitement and move towards them, I believe God is leading us to our calling.
When our will aligns with God’s then we are heeding God’s call. But sometimes our doubts, fears and shortcomings get in the way. For Jeremiah, his excuse was that he was only a boy. He tried to get out of God’s mission for his life, for he knew there would be great opposition. If you were called by God and did not want to do it, what would be your excuse- I am only a …. I can’t serve because I am …. Yet whatever you might place in that space- God has the answer, the empowerment to help, the way to redirect your path.
Our New Testament lesson, a tribute to love is often recited at weddings. And these words of love do inspire and ignite hope in our capacity to love. But to truly understand Paul’s writings, we need to understand the conflicts in the church that precipitated this teaching. The church in Corinth was quarreling over spiritual gifts, who had them, and how they were to be used. The over-valuation of spiritual gifts produced divisiveness. But the more excellent way is for the body of Christ to uplift each member in love. Paul then reminds them whatever you have in the world; faith, spiritual gifts, or knowledge, without love it is for naught.
As a child I remember the phrase “Love is….” with several answers. “Love is not what you say but what you do.” Another being “Love is never having to say you’re sorry.” Now I do believe we need to make apologies when called for, but for a while in the 70’s we tried to figure out love. But this search for the meaning of love was to take it out of an idle state. For love is not stagnant. The love of scripture, the love that transcends, is a love that acts!!!
Love refuses to stoop to petty retaliation, love demonstrates patience and kindness, shuns competitiveness, resists keeping score. Love remains hopeful and endures forever.
The culmination of all this talk about the body of Christ and love is to be more fully known, to move from seeing dimly to then being able to be seen face to face. Have you ever had an important conversation on the phone and felt like you were missing something because you could not see the other person’s response, you could not judge how your words were being received? That is seeing dimly in a modern context. How much better it is to see the person face to face. For then your response as well as the other persons are communicated- have impact on the way you are understood and understand. This reminds me of a line from a prayer of St. Francis of Assissi.
“Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted, to understand than to be understood, to love, than to be love.”
Through comfort, understanding and love we are known. Our efforts demonstrate who we are and in sharing these emotional gifts our true self is made known.
This idea of seeing someone face to face has a long scriptural tradition – mostly in being known by God. Moses – the one who led God’s people out of bondage, and delivered the Ten Commandments, saw the face of God and lived!! His skin shown because of this intimate encounter with God. Because of his connection to God, being known by God, we have been gifted with a greater understanding of our Holy and Awesome Creator. In the New Testament, when Saul encounters the risen Christ face to face, he is told, “God has chosen you to know God’s will, to see the Righteous One and to hear his voice.” Knowing Christ, and being known by Christ, transformed him from being the one persecuting Jesus, to being one of the founders of the early church, who we know as Paul.
Parker learned more about his grandfather in one night than he had known his entire life. Yet there is still so much to share, so much to know, so much to integrate. For we become the people we are because of those around us who love us, who shape us, who share their faith with us. For just like Parker will never meet my dad on this side of heaven; we will never meet Jesus this side of eternity.
But when we share our faith stories, when we live out the calling Christ has in our lives, when we proclaim the ways God’s love has touched our life; then we will know, as we have been fully known. For God knew you in the womb, God knows you now!
When I started thinking about this idea that God knew us before we were born, it reminded me of the one request I have been told that my birth mother made for both myself and my half brother- that we should be adopted by Protestant families. That one simple request greatly shaped the person I would become and one of the reasons I stand here today. My birth mother died and I will never meet her, but her commitment to her faith and her desire for her children to be raise in the faith has had profound consequences on my life.
She knew me in her womb, like God knew Jeremiah.
I have often found great comfort in being known by God before I was born. It is this deep knowing that God provides, that undergirds faith and gives hope. But now that I am known by people I am biologically related to aunts, uncles and siblings– I feel more fully known. When all is said and done, because you have been known by God, since before you were born and in every station of life, you are known and truly, truly understood. Because you are fully known, because you are fully loved, God will empower you to love in this most indescribable way, this most gracious way. Trust that you are known and loved! Go forth in love.
