Only a Boy

My oldest sister turned seventy-one this week. She’s now the oldest sibling, although she didn’t start life that way; our oldest brother died six years ago. He was fourteen when I was born, the youngest of six children. It doesn’t take much math to figure out that I’m in my late fifties. But I’m still the youngest.

I’m also the only one in my family, and one of the few within my many cousins, to be an ordained minister. In a way that’s odd, because there were so many ministers among our ancestors – “a family of Levites,” a friend once said. It also seems odd to me that the youngest, rather than the oldest, is a cleric; on the other hand, the oldest was a gifted musician, using the graces God had given to him.

Maybe being youngest is why I resonate with Jeremiah’s call. It’s a bit frightening, in a way. God tells Jeremiah that he knew him even before he was in the womb, and consecrated him before he was born. God had him in mind all the time! All of the childhood peccadilloes and tantrums and arguments with his parents – God was watching. And still God chose him to be a prophet to the nations.

Taken aback, Jeremiah protests. “Ah, Lord God,” he says, “I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” The Hebrew word for “boy” is the standard one, although the lexicon indicates that there is a special stress on youthfulness here. Jeremiah may not have literally been a boy, but he was certainly young at the time. To convince him that this will work, the Lord touches his tongue and his mouth, putting his words there. (Unlike Isaiah, Jeremiah doesn’t have to deal with hot coals on the lips.) And from then on, Jeremiah prophesies.

When I was younger, I had a different calling from God, to teach the woods. But even then I suspected that someday I would be doing what I am doing now. I told my dad so, and got his imprimatur. I’m glad I did, because he died long before I was ordained. During those years as a botanist, God prepared me for this life in ways that I am only beginning to understand.

My oldest brother prepared me too, especially as he was dying. One of our last conversations, arranged to gather information for his obituary, became an almost sacramental confession of what had happened in his life. And by asking me to preach at his funeral, he gave me the courage to preach to anyone, anywhere, any time.

Only a boy. I’m hardly that now, but to my siblings I’ll always be the youngest, the last one. That’s okay. Yet it means that I’ll always be waiting for that touch on the mouth, the reassurance that what I do and say comes from God, that this work is God’s idea, not mine. Truthfully, that need is not a matter of age or place in a family. It’s a need that we all have, a need to know that God is really leading us, guiding us, loving us – a need for God with us, Emmanuel. That is the grace of Jesus Christ. May that grace and the love of God always be with us, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost 15: Jeremiah 1:4-10.