August 21, 2011 Reverend Jim Wood

“Words That Limit or Empower”

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Prayer:

It’s never easy, Lord, to speak to many and yet speak to each the word most needed. It’s not easy to speak the word most needed when not sure what needs demand most to be met. Grant now that light may shine on some darkness, healing salve be laid on some wound, and fire be kindled in some courageous resolve. Amen.

I want to tell you a story about two children. The first child, born in Port Huron, Michigan, was estimated to have an IQ of 81. He was withdrawn from school after three months because he was considered by school officials to be backward. He had been enrolled in school two years late due to scarlet fever and respiratory infections.

To complicate matters, this child was going deaf. He was stubborn, remote, and showed very little emotion. He did like mechanics. He also liked to play with fire and subsequently burned down his father’s barn. He had some manual dexterity, but used very poor grammar. He wanted to be either a scientist or a railroad mechanic.

The second child, born of an alcoholic father, was sickly, bedridden, and often hospitalized. She was considered erratic and withdrawn. She had numerous phobias. She wore a back brace because of a spinal defect and was constantly in need of attention. She was a daydreamer with no vocational goals, although she had expressed a desire to help the elderly and the poor.

Have you guessed the identities of these two children? The boy from Port Huron became one of the world’s greatest inventors, Thomas Alva Edison, and the awkward and sickly girl became a champion of the oppressed—Eleanor Roosevelt. I don’t know if they had high school yearbooks back in those days, but if they did, I wonder if anyone wrote in their book, “Most likely to succeed”? Probably not.

This morning’s reading from the Bible focuses on a young man who evidently felt inadequate. His name was Jeremiah. God came to this youth and said, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” At that moment, I suppose Jeremiah must have felt very inadequate. Probably out of sheer shock, he replied, “But, Lord, I don’t know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” At that moment, Jeremiah uttered the three deadliest words in any vocabulary: “I am only …”

This isn’t just a problem of youth. Those three words are often used by people of all ages. They can virtually paralyze us. They can limit both our potential and our vision. They can be like a low ceiling beyond which we cannot grow. How often have we said, or heard someone say, “Well, after all, I’m only a lay person in the church.” Or, “Well, after all, I’m only a school teacher.” Or, how about, “Well, after all, I’m only a woman.” How often I’ve heard someone say, “Well, after all, I’m only a retired person.”

Let me tell you retired people about Harry Lipsig, whose story was told in the Wall Street Journal. Lipsig, at the age of eighty-eight decided to leave the New York law firm that he had spent most of sixty years building up in order to open a new firm. At the age when many people have given up on life, Harry Lipsig decided to try his first case in many years. A woman was suing the city of New York because a police officer had struck and killed her seventy-one-year-old husband with his patrol car while driving under the influence of alcohol.

She maintained that the city had deprived her of her husband’s future earning potential. The city countered that at the age of seventy-one, her husband had little earning potential. The city thought they had a pretty clever defense until they realized a vigorous eighty-eight-year-old attorney was arguing this woman’s case about her husband’s future earning power. The city settled the case for $125 million. One wonders what would have happened if Harry Lipsig had said, “Well, after all, I’m only a retired person”?

There’s a powerful principle here. Geologists tell us that less than 3 percent of the earth’s fresh water is on the surface in the form of rivers and lakes. The other 97 percent remains as a huge subterranean reservoir down below. Perhaps there’s an analogy here when it comes to the potential of human personality; maybe only about 3 percent is on the surface, and the remaining 97 percent is deep within our human soul. Reaching our human potential is not something we do on our own, as much as it is allowing God to empower us, allowing God to tap that 97 percent that runs deep within our being.

God said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah responded, “But I am only a boy.” And God said, “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.”

Words of empowerment. Then God reached out, touched Jeremiah’s mouth, and said, “Now, I have put my words in your mouth. 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.” Imagine what God might be able to do with us if we got rid of those three little words, “I am only . . .”

We are each of us more than only—we are beloved children of God. God was giving Jeremiah a wonderful opportunity to confront some significant questions about his life. “For what are you living?” “For whom are you living?” “What will be the final essence of your having lived here on earth?” Questions all worthy of our attention.

Perhaps there’s a bit of Jeremiah in all of us. We don’t think that we can achieve or accomplish much, but to think this way implies that we’re on our own. This crucial encounter with God helped Jeremiah to understand that he wouldn’t be going out on his terms, but rather on God’s terms. God comes to each and everyone of us to empower us. The story of God coming to Jeremiah suggests to me that God expects great things from us and from this church. But, at the same time, God empowers us, even to the point of giving us words to speak.

I’ve shared the following story with some of you—some who have attended my Lenten studies and some who have needed a personal word of encouragement—but the story’s a good one and it fits with the message I’m trying to convey this morning. I found it in a book entitled, Messy Spirituality, written by Michael Yaconelli. It goes like this:

For almost forty years, Margaret had lived with the memory of one soul-scarring day in the one-room schoolhouse she attended. From the first day Margaret came to class, she and Ms. Garner, her bitter and harsh teacher, didn’t get along. Over the years, the animosity between them only worsened until one fateful day when she was nine years old, Margaret’s life was forever altered.

That day, Margaret frantically raced into her classroom after recess, late again. Ms. Garner was furious. “Margaret!” she shouted, “we have been waiting for you! Get up here to the front of the class, right now!”

Margaret walked slowly to the teacher’s desk, was told to face the class, and then the nightmare began.

Ms. Garner ranted, “Boys and girls, Margaret has been a bad girl. I have tried to help her be responsible. But, apparently, she doesn’t want to learn. So we must teach her a lesson. We must force her to face what a selfish person she has become. I want each of you to come to the front of the room, take a piece of chalk, and write something bad about Margaret on the blackboard. Maybe this experience will motivate her to become a better person!”

Margaret stood frozen next to Ms. Garner. One by one, the students began a silent procession to the blackboard. One by one, the students wrote their life-smothering words, slowly extinguishing the light in Margaret’s soul. “Margaret is stupid! Margaret is selfish! Margaret is fat! Margaret is a dummy!” On and on they went, until twenty-five terrible scribblings of Margaret’s “badness” screamed from the blackboard.

The venomous sentences taunted Margaret in what felt like the longest day of her life. After walking home with each caustic word indelibly written on her soul, she crawled into her bed, claiming sickness, and tried to cry the pain away, but the pain never left, and forty years later, she slumped in the waiting room of a psychologist’s office, still cringing in the shadow of those twenty-five sentences. To her horror, Margaret had slowly become what the students had written.

Words that limit, you see. Words that hurt, tear down, put down, demean, humiliate, and destroy. But let’s go on and hear the rest of the story:

After decades of depression and anxiety, Margaret had finally sought help and was having the last meeting with her psychologist. Two long years of weekly counseling helped Margaret to finally extricate herself from her past. It had been a long and difficult road, but she smiled at her counselor (how long had it been since she’d smiled!) as they talked about her readiness to move on.

“Well, Margaret,” the counselor said softly, “I guess it’s graduation day for you. How are you feeling?”

After a long silence, Margaret spoke. “I … I’m okay.”

The counselor hesitated. “Margaret, I know this will be difficult, but just to make sure you’re ready to move on, I am going to ask you to do something. I want to go back to your schoolroom and detail the events of that day. Take your time. Describe each of the children as they approach the blackboard, remember what they wrote and how you felt—all twenty-five students.”

In a way, this would be easy for Margaret. For forty years she had remembered every detail. And yet, to go through the nightmare one more time would take every bit of strength she had. After a long silence, she began the painful description. One by one, she described each of the students vividly, as though she had just seen them, stopping periodically to regain her composure, forcing herself to face each of those students one more time.

Finally, she was done, and the tears would not stop, could not stop. Margaret cried a long time before she realized someone was whispering her name. “Margaret. Margaret. Margaret.” She looked up to see her counselor staring into her eyes, saying her name over and over again. Margaret stopped crying for a moment.

“Margaret. You … you left out one person.”

“I certainly did not! I have lived with this story for forty years. I know every student by heart.”

“No, Margaret, you did forget someone. See, he’s sitting in the back of the classroom. He’s standing up, walking toward your teacher, Ms. Garner. She is handing him a piece of chalk and he’s taking it, Margaret, he’s taking it! Now he’s walking over to the blackboard and picking up an eraser. He is erasing every one of the sentences the students wrote. They are gone! Margaret, they are gone! Now he’s turning and looking at you, Margaret. Do you recognize him yet? Yes, his name is Jesus. Look, he’s writing new sentences on the board. ‘Margaret is loved. Margaret is beautiful. Margaret is gentle and kind. Margaret is strong. Margaret has great courage.’”

And Margaret began to weep. But very quickly, the weeping turned into a smile, and then into laughter, and then into tears of joy.

Words of empowerment, you see. Words that heal, build up, compliment, uplift, dignify, sustain, and endure.

You and I can do and be anything God calls us to do. The question is, do you believe this to be true? Do you believe God can work through you and empower you? I’m not suggesting that we’re all going to turn out to be like a Thomas Edison or Eleanor Roosevelt. I’m simply suggesting that we might be able to accomplish a great deal more if we believe that God can empower us right where we are, doing whatever it is we’re doing.

Let’s get rid of the limiting words, the “I am only” words. And let’s stop using the limiting words on others. Remember, you and I can do anything God calls us to do through Jesus Christ. Just as God called Jeremiah long ago, so God may be calling you this morning, setting you apart for something very special like being a Stephen minister, a Neighbors Who Care volunteer, or working on one of our church’s teams in preparing and serving meals to homeless families at the New Day Center in Phoenix, even touching your lips so that God may speak an affirming word to others through you.

Some schoolchildren were in an art class molding objects with clay. A little girl had sculpted a beautiful model of a creature with wings, and told her class that she had made an angel. Then the little girl quickly molded the angel back into a ball and asked everyone, “OK, now what is it?” “A ball,” the children answered. “Nope,” said the little girl, “It’s a hiding angel.”

Some of us have within us hiding angels just waiting to be released. And they can be released when, like Jeremiah, we discover and say, “I am a child of God. Before I was formed in the womb, God knew me. Before I was born I was set apart for something good and beautiful and noble.” To believe that about ourselves is to unleash a host of powers and possibilities. Amen!

Let us pray:

Loving and gracious God, may the good news which we have heard be shared with others that they too may experience your liberating hope. Keep us from growing content with the gifts we have received and teach us to be generous, to be bold, to be loving, and to be faithful. May your prophetic message be heard through what we say and do in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Remember Stephen Minister at Prayer Rail