Scriptures: Jeremiah 1:4–10; Psalm 71:1–6; I Corinthians 13:1–13; Luke 4:21–30; Moroni 10:29; Doctrine and Covenants 163:8c

Prelude

Welcome

Scripture for Peace: Doctrine and Covenants 163:8c

Prayer for Peace

*Hymn: “As We Gather” NS 3
OR “Lay Your Hands” NS 27
OR “O Lord, Grace Our Communion” HS 1

*Prayer of Invocation

*Response

Scripture Readings

Presider: This is the word of the Lord to Jeremiah.

Voice of God: “Before I shaped 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.”

Child: “Hold it, Master God! Look at me. I don’t know anything. I’m only a child!”

Voice of God: “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a child.’ 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.”

Child: God reached out, touched my mouth, and said,

Voice of God: “Look! I’ve just put my words in your mouth—hand-delivered! See what I’ve done? I’ve given you a job to do among nations and governments—

a red-letter day! Your job is to pull up and tear down,
take apart and demolish,

And then start over, building and planting.” —Jeremiah 1:4–10 The Message adapted

Presider: This is the story of what happened to Jesus when he came to Nazareth to worship on the Sabbath (Luke 4:16–21 The Message).

Scriptures: Jeremiah 1:4–10; Psalm 71:1–6; I Corinthians 13:1–13; Luke 4:21–30

The intimate account in this passage of Jeremiah’s conversation with God feels fresh and contemporary, as if it had just happened. At a first reading, it seems as if Jeremiah wrote it down immediately after the experience. But there is something about its tone—a maturity and perspective—that tells us the author knows what happened to the young boy next. Jeremiah is remembering his calling, and where it led both him and the nation of Judah. He knows he wasn’t up to the task, but God was. Through divine initiative, Jeremiah really did become “a prophet to the nations,” and he still is.

The idea of being consecrated before one’s birth is common in the scriptures. Isaiah, Moses, and Paul are described in this way, or describe it themselves. And not feeling up to answering the call also has a certain resonance: See Solomon (in I Kings), Moses, and the disciples of Jesus (from his first ones all the way up to the present). We are meant to understand that with God’s call comes the means to fulfill it.

A question this passage seems to be answering is: “What is the source of Jeremiah’s authority?” From our vantage point in the twenty-first century, we grant Jeremiah authority because, well, he’s Jeremiah. But how did he get to be Jeremiah? The most common reading of Jeremiah 1:4–10 is as a firsthand account of an unmistakable encounter with God—a direct transfer of authority. From the point of view of Jeremiah’s community, this exchange was not witnessed and would have little credence by itself. An alternative reading, from Walter Brueggemann, A Commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and Homecoming (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), is that the purpose of 1:4–10 is “to affirm that the text which follows is not merely a human construction, but is in fact the purposeful governing assertion of Yahweh, who will have history move as Yahweh asserts it.” In other words, the community has come to recognize, in a prophetic text, God’s dominion anew. It is the text that will have staying power, not the person.

When Jeremiah writes this passage, he already knows how hard the job of prophet turns out to be. The nation he writes to has already set its course irrevocably to the plucking up, pulling down, destruction, and overthrow. The power of the prophetic in this passage is not in the prediction of doom, but rather in the promise with which it ends: “to build and to plant.” Says Brueggemann: “God works in freedom without respect either to the enduring structures so evident, or to the powerless despair when structures are gone. God alone has the capacity to bring endings and new beginnings.”

3. How can God make a new beginning, when a whole nation seems to be headed in the wrong direction?