Handling Unexpected Calls

Jeremiah 1:4-11

Jeremiah did not expect God to call. Jeremiah did not want God to call. But God called.

How would you handle such a call?

None of us like unexpected calls that bring nasty surprises. There is almost nothing worse than settling into bed, drowsing off into slumber, then be jolted bolt upright as the phone rings. Now there will be a devil of a time going back to sleep. My daughter’s dearest friend in Augusta is the child of an Army Colonel. He fought in the first Iraq War in the early ‘90s, and when we went to war again in Iraq in the early 21sr Century, he got the unexpected call. He was a Ranger, and suddenly Rangers were high demand, even if they had retired to the reserves. So, off he went, answering a call that left himself and his family facing an unimaginably uncertain future. Unexpected calls throw us off. They mess up the whole rhythm of the day (or night). 

But there is more than one kind of unexpected call. Sometimes the call is unexpected, but it’s not bad news, it’s great news. A couple with whom I worked as pastor had such a moment. The wife had not been feeling well, so she went to the doctor. She had been rundown, sick, and generally blah for too long. She went through a barrage of tests. Then came the phone call, and it was unexpected—she was expecting! The kicker had been that they had been told for years that such news would never come. Now, here it was. Their joy was enough to light up a whole city.

Jeremiah gets that kind of call, he just doesn’t realize it is that kind of call.

As we deal with God, we need to expect that. God works at a level and according to a plan that baffles human reason and imagination. God does what God does in complete freedom from our expectations, wants, or designs. God chooses people we would not choose. God chooses means to get things done that would never occur to us. God intervenes when no one is seeking it, and God remains absent when everyone seeks God’s intervention. So, there are a good many times when God calls, and all we see is an interruption, an annoyance, or a complication. 

There’s an old blues song—my favorite version is by Mississippi John Hurt—“Jesus on the Mainline”—no one know when God’s going to call, but God will call, and everything else will change.

Tell me about it. 

Last summer, if you’d asked me what I would be doing this summer, I probably would have told you that I was looking forward to my second sabbatical after fourteen years with my Georgia congregation. I’d have told you I was hoping to be in Spain, walking the Camino de Santiago. But then God called, shelving all of that, lifting me up, and flinging me out here to California to do a type of ministry I’d never dreamed of doing. So, here I stand in the pulpit of Northminster Presbyterian Church of Sacramento, preaching to people no one would’ve guessed I’d get to know, talking about how God calls us unexpectedly as a General Presbyter, something that must make some former colleagues smile at, if not laugh—Rob, an executive, Bwah hahahahahahah….

That sort of upheaval is what we fear. No one likes change. No one likes it when the world shifts beneath our feet. We want stability. We want predictability. We want to just be as we are. But a look at us as a community of faith makes it clear that can’t be. The world has shifted. We’ve been slow to shift with it. But God calls. God interrupts us all. God is doing something, and we need to be in it.

In full disclosure, when it became clear I was leaving everything familiar to come west—job, family, and location—I wondered at God. What was God thinking? I certainly had no clue. How could this be a good thing? How was I going to do something I’d never done before—never even tried? How was I going to manage the simple newness of everything? There was more than one night where I stared at the ceiling way past my bedtime, puzzling, worrying, and generally unhappy. But then I got here, and, so far, things fall into place, stuff makes sense, and I found that Californians are, well, yes, different from my Southern folks, but welcoming, friendly, and open by and large. Our house sold quickly in Georgia. Our kids got settled in their own lives. I can do the work before me. God seems to be reassuring me strongly and hopefully that all shall be well and all manner of thing well.

Jeremiah offers comfort to all of us facing such an intervention from God. He’s been there. Most importantly, he shared a special assurance from God that hopefully can resonate in every heart here. Hear that assurance—Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I consecrated you…

What that means is that God is always with us—there has never been a moment when God was not with us—and that God has something in mind for each of us as we make our way. We may be lost, confused, full of more questions than answers, but not so with God. We may not readily see or grasp what God has in mind, but God does have something in mind. 

Consecration is a word we Presbyterians don’t use very much, but with this text, we need to reacquaint ourselves with it. It means that God is not only with us, but that God is lifting us up into a holy place. God has sacred work for us to do. God is making us able to do that work. We will be the implements of transformation and trascendence—you and me, regular folk—we are the tools of God for the reclamation of the world from all that dims hopes, communicates the some people are not worth our attention, or that fear really is the lifeblood of our times. No, we are about the holy work of redemption, freeing us from all that would break the heart of any human being we meet.

The further lesson from Jeremiah is that it is up to us to engage in discernment—not just occasionally—but always as we seek to tune into the mind of God. The promise to Jeremiah will only make sense to Jeremiah as he is able to stay attuned to God. Note that—Jeremiah’s life as a prophet is nothing if it is not real. He ran into all sorts of roadblocks, conniptions, and conundrums. He got thrown in prison at one point, dropped in a cistern at another, and then carried off into exile—not exactly a career of moonbeams and chocolate sundaes. But he prayed. He talked with God all the time. He yelled at God a lot. And he pestered God until it was clear to him what God wanted, was doing, and where he was to go.

Take that and keep it.

If we are to make sense of life with its myriad of unexpected phone calls, we need to stay in touch with God all the time. Prayer is not just for Sunday. It’s a daily thing. Shoot, if St. Paul is right, it’s an every breath thing! Furthermore, if we are to make sense of life as it is, we need to realize that prayer is not always talking, but should be just as much listening. There are times when the most effective type of prayer is prayer that is utterly and completely silent—just sitting still, just opening our inner ears. Give God room to speak, often with no words at all, but instead as a powerful directing. Let God lead you into the day, the week, even the hour. God knows you. God has plans for you. God is with you. The unexpected call moves from interruption to beatitude. 

And that is the best sort of unexpected call—the one that clarifies everything and opens all that is before us with joy, peace, and comfort.

Answer it.