Before?

 Today’s sermon was brought to you by a typo. When I sent the bulletin information to Mary, I was struck by the two uses of the word “before” in the Old Testament reading from Jeremiah, and I didn’t have any other plans for the sermon, I was waiting for the Saturday afternoon surge of inspiration to hit me, likely between scoops of cookie dough ice cream. But when Mary sent out the bulletin, I took a close look at it, and noticed that she added something to my sermon title–a question mark. So, suddenly, the title of my sermon was no longer “Before”, statement, but “Before?” question.

Huh.

Then I realized…it’s perfect.

This passage from Jeremiah chapter one, Jeremiah’s call narrative, has long been a favorite passage of mine. But I’ve preached it several times before, and 13 years deep in this line of work, coming up with new things to say about multi-thousand year old words can be a challenge. Not always, but certainly this week.

“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. And before you were born, I set you apart.”

“Before.”

Before?

How could the Divine know Jeremiah before he was even conceived? How could the Sacred put a calling on a person who doesn’t even exist yet? I mean, I’m well aware that the expectations of the Creator can be high, but holy guacamole. What does all that mean about Jeremiah, and about God? And by extension, what does this all mean about us?

Before? Who am I that there was a “before”?  I’m inclined to think my journey started on September 20th, 1986 (that’s my birthday, I like dolls and I wear a size 7 Converse). Maybe, to be all scientific about it, my journey started nine months before that, on some random day in December of 1985. What was I before that? To quote a friend from seminary that you guys know–Mary Rublee–was I a twinkle in my father’s eye?

Maybe. And we can wax both theological and philosophical about when people start to exist, when life begins, and the nature of the soul. Does God already know every single person who will ever exist? Even people who won’t be born until a thousand years from now?

But, just maybe, what God meant in these words to Jeremiah isn’t so literal. Maybe what God is getting at here is the larger Divine plan for the world, the one that Jeremiah will be part of if he accepts the Divine call to become a prophet. That life will take him away from his family, and their expectations, because they think he’ll grow up to be a Temple priest, like his father and his grandfather. If Jeremiah becomes a prophet, like God wants, his job will be to listen for the words of God, and repeat them to the folks around him, even if, and especially if, they don’t want to hear what God is saying. As a prophet, Jeremiah will constantly have the job of steering his people away from their lower natures, and toward the justice that God envisions.

So, what was there before Jeremiah? There was Noah. There was Moses. There was Ruth. There was Hannah. There was Deborah. Others who worked toward bringing God’s just kingdom to fruition.

After Jeremiah, there was Jesus. He, like Jeremiah, stepped away from the family business and didn’t become a carpenter like his dad. He became a rabbi, and a healer. Voluntarily homeless, always on the move, and constantly ticking people off. According to Luke, the very first time Jesus enraged his listeners happened in this story. He went back to his hometown, where everyone knew him as “Joe and Mary’s boy”, and he preached and interpreted the Hebrew Scriptures in the synagogue he grew up in. It didn’t go well. The people were less than receptive to hearing the Word proclaimed from the guy they remember crawling around on the floors and coloring on the nursery walls. But Jesus, not one to leave well enough alone, because “well enough” is the unjust status quo, kept talking. There’s all kinds of stories in the Hebrew Scriptures about folks who looked for truth, and acceptance, and healing in their hometown, says Jesus, and they had to move to actually find mercy. In response, the kindly folks of Jesus’ home synagogue threatened to throw him off a cliff. Yikes. I’d hate to be at one of their church council meetings.

Before Jesus there was Jeremiah. And Isaiah. And Ezekiel. And after Jesus there would be Paul, and Priscilla, and Junia. So many different people, maybe even carpenters like Jesus was supposed to be, but builders of a Kingdom instead of furniture.

It’s important for us here to understand that we’re not worshipping in a vacuum, on our own, detached from history. We’re following other people who wanted to make the world a better place, and we’ll inspire the next generation by our choices.

It took me a while of doing this work to understand that. I became a declared candidate for ordination when I was only 22. I was just a baby, like the very young Jeremiah in his call narrative. At my very first meeting with the district committee on ordained ministry, I felt tiny, sitting next to much older folks, clergy and lay, who had been part of this system for decades. I hadn’t been alive as long as some of those folks had been serving the UMC. Another clergy person, a guy named Hoyt, asked me what I thought of Jesus. You know, because they start with the easy questions. Well, I wanted to impress the grownups, so I rattled off what I thought were the magic words of Christianity: “Jesus is my Lord and personal savior!” And I was prepared for absolutely no follow up questions. When Hoyt asked me to explain what I meant by that, I very quickly wiped out in trying to answer.

Like a 22 year old me, Jeremiah didn’t know all the stuff when God called him. He didn’t know what to say, and how to answer questions. But, because he was smarter than me, instead of trying to impress people by saying what he thought they wanted to hear, he simply listened for God in his heart, and said what felt right. I’ve learned how to do that. And so will you.

Before there was me, there was Howard Thurman, and Walter Rauschenbusch. There was John Wesley, and his mother Susanna. There was Antoinette Brown Blackwell, the first woman ever ordained to the ministry in the United States, in the year 1853. After me, there will be other bold lady preachers.

Before there was you, there were teachers, and parents, and coaches, and grandparents who paved your way. There were brave people who did what was right even when it wasn’t popular, and who spoke truth to justice even when people didn’t want to hear it. If you continue that tradition, it will carry on after you, too.

As we start Black History Month amid DEI rollbacks and mass deportations and folks who would like to manipulate the cause of Christianity for their own agenda, be a Jeremiah. Be an unpopular hometown preacher, like Jesus. Be a Bishop Maryann Budde, incurring the wrath of the congregation to which she preached because she repeated the charge of Jesus. God knew you before you were even an embryo, because the seed of justice was planted long ago, and you’re just now connecting to the very old vine. Don’t doubt yourself, like Jeremiah almost did, and say you’re just a young person, or just a townie from Honeoye Falls, or just a grandparent, or just a Bills fan. God set us aside to build a Kingdom, and deconstruct racism, patriarchy, and xenophobia. With God’s help, we can.

Amen.