Joel D. Kline
August 22, 2004
Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren
The Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost
The Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore once confessed that he has never sung the song he wanted to sing because he has spent all his days “stringing and restringing” his instrument. It’s a sad statement, reminding us that there is within each of us a song—a song that all too infrequently emerges because of our own acts of “stringing and restringing,” our own preoccupation with the details and pressures and worries and stresses of life. How often we become so anxious about tasks needing to be accomplished that we lose sight of the joy and the purpose behind those tasks.
The prophet Jeremiah hears God calling him to ministry, to be a prophet to the nations, to allow a new song of faithful living to emerge from within him. Overwhelmed by the sheer scale of this task, Jeremiah resists, crying out, “Ah. Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”
Jeremiah, of course, is far from alone in his excuse making. Moses, when called by God to return to Egypt, confront the Pharaoh, and lead the people out of slavery, offers a similar excuse, even though he is much older than Jeremiah at the time of his call. “O my Lord,” protests Moses, “I have never been eloquent; neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue” (Exodus 4:10). Isaiah similarly objects to the call of God, lamenting, “Woe is me! … I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:6). And Mary, confronted by the angel Gabriel with the message that she shall bear a son, Jesus, questions skeptically, “How can this be?” (Luke 1:34).
How can this be? It’s our question as well, at those times when we too resist God’s call, protesting that surely someone else must be more worthy than are we. But God calls us, not because of our own giftedness, but because God has a purpose to fulfill and needs a vessel, an instrument, through whom to work. Each one of us is called in our own way to be an instrument of God’s grace and love, God’s compassion and loving kindness, God’s mercy and peace. And perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the biblical story is its affirmation that God so frequently chooses to work through fallible, weak, and sometimes contemptible human beings like you and like me. In a very real sense, God becomes vulnerable, dependent—to a surprising extent—upon our willingness to respond to the call.
Were the story to end with his resistance, Jeremiah would be like so many of us—vaguely aware of something within us that remains untapped, of an inner song that remains unsung. A piano remains just a row of keys until someone artfully touches them into life. A violin remains a mute instrument until a musician picks it up and creates music. When Jeremiah succumbs to the persistence of God, allowing the promising words of God to take hold of his spirit: “Do not be afraid…for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord” (Jeremiah 1:8)—when Jeremiah becomes clay in the hands of God the potter, remarkable events follow.
Our calling need not be as vast as that of Jeremiah or Mary, Moses or Isaiah, in order to serve as instruments of God. I recall a seminary friend questioning, in the aftermath of the turbulent civil rights and anti-war movements in the 1960s and early ‘70s, whether the most faithful—and risky—thing we might do as people of faith is to create homes in which our children catch the promise of the Christian life. It’s a challenge to live in such a way that our children learn Christ’s ways of peace and compassion, self-giving love and servanthood, humility and grace. In the 1978 edition of the Church of the Brethren Pastor’s Manual, there is a charge to parents borrowed from the London Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends that reads this way:
Watch with Christian tenderness over the opening minds of your children. Seek to awaken in them the love of Jesus Christ and an understanding of his teaching. Uphold in your own conduct, and thus encourage in theirs, truthfulness and sincerity. Through example and training help them to recognize and obey the voice of God in their hearts that they may be joyful and willing in God’s service. Remember, at the same time, that there is a unique potentiality in each human being as a child of God, and that the Holy Spirit may lead your children along paths which you have not foreseen.
That’s the risky part of the journey of faith, isn’t it? We like to have things spelled out, we like to know where we’re headed, but, truth is, faith means we are no longer firmly based in ourselves. The center of our living shifts from self to God, and when it does, we may indeed find our children—and ourselves—led by the Spirit along paths we had not foreseen.
Faith is a matter of trusting the God who is leading us. It is a matter of so embracing the extravagant, the limitless, the free-flowing love of God that we entrust all of our living—our present and our future, our children, our hopes, our significant relationships, our dreams—we entrust all in the gracious hands of God.
Writes Joyce Rupp in her book May I have this Dance, “I become an instrument of God when I let go of my own need to have everything go well or to avoid failure or to please others or simply to make more money.” In truth, we become instruments of God when we let go of our need to be in control.
There’s a simple story entitled “The Wooden Bowl” making its rounds on the Internet, the story of a frail elderly man who went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year-old grandson. The old man’s hands trembled, his eyesight was blurring, and his steps faltered. When the family ate together at the dinner table, the grandfather’s shaking hands and failing eyesight made eating difficult. Peas would sometimes roll off his fork onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, milk would spill onto the tablecloth.
Irritated with the mess his elderly father frequently created, the son said to his wife, “We’ve got to do something about Grandfather. I’ve had more than enough of his spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor.” And so the couple set a small table off in the corner of the room, where Grandfather could eat alone. Because he had broken a dish or two, his food was served in a wooden bowl.
Sometimes Grandfather had a tear in his eyes as he sat alone. Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he dropped a fork or spilled food. The four-year-old watched it all in silence.
One evening before supper the father noticed his son playing with wood scraps on the floor, and kindly asked him what he was making. “Oh, I am making a little bowl for you and Mom to eat your food in when I grow up.” The words so struck the parents that they were speechless. Though no words were spoken between them, both knew what must be done.
That evening the husband led Grandfather back to the family table, where for the remainder of his days he ate meals with the family. And for some reason, neither husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a fork was dropped, milk spilled, or the tablecloth dirtied.
Serving as instruments of God’s gracious love takes many forms. With Jeremiah and Isaiah, such service may include being prophets to the nations. With Moses, it may mean confronting unjust structures while offering the way of liberation. With Mary, it may mean giving birth to something unforeseen, something radically new. Or it may mean living out the gospel of compassion and grace right where we are—in our families, in our church community, in the neighborhoods in which we live, in our places of employment, in the varying relationships and encounters of our daily living.
“Do not be afraid…I am with you.” Those words of God spoken to Jeremiah are also spoken to us, inviting and empowering us to become God’s instruments. And when we begin to recognize ourselves as instruments of God, we find ourselves singing a new song, a song of God’s grace and mercy, God’s goodness and life. Henri Nouwen reminds us that “the spiritual life involves a constant claiming of our true identity,” with that identity centering in the promise that we are indeed God’s beloved sons and daughters. As we claim that identity, we find our hearts and minds transformed, and we become instruments of God’s peace and loving kindness, God’s compassion and self-giving love.
Lord Jesus Christ,
Living water, bread of Life,
Rock of ages, humble servant,
We come seeking your strength, your goodness, your all-sufficient grace. In times of fear and confusion, O Lord, let us hide ourselves in you. In times of yearning and seeking, let us drink from your flowing stream that leads to abundant and everlasting life.
O God our Creator, thanks be to you for the gift of Christ Jesus our Redeemer, who sets us free to become your beloved children, who guides us beyond self-centeredness and self-preoccupation so that we might live for your glory, O God, and for the good of our neighbors near and far.
God of all wisdom, touch our hearts and minds afresh with your truth. Guide our feet in paths of peace and right living, that we might bring light to the world around us. Transform our fears into faith, our resentments into acts of healing and wholeness.
O God, hear us now as we lift into your presence those in special need of your healing touch. We pray for …
God who calls us to be instruments of peace and compassion, to be salt and light in our daily living, grant us courage to embrace your call to journey in faith. In a world far too familiar with suspicion and fear and warfare and violence, teach us to walk in your love and to witness to Christ’s alternative way of living.
Jesus, living water, let us drink from your flowing stream. Amen.