Before I formed you in the womb I knew all about you.

Before you saw the light of day, I had holy plans for you.

A prophet to the nations – that’s what I had in mind for you.

I’ll tell you where to go and you’ll go there.

I’ll tell you what to say and you’ll say it.

Don’t be afraid of a soul.

I’ll be right there, looking after you.

Look! I’ve put my words into your mouth.

See what I’ve done?

I’ve given you a job to do among nations and governments.

Your job is to pull up and tear down, to take apart and demolish.

And then to start all over again, building and planting.

Jeremiah, the prophet, had been given his task and he spent the next forty years living it out. Forty years of enormous political upheaval. Forty years during which there was a good king, a couple of bad kings, a weak king, and forced deportation of all but the dregs of the population.

And Jeremiah warned them about it all. His foresight earned him no favours. He became increasingly isolated from those he was sent to serve and his life was even threatened by those who could not bear to hear him out. Yet he had no choice. The words of his calling are indeed words of beauty and wonder, of awe and revelation, of majesty and poetry. But hear them again:

Before I formed you in the womb I knew all about you.

Before you saw the light of day, I had holy plans for you.

A prophet to the nations – that’s what I had in mind for you.

I’ll tell you where to go and you’ll go there.

I’ll tell you what to say and you’ll say it.

For they are also words of command and decree. Whilst Jeremiah was still in his mother’s womb, when he was little more than developing cells of DNA, God was preparing him for the work to which he was called. So the work, the task, the calling was Jeremiah’s – whether he liked it or not.

Of course, Jeremiah could (like many others) have refused to do that which God would have him do. He could have refused to pass on what God gave him to say. But (as we heard in today’s passage from Jeremiah) not speaking out is as painful as the fear, the loneliness, the isolation, that comes from speaking out.

In fact, one woman writer commenting on verse 9

If I say “I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name”, then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones. I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot

suggests that that verse

Sounds a little like childbirth: you don’t want to push because it hurts too much, but the force is irresistible.

So Jeremiah has spoken, for he has no choice. And he has spoken the words given him by God. Again, because he has no choice. However much he may have wanted to declare God’s love, compassion and forgiveness, it was Jeremiah’s task to proclaim words of “violence and destruction”.

So this morning, we are presented with a very depressed prophet who seems to hate his task, his role and his God: though he is at least honest about that!

Come forward some five hundred years from that first poem and hear Jesus speaking to his disciples. The words from Matthew’s gospel continue on from last week. Jesus is giving his disciples their instructions prior to their first solo mission. He has been telling them of the dangers and of the hardships they are going to have to endure and he ends up by saying:

And why not? Why do you expect any less than this? Is the disciple better than the teacher? If the world gives me a bad time, then you should expect it to give you a bad time as well.

So what is Jesus’ answer to this problem? How does he comfort his disciples? By offering them life insurance? By giving them bullet proof vests? By suggesting they form a self help group in assertiveness and conflict resolution? Hardly. Instead he says:

Don’t be afraid of your enemies or your critics. It may not seem it now but the truth will come out and the truth will set you free. So stand up and speak out. And don’t be afraid

Words welcomed by all those who don’t want to be heroes, especially not religious heroes. Jeremiah, the disciples, Christians of today all share the same fears and anxieties of our calling:

  • that we have to say what we have been given to say, despite the fact that most of the people, most of the time, do not want to hear it

  • that knowing that God protects us and values us more than many sparrows, will not always console and uphold us

  • that we will long for an ordinary life, free from the tremendous responsibilities that God has given us to share the good news of the love that he has for all his people and to share the forgiveness that is freely offered to all those who desire it.

There will be times when those around us will (quite rightly) be able to accuse us of seeming to hate this task, this role, even this God. Yet we are in good company for we share our fears and our anxieties with Jeremiah and with those specially chosen by Jesus himself.

So when fear gets the better of us, when our anxieties overwhelm us, we can take comfort not only from Jeremiah and the disciples, but also in the fact that in all Jeremiah’s ranting and raving against his God there is no hint of condemnation whatsoever from God of what Jeremiah is feeling.

Indeed God, in his very silence, accepts all that Jeremiah is throwing at him; accepts Jeremiah’s anger, bitterness and fear; accepts even Jeremiah’s silent scream of pain, betrayal and loss.

And in the midst of the anger, slicing through the screams with the sound of silence, is God’s reply:

Have no fear. They will not prevail. Do not be afraid.

For

Before I formed you in the womb I knew all about you.

Before you saw the light of day, I had holy plans for you.

A prophet to the nations – that’s what I had in mind for you.

Amen.