The Flame Within

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

June 22, 2014

The Flame Within

Jeremiah 20:7-9

O Lord, you have enticed me,
   and I was enticed;
you have overpowered me,
   and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughing-stock all day long;
   everyone mocks me.
⁸ For whenever I speak, I must cry out,
   I must shout, ‘Violence and destruction!’
For the word of the Lord has become for me
   a reproach and derision all day long.
⁹ If I say, ‘I will not mention him,
   or speak any more in his name’,
then within me there is something like a burning fire
   shut up in my bones;
I am weary with holding it in,
   and I cannot.

It was my first full day,

my first full day as a student

at Princeton Theological Seminary.

There I was, sitting in a classroom in Stuart Hall

the hulking red sandstone structure

that had been the main classroom building for the seminary

for more than 100 years.

My first class was introductory Greek.

I had not studied a foreign language since high school,

but I knew that ministers in the Presbyterian Church

were required to have a working knowledge

of the original languages of the Bible,

both Hebrew and Greek.

My second class was an introduction to Christian History,

a year long survey of two thousand years

of the history of followers of Jesus Christ,

you and me, and all our ancestors in the faith,

a history filled with many moments

that we can look back on with great pride,

and many shameful moments as well,

truly appalling things done in the name of Jesus Christ.

Even as I listened to the instructors

and scribbled my notes,

I wondered on that first morning,

had I done the right thing?

Had I made the right decision at age 42

to leave my job in Manhattan,

to enroll in a three-year program at Seminary;

to move from an apartment on the Upper East Side,

to a dormitory room on the Seminary campus,

a room that was smaller than the storage unit

where I’d put most of my furnishings and belongings.

As a man who always prided himself

on his common sense and logic,

I struggled that first morning to find logic

in what I had done.

At noon I joined the throng at the cafeteria,

sliding my tray along the railings

as I took a sandwich, a salad,

nothing too heavy that might cause me to be drowsy

in my afternoon classes.

I took my lunch and looked for a place to sit

in the crowded dining room.

I spotted an empty seat opposite a young woman

I’d sat next to in my history class,

so I headed for it.

I asked her if I could join her

and she beckoned me to sit.

She introduced herself,

a recent graduate from a college

I’d never heard of.

Then I learned that she was part of a denomination

that I’d never heard of.

Clearly, I had a lot to learn.

I told her my name,

and told her I was a Presbyterian,

and had just moved from New York City.

But before I could say another word, she broke in,

with a sharp tone in her voice,

her eyes fixed on me,

“So, what’s your story?

Mid-life crisis?”

That was not a question I had expected!

But it led us to talking, both of us,

about why we were there,

why she at age 22, with an excellent college record,

plenty of options to chose from,

chose to go to seminary,

and why I at age 42, established, settled,

chose seminary as well.

We were there because we knew

that God wanted us there.

We might not have used the words Jeremiah used,

that God had enticed us or overpowered us,

but still we knew we had no choice,

each of us could feel that same burning fire within us

that Jeremiah felt,

that burning fire that God had lit within us.

                                                                                

I’d felt that fire, that flame for years,

and tried to damp it, turn it down, ignore it;

interpret it as simply God’s way of telling me

that God wanted me to do more as a volunteer,

as a lay leader within the church.

The fact was, I had more in common with Jonah

than with Jeremiah:

I’d tried to run away from God’s call,

tried to ignore the burning flame.

But I learned as Jonah did,

we can’t run away from God.

I learned as Jeremiah did,

we can’t ignore the burning flame

God has lit within us.

I read Jeremiah’s story now with a mixture of

empathy and sympathy.

I can understand how he felt,

I can understand his frustrations.

There he was, a young man,

probably the same age as my lunch companion,

on the cusp of starting his life,

when God called him,

called him for no less a task

than to be “a prophet to the nations.”

A prophet to the nations!

It may have sounded heady,

even impressive,

but Jeremiah showed no interest, no desire,

In fact his reaction suggests

that the prospect unnerved him

protesting to God,

“Truly I do not know how to speak,

for I am only a boy.”

But God pushed back,

“Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’,

for you shall go to all to whom I send you

and you shall speak whatever I command you.

Do not be afraid of them,

for I am with you to deliver you.”

(Jeremiah 1:4-8)

Young Jeremiah,

so young even he thought of himself as still a boy,

and yet called by God to service.

Young Jeremiah, called by God to speak for God,

to speak God’s words as God’s prophet.

And they were not easy words to speak.

God was angry with his children,

and God wanted them to know it.

The words Jeremiah spoke on God’s behalf

were words that accused,

criticized,

judged,…    

condemned:

“Hear this, O foolish and senseless people,

who have eyes, but do not see,

who have ears, but do not hear.

…[you] have become great and rich…

[yet] you do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan…

…[you] do not defend the rights of the needy….

everyone is greedy for unjust gain.”

Jeremiah spoke these words and others like them

because he had no choice;

those were the words God wanted Jeremiah to speak,

words God wanted his children to hear.

Jeremiah spoke them faithfully.

It should come as no surprise

that those who heard Jeremiah

didn’t like what they heard.

At first they just brushed him off, laughing,

“God will do nothing,

no evil will come upon us;

the prophets are nothing but wind.”

(Jeremiah 5:13)

But as time went on and Jeremiah kept speaking

the people grew outraged,

not at God,

but at Jeremiah, for speaking such words.

Before long, Jeremiah lost all his friends;

even his family turned from him.

Exasperated, frustrated,

exhausted, he confronted God:

“I have become a laughing-stock all day long;

everyone mocks me.”

Young Jeremiah stood before God pleading,

“Don’t make me do this anymore.

Please God, leave me alone.”

But even as Jeremiah pleaded to God,

he knew that he would continue to speak God’s words,

he knew he had no choice:

If I say, ‘I will not mention him,
or speak any more in his name’,
then within me there is something like a burning fire
shut up in my bones;

I am weary with holding it in,

and I cannot.

Jeremiah’s is the preacher’s lament,

for preachers try to speak God’s words faithfully,

knowing that quite often God’s words are harsh

and that the preacher’s listeners

don’t want to hear them.

The preachers themselves find the words hard to hear,

for sermons are for the preachers, too.

Not long ago, Pope Francis spoke out

for greater economic justice,

less economic inequality,

and he was angrily condemned as a Marxist,

a socialist, a communist.

He was mocked and derided

as a person who didn’t understand

how the capitalist system worked.

The pope wasn’t cowed;

he has continued to preach his message.

He knows, as all preachers know,

he has no choice,

the burning flame within him,

calls him to speak,

speak God’s word,

speak it faithfully and fervently.

We all have this burning flame within us,

all of us –

not just those who are called to preach.

The flame within calls us to speak God’s truth,

and it calls us to hear God’s truth,

even when we don’t like what we are hearing.      

That burning flame is God’s Spirit

we each have within us that helps us,

guides us, leads us,

calls us back when we stray.

Following God,

following our Lord Jesus Christ,

is not easy.

It often calls us to make choices

that go against what society at large teaches us.

But the burning flame tells us

that the path we are on is the better path

And so, even as we struggle,

as we often do,

we can still praise God, just as Jeremiah did:

O Lord of hosts, you test the righteous,

you see the heart and the mind;
…for, to you I have committed my cause.
Sing to the Lord;

praise the Lord!

For the burning flame within me

tells me of your abiding presence

as it warms me with your love!

AMEN