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Hebrew Scripture Reading—Jeremiah 1: 4-10
All of my grandparents lived most of their lives in rural Michigan. My parents were born and raised there, and I can testify from the experience of my visits and the many stories I have heard that rural Michigan is a region long dominated by conservative Christian traditions. My father’s stories involve Lutheran ministers with distinctive German names. My father attended a confirmation class taught every morning by Pastor Steunkel. In order to be confirmed, my father had to memorize 500 Bible verses along with Luther’s small catechism which contains Luther’s explanations for things such as the Ten Commandments, the Apostle’s Creed, and Nicene Creed. My father can recall Steunkel replying to his question about whether Jews would enter into the Kingdom of heaven. The answer was that those who believed in Jesus would and the rest wouldn’t.
When my father went off to attend a small liberal arts college in Michigan called Albion, his classmates challenged a lot of what he believed. They pointed out various facts from science and life. They challenged the literal belief in a six-day creation with evidence supporting evolution. They also questioned how the sun could have stood still at the battle of Jericho. They pointed out that the earth revolves around the sun, so it would have to be the earth that stood still, and if the earth did indeed stand still, people would have started flying off the earth. My father didn’t know how to answer these challenges, so when he came home for Thanksgiving vacation, he set up an appointment with Pastor Zschoche. Zschoche was his last name, and it is spelled with a Z at the beginning. So my father met with Zschoche the morning after Thanksgiving. They met for two or three hours as Zschoche tried to answer the 25 questions that my father brought with him. Zschoche was unable to adequately answer any of the questions to my father’s satisfaction.
I was reminded of my family’s rural Michigan heritage when I came across a story told by a UCC pastor named Martin Copenhaver. Copenhaver’s grandmother grew up on a farm in rural Michigan. At the age of 14, she met with the minister of her Presbyterian church and told him that she felt called to the ministry. The pastor responded, “I’m sorry, Emma. You must be mistaken. God doesn’t call women into the ministry.” Shortly thereafter, Emma’s father visited the pastor and declared, “If Emma says she’s called to preach, she’s called to preach—what’s more, she could preach circles around any boy in this county.” The pastor nor any of his fellow Presbyterians were swayed by Emma or her father, but Emma persevered, and eventually, she found a denomination in which she could be ordained. It was one of the denominations that eventually became part of the United Church of Christ. In 1902, the Christian Church denomination ordained Emma for ministry.
Copenhaver makes a number of interesting observations about his grandmother’s ordination and ministry. The first is that while young people can sometimes develop a strong sense of calling early in life it is truly remarkable that his grandmother acquired a resolute, unwavering sense of call as a young person during a time in which there would have been nothing in her culture or “her own experience that would [have encouraged] her to imagine that she could be a minister.” Copenhaver remarks that “she had never seen a woman minister, and yet she saw herself as one.”
To add to the remarkableness of his grandmother’s story, Emma was someone who was “almost painfully shy.” She didn’t fit the stereotype of a trailblazing pioneer or an outspoken orator who couldn’t be denied the pulpit. Yet, she felt it was her destiny to preach, and when she preached, she did so with a powerful effect. She preached with “a quiet confidence that made her a strong presence in the pulpit.” In many ways, her story evokes the story of Jeremiah. We are told that God called Jeremiah to be a prophet when Jeremiah was still in his mother’s womb. Later, however, Jeremiah came to believe that he couldn’t be a prophet because he couldn’t speak and he was too young. It is easy to imagine that Emma had to first wrestle with these same doubts and questions when she was a young teen.
A few Sundays ago you heard me mention a book by Susan Cain called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. One of the fascinating things the book discusses is how some of the tendencies of introverts can be overridden when they are passionate about a project or a particular activity. As an introvert myself, I liked that idea. It is self-affirming to think that you can do what you want to do if you’ve got that internal spark to do it. It made me think about how I get very passionate about social actions like the Fast for the Children, and yet there are certain tasks involved in organizing such actions that I really dread doing. One of them is reaching outside of our church to potential allies and partners by making phone calls to people I have never met.
At one point, I knew that in order for us to have our breaking of the fast celebration at United Churches of Olympia I was going to have to make some phone calls. For the Marriage Equality March, I had leaned heavily on their moderator who did a wonderful job of organizing the celebration meal at their church. This time around the moderator was very supportive of the fast, but she had a conflicting commitment that would keep her from being the lead organizer. The organizing would depend upon two people I don’t think that I have ever met, and I knew I was going to have to call them to rally their support and get them on board with the details of the plan. I had this fear that I would not be at all persuasive in my call. I envisioned us having to go to Applebees for our big celebration meal, but I made the call, and as it turned out, I didn’t even need to be particularly persuasive. They jumped right on board. Still, it helped me to realize that yes I could make such calls and have the desired outcome. Now, the next time I need to pick up the phone to reach out to a stranger it will be a little bit easier because I know my sense of calling can carry me through.
When we are overriding our initial hesitations and inclinations to follow through on our calling, I think one of the ways God helps us through people who support and affirm that calling. I don’t want to talk too much about myself this morning, but to give a couple of examples that I recently experienced, a few weeks ago I was worried that no one would want to fast. In my imagination, it had become this huge commitment to make. Recall that I am a food lover, so I can empathize with anyone who might find it to be a huge commitment. As it turned out, I was talking with our new volunteer Slim Moon about my concerns, and he more or less told me not to over-think or over-worry this issue. He reminded me that Muslims fast daily for a whole month during Ramadan. I found that to be an encouraging observation. If Muslims can do it for a month, what’s one day? I was glad to have someone point that out to me. This past week I was then further encouraged to learn that Kit Stowell is even going to join our fast while he is still in Ecuador. On the 20th, I am going to be encouraged by that. My own sense of calling will be bolstered by Kit’s sense of calling.
I don’t think we can ever underestimate the power of our own calling. As I was preparing to write this sermon, I was reminded of how when my sister first left divinity school on her path to becoming a Presbyterian minister she was an intern at a church in rural Michigan. The church was located in a small town called Marshall. To confess how stereotypical my thinking was, I called my sister with the idea that she might have some good stories about being a female minister confronting a backwards Christian faith out in the boonies of Michigan. As it turned out, my sister could only recall one instance in which she thought she might have been treated differently as a woman preparing for the ministry. The church had her teach the kindergartners in Vacation Bible School, and while she enjoyed the experience, she suspected that a male intern minister would not have been given that task. Still, she couldn’t really think of anything negative to say about her experience as a woman in that rural setting. It then occurred to me that what my sister experienced was the fruit of Emma’s calling as a 14-year-old two generations earlier. If Emma and others like her had never listened to their calling and had the fortitude to follow it, my sister’s experience would likely have been much different.
We can’t underestimate the power of our own calling. God tells the quiet, young Jeremiah that he will one day overthrow empires and build new ones. This morning let us ask ourselves, “What is God calling us to do? What is God telling us? Where might our passions take us as individuals and as a congregation?” A hundred years from now our grandchildren may very well experience the fruit of our decisions. Let’s not underestimate what we are capable of. Amen.