Opening Prayer::  Lord, let your Word ring out into our lives and beyond, for we ask it in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Bishop Fairfield, Dean Murdoch, distinguished members of the clergy, and lay leaders of the church of God:  “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

[I Corinthians 1:3].

Let me see if I have this right:  there are five candidates to be ordained:  Michael Rennier, a priest who will serve in Massachusetts; Gail Page Bowman, a deacon to serve in Connecticut;; Barbara Cannistraro, a deacon to serve in Massachusetts;  Mary-Ellen Jones, a deacon to serve in North Carolina;  and Malcolm Reid, a deacon to serve in New Hampshire.  Andrew Fairfield, the retired Bishop of North Dakota is the ordaining bishop on behalf of the Primates of the Southern Cone, Uganda, and Kenya.  The service is taking place here in a Lutheran church in Colonie, New York!

Well, the key is in the call and equally strange things have happened before with the call of God.  When William Meade was ordained by Bishop Madison in Williamsburg 200 years ago, Bruton Parish was in disarray, with window panes broken and the pews in disrepair.  The Bishop was not going to preach so the young ordinand delivered the sermon at his own ordination.  Only a handful of people were present.  After all, Meade’s father had bene bitten by a mad dog and his family stayed away thinking the effects had come down to him.  Why else would he be ordained at such a low time in the church’s life!

What a daunting task to be called to the ministry.  But the key is in the call.  In the appointed Old Testament lesson from Jeremiah 1:45, we read: The word of the Lord came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;  I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”   One commentator writes, “The call brought Jeremiah the inescapable awareness that his life had been claimed by God.”

Indeed, those in ministry – lay and ordained – have been selected from even before they have been born.  You must realize that your life is not your own.  You were bought with a price by God and key is in the call.

In the response of Jeremiah to the call of God, we learn that he is humble:  “Ah, Sovereign Lord,”  I said, “I do not know how to speak.  I am only a child.”  Jeremiah being humble is a good thing.  I’m always uncomfortable with those who are eager to do ministry, like proud peacocks on parade!  One only has to think of the young professor of preaching who was invited to preach in a Scottish kirk.  He arrived, rather full of himself, and when it was time to mouth the steps of the high pulpit, he stood erect and confident.  Only after a short while, he realized something was wrong, but he didn’t know what it was.  There was no connection with the congregation.  The sermon was a complete failure even before it was half over.  When it came to its end, the young man left the pulpit crushed and defeated.  After the service, when the people had politely greeted him and left the church saying “nice sermon”, an elderly gentleman lingered behind.  The preacher was dumbfounded and asked,  “What happened?  What went wrong?”  This answer was offered:  “If you had gone up the way you came down, you would have come down the way you went up!”

Humility is a good thing, and yet as humble as Jeremiah was, he had to learn that the key for ministry is in the call.  He, of course, is correct in protesting his unworthiness.  Others may be more trained or more experience, but God did not call them.  He calls the ones He calls, and God knows those chosen are not qualified in themselves.  Verse seven reads, But the Lord said to me “do not say ‘I am only a child’:  you must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you’ declares the Lord. 

I remember my first sermon when I was 22 years old and I held those small index cards with equally white knuckles.  I preached what felt like a 30 minute sermon, which was, in reality, six or seven minutes long – those were the days!  I remember a man critiquing my sermon, saying how strange it was to hear me read rather woodenly the words of my testimony of how Christ had saved me.  It was rather like the clumsy and superficial minister who reads the blessed words of Jesus:  “In my Father’s house there are…”  He stops, fumbling with turning the pages of the Bible, and confusedly says, “many mansions”. 

But I learned over time,  it is God who is preaching.

The question comes down to knowing that God qualifies those whom He calls and He makes them worthy.

It is God who reassures Jeremiah with palpable clarity in verse 9, “Then the Lord reached out His hand and touched my mouth and said to me, ‘Now I have put My words in your mouth’.”

My wife Janet’s and my mentor, The Right Rev. Alfred Stanway, first Dean and President of Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania used to tell us to pray, “Lord, make it clear and I’ll follow.”

So you see, the key is in God’s call and in God’s reassurance of the call

The content of the call is seen in verse 10 and it describes the ministry of Jeremiah and the ministry of each of us today, “See today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

There are four verbs of attack and destruction:  to uproot, tear down, destroy and overthrow.  This is the bad news before the good news.  We all know and love “the comfortable words” of our Lord.  Here are the uncomfortable words of ministry.  You see, elsewhere in Jeremiah, the word of God is a fire that burns and a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces.

You must attack:  uproot and tear down, destroy and overthrow.  Jeremiah carried out his ministry with a dreadful premonition of the doom of God’s judgment on his countrymen.  The prophet attacks oppression, injustice and unethical behavior and so must we.  Billy Graham once said that if God doesn’t judge America for its sins, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.  We all know that God is not going to apologize for that.  Professor John Bright said that Jeremiah savagely attacked idolatry.

Jeremiah was profoundly shocked by the prevailing apostasy of the people of his day, and we should be equally shocked.  Perhaps we have lost our ability to be shocked by such things.  Jeremiah attacked the ingratitude of a people who were so abundantly blessed by God.  You would not withhold your appreciation for your friend, would you?  You wouldn’t treat your spouse that way, or your mother or your father, would you?  How can we possibly think that it is all right to do so with God?

Jeremiah likened his countrymen to an adulterous wife who repeatedly betrayed her husband – yet continually counted on his indulgent forgiveness.  There is an uncanny parallel to our own age.  You must be like Jeremiah and see yourself as called to attack this mindset. There is trust in false gods.  False security.  There is a false spirituality and religiosity encouraged by false teachers and false prophets.  Chapter 14, verse 13 and following:  “Then I said, ‘O Sovereign Lord, these prophets are telling them, ‘All is well – no war or famine will come.  The Lord will surely send you peace.’  Then the Lord said, ‘These prophets are telling lies in my Name.  I did not send them or tell them to speak.  I did not give them any messages…I will pour out their own wickedness on them.’”

Israel considered themselves to be elect and felt safe in the Temple.  They wrongly felt their religious services were acceptable.

What we see in Jeremiah’s ministry is the refusal to accept false religion.  When clergy unctuously offer cheap grace and offer false security, saying there will be no accountability, Jeremiah says they are in a bald-faced lie!

The call to ministry will include uprooting, tearing down, destroying and overturning.  Like Jeremiah the hope lies in offering impassioned please for true repentance.  Make sure you are ready to overtake unbelief!

To go back to Virginia’s William Meade, it was a very low time in the spirituality of the church.  We often think these are bad times – there are always worse times.  In the early years of our national independence, churches in Virginia were abandoned.  There were incidents of organ pipes being dismantled and stolen to be used as sinkers for fishing nets.  Baptismal fonts were taken to become animal feed troughs.  Patens were used as cheese trays and chalices for drinking bouts.  The general convention of the Episcopal Church met and discussed fearfully that the great Anglican church of Virginia might never again send a delegate to its convention.

Then, early in William Meade’s episcopate, a fire broke out in a theatre in Richmond.  Some ninety people were killed as they watched a godless play by Diderot.  Many of them were Richmond’s leading citizens including the governor of the State.  The city was gripped by the terror and many donned sackcloth and ashes.  It was decided that a church should be built on the ashes of the theatre.  The people formed a new congregation and called Richard Chaning More to be their Rector.  Within a year, hundreds of people with new faith were presented to be confirmed by Bishop Meade – all of Virginia became enflamed in the second Great Awakening.

Closer to home, Alexander Viets Grunwald was selected to be bishop of the newly formed Eastern Diocese comprised of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and Rhode Island.  He was profoundly affected at his consecration, to the extent that some of his clergy sneered that he now preached like a Methodist!

Even in this state (New York), revival broke out in the 19th century through the ministry of John Henry Hobart, as every hamlet and city had an Episcopal ministry planted.  Sydney Ahlstrom described Bishop Hobart as the most brilliant American bishop ever called in our history.

These great ministers built and they planted in the spirit of Jeremiah.  He attacked but those last two of the six verbs in verse 10 showed the ministry of God’s love making everything new.  The exiles would hear of how God “loved them with an everlasting love” and how “I, God, will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more.”

This ministry is there for only those who turn and who respond to God’s call.  God’s call is seen in Jeremiah 33:3 – what is referred to as “God’s phone number”:  Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.”

The key is in the call.

Would the ordinands please stand.

Do you believe you are called by God?

Do you believe you are called by God to attack trust in false gods?

Do you believe you are called to plant and to build in God’s love?

Would the lay people gathered here who feel they can answer the call of God please stand as well.  It is all right if you would rather remain in your seats at this time, not really feeling the call.  That’s okay;  I don’t want anyone to feel pressured by me.

Do you believe you are called by God?

Do you believe you are called by God to attack trust in false gods?

Do you believe you are called to plant and to build in God’s love?

May God who calls us equip and help us in carrying out this ministry.  Amen.