Another Reluctant Prophet - Reflections on Jeremiah 4:1-10, Epiphany 4, Year C

It is a consistent strain in the prophetic literature of Israel to portray a prophet is decidedly reluctant to take up the prophetic mantel. Not all of the prophets are presented as wishing they were anywhere else than in the presence of the commanding God, but many of the more famous ones surely are. All of this disinclination has its origin at that infamous burning bush on that sacred mountain. Moses, called in the unforgettable scene in Exodus 3, is confronted by the fiery, unconsumed plant, which speaks to him first by some sort of messenger/angel, and in the end, by the mysterious YHWH. When asked by Moses to give him the name of the one speaking from the bush, he gets that enigmatic line, “I am who I am” (or “I will be who I will be” or “I am who I will be” or near countless other iterations of the phrase). Instead of being bowled over with religious fervor and anxious to take up the calling of this God, Moses to the contrary offers five increasingly lame excuses why he should not become the prophet that the bush demands he become. The final excuse is so bizarre in the Hebrew that any translation is a desperate guess: “Please, master (‘adonai), send please by the hand you will send.” What?! Anybody but me is the import, but gibberish is what comes out. Little wonder that YHWH’s anger flares up after that nonsense! 

Jeremiah must have known this great tale all too well. After all, he was born and raised in a retired preacher’s home in Anathoth, a village founded when David, several hundred years earlier, had banished his priest, Abiathar, for choosing to follow his eldest son, Adonijah, rather than the chosen successor, Solomon. The village apparently became a refuge for deeply religious leaders, and Jeremiah was born there, surrounded by the stories and traditions of Israel (Jer.1:1). The historical summary, that we often find beginning of a prophetic book, informs us that Jeremiah came to prophecy at a particular and uniquely troubled time in Israel’s life. It is during the reign of Josiah, a long-remembered reforming king, who in 622BCE found a scroll—something like the book of Deuteronomy—in the walls of the temple which Josiah was rebuilding and refurbishing. “The thirteenth year” of that king’s reign is pinpointed as the year of Jeremiah’s call from YHWH, which is 627 BCE. And his long ministry continues through the time of Josiah’s sad death in battle in 609BCE, the disastrous rule of his son, Jehoiakim (609-597BCE), down to the eleventh year of Zedekiah’s kingship that represented the end of Israel’s independence when the Babylonians sacked the city in 587BCE. In other words, Jeremiah was prophet for over 40 years, and witnessed the collapse of the dream of Israel, the destruction of its temple, the defeat and exile of its king, and the loss of the land promised so long ago by YHWH. 

However consequential the prophecy of Jeremiah proved to be, it did not begin with memorable grandeur. Like Moses before him, Jeremiah wanted nothing to do with the call of YHWH. Nevertheless, that call rings down the ages, even picked up some 600 years later by the apostle Paul. “Before I shaped you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations!” (Jer.1:5). But Jeremiah is having none of that! “Oh, YHWH God, I truly do not know how to speak (one of Moses’s excuses, you will remember), for I am only a youth.” Too soon, YHWH, says Jeremiah; come back when I am grown, or better yet don’t bother coming back at all! 

But YHWH is having none of that! “Don’t say, ‘I am only a youth!’ You will go to whom I send you; you will speak whatever I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to rescue you” (Jer.1:7-8). YHWH promised Moses that same thing, to be with him, but YHWH did go on to promise that Aaron would be sent to help in the task. Not so here. “YHWH put out the divine hand and touched my mouth (note the burning coal that touched Isaiah’s lips when he was called—Is.6—no doubt another well-known tale bruited about Anathoth), and YHWH said to me, “Now I have placed my words in your mouth. Today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jer.1:9-10).  

The call is overwhelming and unmistakable. God’s words are now on the lips of Jeremiah, and the result of those words will be at first demanding, destructive, and dangerous for nations and kingdoms, especially for Judah, as subsequent events will prove. But along with these harsh and negative demands will be hopes for building and planting; that too will prove true with respect to the exile in Babylon. But 40 years of anguish, alienation, no family, no children will be part of Jeremiah’s difficult and painful ministry among his Judean siblings. Like Moses and Isaiah before him, the call of prophecy will elicit all that Jeremiah can muster in the way of courage and strength. 

And so it is for those called to preach in our day. There will be times of calling for demolition of structures that oppress and deny simple rights to many of our people. And there will be times when the call is to build something fresh and hopeful, to plant something new and green. Jeremiah was hardly the last prophet of God who was called to speak God’s truth, both harsh and hopeful, into the ears of those who often have no desire to hear. Still, Moses and Isaiah and Jeremiah stand as beacons to those who may even now hear the summons of our God. Our professed limitations finally have nothing to do with it; only the call rings forth, and bids us answer.