Dec 10 | Resistance Lectionary Part 24: Prophets of Power

Today’s Citation: Jeremiah 1:1-12

The season of Advent is a season of prophecy and anticipation, a season where we are called to look ahead to a new cosmos of justice, blessing, and unity. Here, we are welcomed into the story of Jeremiah, a prophet who suffered greatly for his brave actions in the royal court.

Prophets are plentiful in the Bible, but there are many differences between them. Elijah, Elisha, and Amos made their proclamations mainly among the poor, only occasionally having words with the royal class (and almost invariably bad ones), while Ezekiel and Jeremiah were of a higher class, and mixed with royal circles in the courts of the palaces.

This, however, did not determine favour or safety, and Jeremiah in particular found himself at the bottom of a well after uttering a prophecy that the king did not want to hear. Their loyalty was always first to be to God, king of kings, and this was not always the ideal in terms of networking or building bridges for your career!

In these opening lines, Jeremiah first receives his call from God. This passage is especially popular at ordinations, but the focus for us today is on Jeremiah’s “Moses moment,” the moment when he cries that he is only a boy. Moments like this are common in prophetic texts, but what’s important to our purposes is God’s response, which is full acceptance of the prophet as he is.

It’s unlikely that Jeremiah was literally only a child when he first received this commission, but it should be noted that God does not respond by denying Jeremiah’s assertion. God instead tells him not to say it – again, not because it isn’t true, but specifically because Jeremiah is being called to great work that only he can do. He is not only a boy, but a hero for the people and a warrior for God.

No child is only a child. We are so much more than the designations we are given by the state or society or our peers. We are signs in the world of something greater than ourselves, but only we can choose what the something greater will be. It is easier by far to be a sign of the system functioning as it should, either by wielding our power like a hammer or accepting our lowliness as inevitable and intractable.  It is more difficult, but far more sacred, to be a sign of God’s power over all things, a sign of God’s call to the universe to break free from patterns of death and embrace patterns of life and new birth.