I Am Willing

Today we hear the call of a new prophet - Jeremiah - and consider our own call

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Transcript

Today we meet another prophet – Jeremiah.  It’s the story of a boy from a nowhere town in a nowhere place, going about his business with no desire to be noticed, when he hears a voice, “Before I created you in the womb, I knew you.  Before you were born, I set you apart.  I made you a prophet to the nations.”  

Was it the sound of thunder?  Was it a dream?  All he knew was that it felt like truth, because he asked, “How could it be me?”  Adding, just like Solomon, “I’m only a child.”  Or like Moses at the burning bush:  “It can’t be me. I don’t know how to speak.”  Or Mary, startled by an angel: “How can this be?”

Jeremiah deflects, “But I’m just a child.”  God doesn’t argue and simply says, “Don’t be afraid. I’ll be there to rescue you.”   Was he afraid, or just uncertain… unready?  Fear would be OK.  Poet Amanda Gorman encourages, “Fear can be a friend.  Fear lets you know you are doing something important.”  What do you think of that?

Did you know that before performing at the presidential inauguration in 2021, she almost turned it down.  She told the New York Times that, among other things, she was “scared of failing my people.”  Covid was still raging.  And just days before, domestic terrorists had stormed the very Capitol steps where she would deliver her poem.  They wouldn’t take kindly to, as she described herself, “a skinny black girl” speaking from “their house.”  

She and her mom practiced drills crouching behind the furniture to shield her body from bullets.  Friends “joked” that she should buy a bullet-proof vest.  Should she do it?  She was torn because she got texts from some people praising the Lord and from others that she was pathologically insane.[1]  

Like Jeremiah, she chose to step into the call, trusting that what frightened her most was exactly where God was leading and concluded, “Maybe being brave enough doesn’t mean lessening my fear but listening to it.  I closed my eyes in bed and let myself utter all the leviathans that scared me, both monstrous and miniscule.”  She concluded, “I’m a firm believer that terror is often trying to tell us [that there is] a force greater than despair.”  

Like Jeremiah, Amanda felt the pull of fear and the temptation to retreat but chose to step into the call.  She said, “If you’re alive, you’re afraid.  If you’re not afraid, then you’re not paying attention.  The only thing we have to fear is having no fear.” 

That’s an interesting juxtaposition to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  At his inauguration, he famously said, “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  The Bible says repeatedly:  “Do not fear.  Don’t be afraid.”  But Gorman said, “The only thing we have to fear is having no fear” and realized, like Jeremiah, that the very thing she feared most was the thing she most needed to do.  Has that ever been true for you?  Might it be true in some way for you today?  What has been weighing on your mind this week?  What do you know you must say yes to but still feel unready?

Amanda’s prophetic call was true in 2021 and it’s true today:

We will rebuild, reconcile and recover

and every known nook of our nation and every corner called our country,

our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,

battered and beautiful.

When day comes we step out of the shade,

aflame and unafraid.

The new dawn blooms as we free it – for there is always light,

if only we’re brave enough to see it

If only we’re brave enough to be it

Whether Jeremiah was either brave or afraid, he surely knew what happens to prophets.  He’s heard the stories around the family dinner table many times – like the prophet Micaiah.  Now, I had never heard of him before this week but his story is a remarkable tale.[2]

King Ahab – the same one who sent Elijah into the wilderness fleeing for his life…  That King Ahab sat with the king of Judah, deciding whether to go to war against a common enemy.  Around them swarmed four hundred “prophets” shouting, “Your enemies are weak!”  “You’re the chosen one!”  They were “yes-men,” a kind of divine approval ratings committee, more than prophets.  They declared, “March into battle and it will be the biggest victory in history!”

Ahab beamed as the crowd chanted his name.  Unimpressed, the king of Judah leaned over:  “Isn’t there anyone here who will tell us the truth?”  Ahab scowled. “Well, there’s Micaiah, but I can’t stand him.  Everyone says he’s very unfair.  A total loser prophet.”

They sent for him and on the way in, the other prophets pulled him aside and whispered, “We’ve all agreed on the story.  Just add your blessing.”

Micaiah entered King Ahab’s court and glanced at all the pomp and gold and said exactly what Ahab wanted to hear: “Go ahead, Majesty.  You’ll win.  It’ll be huge — everyone’s talking about it.”  But the king of Judah narrowed his eyes and pressed him: “Tell the truth.”  So, Micaiah dropped the flattery:  “If you go to war, you won’t come back alive.”

Ahab turned red, “Lock him up.”  And they did and we never heard from him again.  Meanwhile, they went to war, were crushed in defeat, and Ahab was struck by an arrow.  He slumped over, bleeding in his chariot, and died before sunset.  Just like Micaiah said.  

Micaiah stood in front of power that wanted flattery and loyalty and told the truth.  And so, despite the fact that Jeremiah knew the stories of people like that, he said yes anyway.  I am willing.  And then, God’s outstretched hand touched Jeremiah’s mouth.  “This very day I appoint you over nations and empires: 

To pull up and tear down,
     to take apart and demolish,
 And then to start over,
     building and planting.”  

Rev. Jennifer Butler lives that.  She grew up in the Bible Belt, immersed in church life from the time she could walk:  Sunday school stories, hymns, and altar calls.  But as she grew, she saw the Bible she loved used less as a source of life and more as a tool to control.  She witnessed the unspoken rules about who was welcome, silence about racism and poverty, and the sidelining of women’s voices.  She thought of walking away, but instead searched for a faith that looked like Jesus.

She eventually became the Presbyterian representative to the United Nations.  It was there that she saw up close the stakes of moral courage – or the lack of it:  she walked alongside families in refugee camps and listened to victims at human rights hearings.  She learned this truth: when moral vision is missing, the most vulnerable suffer first and worst.  And she became convinced that Christians, of all people, could not remain silent on the sidelines — because the story we claim to follow is one of God setting captives free, siding with the oppressed, and toppling unjust powers.

So, she wrote Who Stole My Bible? Reclaiming Scripture as a Handbook for Resisting Tyranny, insisting that scripture is a story of liberation from authoritarian control — like Moses before Pharaoh, or Jesus before the Roman Empire.  And prophets like Jeremiah, Isaiah, Micah, Amos, and more.  For her, the Bible’s prophetic work means disrupting false peace – pulling down, taking apart – then building and planting seeds for a just future.  She spoke of this at the UCC General Synod this summer, in particular warning how Christian nationalism reverses scripture by seeking power for itself.

To this challenge, the prophet Jesus speaks very clearly, words that are hard to hear: “Do you think that I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, division.  Even among families.”  Yikes!  That’s a lot to unpack – another time.  But he says it because God’s truth will always clash with false peace.  Reclaiming scripture as liberation will set us at odds with those who use faith to exclude or to sanctify greed — blessing a second yacht while children go hungry.

Again, Jennifer urges the church to reclaim words of Jesus in scripture as liberative for the poor and captive, to humanize and include those cast out, and resist systems that harm.  Her closing challenge to the UCC was:  “As Christians, we were made for this moment.”  Faith should set people free.  Faith should give power to the powerless, not secure the power of the already powerful.  And she adds, “Don’t you know the power that you carry?”  

Maybe we’re afraid.  But fear isn’t all bad.  It tells us what is important.  Just remember, God promised, “I’ll be there to rescue you” when we refuse what is false,

And say “no” when leaders demand loyalty over truth,
 And call out lies even when it costs us comfort,
 And push back when neighbors are targeted for their race, their faith, who they really are in their bodies, or who they love.

And when we repair what has been broken —
 tell the truth about our history, listen before we speak,
 and make space at the table until every voice is heard and every body is fed.

And rebuild what heals, plant what gives life,
 turn empty lots into gardens, 

turn fear into love and enemies into friends.

If any of that sounds frightening, Amanda Gorman would say, then that’s the very thing you must do.
 God has always called ordinary people who say, “Why me?”
 Too old, too young, too unqualified.
 But I am willing.  Are you?
 
 

Holly Near sings it, not as a gentle refrain but as a declaration for this moment:

There is hurting in my family
 There is sorrow in my town
 There is panic in the nation
 There is wailing the whole world round

[But, ready or not, fearful or not, brave or not] 

I am open and I am willing
 For to be hopeless would seem so strange
 It dishonors those who go before us
 So lift me up to the light of change.

Litany

One: Come, beloved community—

Bring the wounds you carry and the hope that will not die.

All: We are open and we are willing.

To be changed. To be healed. To be sent.

One: The world is aching.

The chains of injustice are heavy.

But still, the Spirit sings: “Lay down your pain, and rise.”

All: We are open and we are willing.

To love fiercely. To speak truth. To build again.

One: This is not a gathering of perfect people.

This is a gathering of prophets in progress—

Called not to escape the world, but to mend it.

All: We are open and we are willing.

Come, Holy One—make us brave.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/opinion/amanda-gorman-poem-inauguration.html
[2] 1 Kings 22:1–28 and 2 Chronicles 18:1–27