Jeremiah 1:4-10; Luke 4:14-21
Welcome to Scout Sunday – which explains
why the first several rows are filled with kids in uniforms, and why Scouts are
serving as acolytes, lectors, and ushers this morning. This is our annual opportunity to celebrate
the ministry of Scouting. Now, maybe
that sounds odd, to describe Scouting as a ministry. But after all, Troop 16 is a part of St.
Andrew’s, not simply an outside organization using our building. So, if that’s true, there must be some significant
overlap between the church’s mission and Scouting’s mission. So, how is Scouting a ministry?
We’ll there are definitely connections in what
the Church and Scouting teach. After
all, the Scout Law says – say it with me if you know it – that a Scout is trustworthy,
loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave,
clean, and reverent. In the Church, we’d
be on board with young people learning to practice all those values, but it’s that
last one where we intersect the most – being reverent. In fact, if you look at the Scout Oath, you
find the intersection runs deeper than we might realize. The Scout Oath begins this way: “On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty
to God and my country, and to obey
the Scout Law….”1 So, a duty
to God is part of what Scouting is all about.
But Scout troops are part of all kinds of
religious and civic groups, so that “duty to God” plays out in lots of
different ways. Each tradition is free
to carry out religious training as it sees fit.2 In
the Episcopal Church, Scouts can earn four religious emblems as they grow up –
God and Me, God and Family, God and Church, and God and Life. Honestly, I don’t know the specifics of those
programs as well as I should. But I
think our readings today might suggest that we should add a recognition that isn’t currently part of the program. That would be a merit badge for serving as a
prophet.
Now, for that to make any sense, we have
to know what a prophet is. In the Bible,
a prophet is not a fortune teller. A
prophet may get a glimpse of what’s coming as part of the message he or she
receives from God, but the point isn’t to forecast the future. The point is to be a spokesperson, delivering
the word of the Lord and calling people to follow God’s ways. That’s what it means to be a prophet. Prophets speak for God – whether they want to
or not, whether it serves their interests or not.
We get two examples this morning, from
Jeremiah and from Jesus. Our first
reading was about the call of Jeremiah as a prophet of the Lord, an experience
that probably scared the living daylights out of him. He’s young – maybe actually a boy, maybe a very
young man. But no matter his age, he’s
isn’t ready when God tells him he will be a “prophet to the nations” (1:5). Jeremiah tells God, “You’ve got the wrong
guy.” But God quickly says – no, I’m not
asking you to do this based on your own wisdom and power. Instead, “you shall go to all whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you.
Do not be afraid of [anyone],” God says, “for I am with you to deliver
you.” (Jeremiah 1:7-8)
The second example of being a prophet comes
from Jesus himself. He’s in his hometown
synagogue on the Sabbath; and he’s just read out loud from the prophet Isaiah,
where God is proclaiming good news for the poor, and release for the captives,
and healing for the blind, and freedom for the oppressed. Jesus finishes his reading, sits down, and
gives them the shortest sermon ever: “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled
in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). Jesus
himself is one who will bring relief to the poor, the captives, the afflicted, and
the oppressed by bringing God’s way of love into everyday life.
Well, the people wonder what makes him say
that, given that they’ve known Jesus forever.
This is his hometown crowd in Nazareth, where he was raised. They know him as the carpenter’s son – a good
kid, but hardly somebody who speaks the word of God. Jesus gets it; he knows they’re not going to
give him his due. But still, he gives
them God’s “truth” (4:25): that just
because they’re on the right team, just because they’re part of God’s chosen
people, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily doing what God asks. After all, he says, several other times in
Israel’s history, God has blessed outsiders instead of Jewish people who weren’t
living very faithfully. The hometown
crowd doesn’t appreciate that kind of honesty, and they don’t like having their
feet held to the fire by some carpenter’s son; so, they try to throw him off a
cliff. Being a prophet is risky business.
I think those two stories tell us
something a little challenging. First,
God chooses unlikely people to be prophets.
In Jeremiah’s situation, God turns people’s expectations on their heads,
asking a young nobody from a little village to be the one to speak God’s word
to “nations and kingdoms” (1:10), telling the leaders how they and their people
need to follow God’s path. But God doesn’t
stop there. Like Jeremiah, we may not
think we have the words to say on our own.
But I believe God chooses each of us to be a prophet, at least from time
to time – when we find ourselves in situations where what we see and hear
around us runs counter to God’s way of love.
Let me tell you a story – something that
happened 30 years ago but still sticks with me.
I had moved to take a job in Jefferson City, and I was only 23, with all
the confidence of someone who hasn’t yet learned just how little he knows. I needed a haircut, so I went to an old
barbershop, a place that must have been there for decades. I came in, and the barber invited me to step
right up – a tall, muscular guy with a big smile, huge hands, and a buzz cut. We made small talk as he put the cape around
my neck and got started with the scissors.
It’s an odd situation, asking a stranger to cut your hair – he’s the one
with the power, and you never quite know how that’s going to turn out.
Well, as he cut, he started telling jokes,
jokes I’m sure he had told a million times.
As he started out, he was pretty funny; but before long, it got ugly. He was making fun of women and black people. He must have thought it was OK because there
were only white guys sitting there in the old barbershop. But suddenly this huge, friendly-looking guy
with the big smile was speaking sexism and racism. And I had to decide what to do.
I would love to be able to tell you a
David and Goliath story, that I confronted the barber about his ugly language
even though he was the one with the scissors in his hand. But I didn’t.
I just got quiet. And as I was
leaving, I had the perfect opportunity simply to tell him a holy truth: that I wouldn’t be back because what I’d
heard him saying didn’t align with how God tells us to talk about one
another. That was the truth; I knew I’d never go back to that barbershop, so
saying something wouldn’t have put my future hairstyle at risk. But I didn’t do it, and I’ve regretted that
failure ever since.
So, why didn’t I, when what he said was so
clearly wrong and I had nothing to lose?
Part of it is the culture of niceness – after all, my mother taught me,
and maybe your mother taught you, that if you don’t have anything nice to say, you
shouldn’t say anything at all. But you
know, we don’t find that lesson about being nice anywhere in Scripture. Instead, we find what we heard this morning:
God saying, “You shall speak whatever I command you; do not be afraid … for I
am with you to deliver you.” (Jeremiah 1:7-8)
It’s not just the Scouts who have a duty
to God. When we renew our baptismal
covenant, we promise to seek and serve Christ in all people, loving our
neighbors as ourselves. We promise to
strive for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human being. Now, that kind of a promise can feel too big
to keep: How am I supposed to promote
justice and peace, especially when we can’t even agree about what the word “justice”
means? Well, respecting the dignity of
every human being sometimes comes down to the simple, and countercultural, act
of not letting “nice” get in the way of speaking for God. Because you never know when the prophet God’s
calling is you.
1.
Boy
Scouts of America. “What are the Scout
Oath and Scout Law?” Available at: https://www.scouting.org/discover/faq/question10/. Accessed Feb. 10, 2019.
2.
Boy Scouts of America.
“Manual for Chaplains and Chaplain Aides.” Available at: https://www.scouting.org/resources/info-center/manual-for-chaplains-and-chaplain-aides/. Accessed Feb. 1, 2019.
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