Called to passion

A Sermon preached at Pentecost XI 24 August 2025 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden and St. Christoph, Mainz

Jeremiah 1:4-10, Hebrews 12:18-29, Luke 13:10-17

May these spoken words be faithful to the written word and lead us to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

I love the “call stories” in the Bible – Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, Isaiah, Mary and this morning Jeremiah to name but a few of those who receive a personal call from God. Jeremiah’s calling contains all the typical elements. God takes the first step and speaks to or appears to the person either directly, in a vision, or through an angelic intermediary. The individual responds, most often they protest and resist! God insists and persists, they are then commissioned, and their mission or ministry begins.

Calling processes in our church are a little more complicated than they were in Biblical days. Just have a chat with Audrey or Vania if you’d like to hear how complicated and long they can be! They still all start with a call from God. Mine was nowhere near as dramatic as Jeremiah’s, I don’t recall hearing a voice, it was more of a feeling. I certainly resisted it for many, many years. An intermediary was also involved, though not an angel, but my then parish priest who pushed me in the right direction.

But between God’s call and the Church’s confirmation of that call we insert a quite long and at times somewhat bureaucratic process of reflection, discernment, examination, and preparation. There are very good reasons for this. Ministry can be a challenge, and we need to make sure people really know what they’re letting themselves in for. In Jeremiah’s case, God even tells him “Do not be afraid of them (i.e. those he is to prophecy to) for I am with you to deliver you.” (Jer. 1:8) There are also many different forms of ministry we can be called to, and the process is to help people find the right one, after all that first call from God may not be as clear (or as daunting) as was Jeremiah’s: “See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” And, sadly but realistically, the Church has a duty and responsibility to examine the motivation of those who feel called to a ministry, to keep those who would be entrusted to their care safe and to make sure the trust inherent in ministry is not betrayed.

Coming back to the traditional process, why is protest and resistance almost always the first reaction of those called? I can think of several good reasons. I suspect that they all had a strong suspicion that God’s call would turn their lives upside down. And they were right. They would have to speak unpopular truths, they could be threatened, even killed. They might have to leave their homes, families, jobs, in in one case they would become the mother of God with all the sorrow that entailed.

Another reason, perhaps closely connected to the first, is a feeling of inadequacy, of not being fit for the task. Moses tells the Lord that he thinks he is not eloquent enough (one of many excuses he uses) (Exodus 3:10) Jeremiah too feels unable to speak on God’s behalf “Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” (Jer. 1:6) But none of that is news to God, God knows us intimately, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” (1:6) And if necessary, if what we have and bring is not enough, God equips, God provides the words, God provides the additional ability.

Their protest is also a necessary sign of humility. No true prophet in the Bible, ever declares themselves to be a prophet. None of them go knocking on God’s door asking for a commission, no true prophet is ever super confident. None of them really want the job. In fact, we might well be concerned about those who readily assume such significant responsibilities without any hesitation! They tend to believe that what they want is God’s will, rather than the other way round. God values a certain degree of reluctance and humility. And when God chooses those who seem inappropriate, who are often not aligned with societal expectations: the youngest rather than the eldest, the reserved rather than the eloquent, the woman rather than the man, the farmer or fisher rather than the rich and already privileged, God is reminding us that those societal values do not count so much in God’s Kingdom.  

Most of all I think that they were probably also a little afraid, not only of what their mission would entail, but also of God. Ancient scripture seemed to teach that God is dangerous, even deadly if not approached correctly. This is what the reading from Hebrews is addressing, that fear that the Hebrews had of encountering God on Mt. Sinai, when even Moses did not dare face God. "Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, "I tremble with fear." (Hebrews 12:20) But the Letter to the Hebrews goes on to tell us that we have nothing to fear. We can approach God not as on Mt. Sinai with flames and smoke and death, but on Mt. Zion, in the city of the living God, in the heavenly Jerusalem. We have been made righteous and perfect, through Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant. And if we look carefully at the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, we see many intimate encounters, such as when God calls Samuel in the Temple (1 Samuel 3) or when God takes care of the prophet Elijah. (1 Kings 17)

And even the image that the author of Hebrew uses, of God as a consuming fire, does not have to be a frightening one. Yes, fire can be dangerous and deadly. It also stands for sacrifice and for things offered to God. It is used as a symbol of cleansing – think of how John says that Jesus  will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. (Matthew 3:11) But most of all I think it is a metaphor for passion, as in the song “Consuming Fire” by the Australian band Hillsong.

Consuming fire fan into flame
A passion for Your name
Come like a rushing wind
Clothe us with power from on high

When God calls someone to any ministry, ordained or not, God is not looking for superpowers, for supernatural abilities, or for omniscience or omnipotence. Those are God’s qualities not ours. Instead, God invites the reluctant, the stutterer, the boy, the shepherd, the young woman, the old man, supposedly past his prime. God invites them into a relationship, into one that God has already established before their and our birth. God is looking for passion, for people who are passionate for God, passionate for Jesus, passionate for justice, passionate for the neighbor, passionate for love, passionate for God’s glorious creation. In the final words from the passage from Hebrews: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire.”

Amen.

 

 

When you pray

A Sermon preached at Pentecost VII 27 July 2025 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Hosea 1:2-10, Colossians 2:6-15, Luke 11:1-13

An offering of daily prayer was part of our preparation for our 160th anniversary. For 160 days, from 10 February until last Sunday, 20 July, inviting anyone and everyone who wanted to was invited to join in a simple daily prayer at 12 noon. Those of you who were here last week, will have heard that one of the guests, Jürgen Otto from the Catholic Church (Regionalleitung Wiesbaden/Taunus/Rheingau) was particularly impressed and made this a focus of his speech. The short service I prepared for us all during this time contains two verses from Psalm 84, the psalm that we said at last week’s service, a framework for intercessory prayer, and of course the Lord‘s Prayer, the one we heard Jesus teaching his disciples in this morning’s gospel reading. More than creeds and sacraments this is genuinely the one thing all Christians have in common, and I think the one prayer you can guarantee that everybody knows by heart. “When you pray, say…” is what Jesus commands his disciples. Wouldn’t it be nice if we kept all those other commandments as well!

But what is this prayer that Jesus teaches? You’ll notice that Luke’s version is a little shorter and not identical with the one we pray in worship. In fact, Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer is the basis for the one we use in our services.

The first thing to note is that it is a communal prayer. Even when we pray alone at home, we still pray to our father, and the “you” when Jesus says “when you pray” is the plural you, so in German Sie or Ihr, in the American South Y’all, and all the petitions are plural too: we , us, our …. In its setting in Luke’s Gospel, as a direct consequence of a request from the disciples to be given a community prayer such as John the Baptist's community has, we could also call this "the Disciples' Prayer."  Being in community before God, sharing the same goals when we pray, is a major part of discipleship.

Secondly it is Jesus’ prayer but, like so much of our scripture, liturgy and beliefs, cannot be separated from his and our religion’s Jewish roots. There are similarities to parts of the Kaddish, a prayer that often closed synagogue services, and which begins with the words: “Exalted and sanctified be His great name” and includes the petition “May He establish His kingdom,” as well as prayers for “Ample sustenance and salvation, From the Father who is in heaven” and for “Healing, redemption, forgiveness, and atonement.” So, many of the themes of the Lord’s Prayer.

Thirdly, what do we pray for? It is much more than a checklist of specific wants and needs.

Father, hallowed be your name: This is both an expression of familiarity and relationship – God is our father, the source of all being – and of God’s authority and otherness. God is holy because of who God is.

Your kingdom come: I talked about the kingdom a couple of weeks ago in my July 6 sermon, when I said that the kingdom is both a present reality and a future promise, and that is what we pray for here too. That we live as if the kingdom were already here, and that we hope and pray that God’s good creation will be restored to its fullness and that evil and injustice be banished. Our action and our prayer are what will bring that about, in God’s time.

Give us each day our daily bread: This reminds us of our reliance on God for our daily needs and sustenance. And at the same time, it is a prayer that we will all receive what we need, note ‘us’ and ‘our’, and not ‘me’ and ‘my’, and certainly not a prayer for more than we need!

And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us: This reminds us to trust in the love and mercy of God. The call to also forgive those indebted to us is complementary, not a condition and is part of the active love of neighbor – and even enemy. that Jesus also commands! The apocryphal Book of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus (28:2) has a similar petition: “Forgive your neighbor the wrong he has done, and then your sins will be pardoned when you pray.” But Jesus reverses the order and removes the condition. God’s love and mercy are not conditional on our behavior.

And do not bring us to the time of trial: This is a prayer for strength in the face of temptation. Temptation cannot be avoided, even Jesus was tempted! This is a prayer for spiritual strength to be able to resist that temptation.

That is “what to pray.” The short parables that follow are intended to explain “how to pray” and may seem a little odd (nighttime awakenings, snakes, scorpions ..). The first one, about waking up a friend at midnight, can only really be understood if we know the background and meaning of hospitality in the Middle East both then and now. To give hospitality, to provide a guest, even an unexpected one with food and water was (and still is) an absolute duty. It overrides other sensibilities like waking up the neighbor and all his family, who would probably have been sleeping in one room. Our translation calls the behavior of the one seeking help “persistence” but shamelessness would be a better rendering, even holy boldness! And we should note that the person in the parable is shameless or bold not because of one’s own need, but because of the need of another!

Jesus encourages boldness and trust in prayer. We should never be ashamed to pray to God, we should never worry about what we ask, and never to assume that it is too much. God’s answer or response might however not be something that God does directly, but us being strengthened through the spirit and empowered to do those things we think are so necessary and vital that we pray for them, and that we pray for them together. God is ready and waiting to respond to us. All we need to do is ask, search and knock.

These are not blank check promises that God will give us anything we want but instead promises that we will be given what we need. The reference in the final verse to the Holy Spirit that will be given to those who ask God, tells us that God is always willing to give spiritual aid, support and succor to those who seek it. Jesus encourages us to be active in our relationship with God, always reaching out to God in prayer.

So even if our 160 days of prayer is now over, I still encourage us all to set apart a time for prayer each day: ask for what you and the world needs, seek and search for guidance, and knock on the door of God’s kingdom, a door that is always open.

Amen.