Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday January 30, 2022
Scripture: Jeremiah 1:4-10
We talked about the Marvel Cinematic Universe earlier, but the other story that I was thinking about this week is Harry Potter. (And I acknowledge that the author, J. K. Rowling, has recently been very publicly trans-phobic, but today I want to focus on the story and not the author.)
If you have young adults in your life who have read the Harry Potter books, there is a very good chance that they spent a good number of years waiting for their acceptance letter to Hogwarts.
The first book in the series begins with Harry, an orphan who knows very little about his parents, living with his aunt and uncle and cousin who aren’t very nice to him to put it mildly. All of a sudden, owls start appearing at their house, trying to deliver letters to Harry – the problem is, he isn’t able to open any of them because his uncle intercepts them before he has a chance. His uncle goes so far as to nail shut the mail flap, block off the chimney, forbid everyone from going outside, and eventually taking the family to a rickety cabin on a remote and deserted island.
And there on the island, Harry finally gets the letter – delivered not by an owl this time, but by a giant named Hagrid. Harry opens the letter and discovers that it is his acceptance letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This is confusing to Harry – not surprisingly – and Hagrid announces to him, “Harry, you’re a wizard.”
The reading that Ross shared with us today is a bit like this, only instead of Hagrid announcing, “Harry, you’re a wizard”; instead we’ve got God announcing, “Jeremiah, you’re a prophet.”
And Jeremiah is just as confused as Harry – only instead of asking about witches and wizards, instead he says, “I can’t be a prophet – I’m too young! I’m not able to speak well!”
I have to say that I can relate to Jeremiah here. My first instinct when God asks me to do something is to try to put up barriers. “But God, surely you don’t want me to be a minister when I’m afraid of public speaking! Surely you don’t want me to be a minister since I’m quite happy being a physiotherapist!”
If we were to compare Jeremiah’s origin story or call story with one of the other prophets, Isaiah, they are very different. Where Jeremiah protests and argues with God, Isaiah simply says, “Here am I; send me.” I don’t know about you, but personally, I find Jeremiah’s response with his reluctance more relatable.
When God calls us to do something hard, it is easy to throw barriers in the way – “I’m too young, too old, too tired, too busy, not strong enough, not smart enough, not good enough. I can’t possibly! Ask someone else!”
But God reassures Jeremiah. God tells Jeremiah that he has been known to God since before he was born, and that he has been called to be a prophet for that long as well. God tells Jeremiah not to worry about the words – that they will be given to him as needed, and then God reaches out and touches Jeremiah’s mouth, sealing that promise. And God reassures Jeremiah, telling him that he doesn’t need to be afraid of this calling for God will be with him through it all.
God has known each one of us from since before we were born; and God calls each one of us to play a role in God’s work in the world. It’s not always easy work, but God needs us especially in challenging times. Harry was called to be a wizard in a time when that was a dangerous thing to be, when the wizarding world was on the brink of war. Jeremiah was called to be a prophet – called to point people back to God and to way that God wants us to live – in a time and a place that was just on the brink of being destroyed by the Babylonian empire, after which the surviving people were going to be carried away into exile in a far-away place.
And in the same way, I might suggest that God is calling you to share your gifts in a challenging time like the one we are in right now – in a time when fear and anxiety and divisions and loneliness seem to be the prevailing mood. Into this time and this place, with all of its challenges, you are called to a mission of love and hope.
And just as each one of us has a different origin story, a different call story, we are all called to different roles within the overall mission. In the United Church of Canada, if you think that you might be called to a role of ministry, there is a process in place to help you to discern or clarify that calling, where other people help you to see it more clearly. Before going through my own discernment process, I had the opportunity to serve on someone else’s discernment committee, and we supported her as she clarified her calling. I remember talking about this experience with my Aunt Kathy, who had also had an opportunity to serve on a discernment committee in her own church. Aunt Kathy said that even though it was only potential future ministers who had an opportunity to work with a discernment committee, she thought that everyone in the church should have an opportunity to go through the process. It is very powerful to have a group of people working with you to help you figure out how God is calling you to live out this mission in your life, whether your vocational calling is to be a minister or a teacher or a nurse or a lab tech or an accountant or a homemaker or a bus driver.
Wouldn’t it be great if God called each one of us to our unique calling in the same way that God called Jeremiah – speaking in clear words, and touching his mouth? But God calls each one of us in a different way to a different part of the mission, and usually it isn’t as clear-cut as Jeremiah’s call. And so instead we work together, we ask questions of each other, and together we try to figure out where God might be calling us next, both as individuals and as the church. One recent example is that I know that many of you have received a phone call in the past month from our nominations committee. They have discerned that you might be called to serve a particular part of God’s mission through our church; and I want to say a big thank you to everyone who said yes to either a new role or to continuing for another term in the same role. And at the same time, I also say thank you to everyone who honestly discerned whether this was their call and said no. A “no” answer, when it is the result of authentic discernment, is just as faithful as a “yes” answer. And finally, I say thank you to everyone who has served in the past, for your service, even as you are stepping aside this year so that someone new can answer the call.
We’re called to this mission together. We aren’t alone – God is with us, and the whole church is serving the mission together. And I thank God for all of the different ways that we are called, and for all of the different parts of the mission that we are called to! Amen.
“Harry Potter Studio Tour: Harry’s Hogwarts Letter”
No comments:
Post a Comment