Great Expectations
The Rev. Canon George M. Maxwell, Jr.
The Cathedral of St. Philip
28 January 2007
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany – Year C
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you .…
Now I have put my words in your mouth.
See today I appoint you over nations ….”
Jer. 1:5-9
These are the words that God used to commission Jeremiah as a prophet. Jeremiah didn’t choose to become a prophet. He is not like the false prophets looking to compete with each other for the King’s favor. He has been chosen by God to speak the word of God, regardless of the consequences.
And, the call is very personal. Listen again to what God says -- “I knew you”; “I consecrated you”; “I appoint you.” God is, of course, the authority here. But, these words say more than that. They convey a sense of God’s desire for Jeremiah. They suggest that God knows what Jeremiah can do better than Jeremiah does.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
There is something comforting in this sense of being known by God. We hear it echoed in other places in scripture. The psalmist says, “The Lord knows the way of the righteous.” (Ps 1:6).
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul seems to suggest that coming to know God is in fact coming to be known by God. (Gal 4:9).
And, in his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul suggests that loving God gives rise to an awareness of being known by God. (I Cor. 8:1-3).
It is, I suspect, just this kind of awareness that causes evangelicals to describe their conversion experiences as suddenly becoming aware that they are loved by God and that they matter because God knows their names.
Yet, I think that being known by God means more than just being accepted by God. It’s not just a matter of realizing that God loves us and that we matter to him – though, at times, just knowing that can seem like the difference between life and death. It is also a matter of realizing that we are being discovered by God. It is also a matter of realizing that God knows we can do things that we didn’t realize we could do.
And, with practice, we can begin to see it God’s way.
Listen again to God’s conversation with Jeremiah. Jeremiah complains that he is too young and inexperienced to be a prophet. He is afraid of the responsibility of becoming a prophet and what might happen to him if he accepts it. And, who can blame him? The life of a true prophet has a no-win character to it. If the prophet gets it wrong, he risks the wrath of God, and if he gets it right, he risks the wrath of humanity.
But, God responds that Jeremiah’s experience is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter what Jeremiah has or has not already learned how to do. God is not asking Jeremiah to go out and do anything on his own. God is calling Jeremiah into partnership with God for the benefit of others. God is choosing Jeremiah to become a messenger. God will tell him what to say and when to say it. It is in this partnership with God that Jeremiah finds his uniqueness.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
I saw a wonderful example last week of being discovered in this way. And, I found it, in all places, on the TV show Grey’s Anatomy. Have you seen this show? We have gotten to where we plan our Thursday nights around it.
There is a prophet in the cast of Grey’s Anatomy. Her name is Dr. Miranda Bailey. She is a surgical resident, affectionately known as “the Nazi,” and she has been having a hard time lately. She lost her confidence. She took some time off to have a new baby. One of the vaunted surgeons at the hospital wanted one of the interns to help him with his surgeries instead of her. And, she recently faced a disciplinary review board because another intern that she was supervising actually induced a cardiac arrest in a patient in an effort to move him up on the list for a new heart.
This week, though, Dr. Bailey decides that she wants to open a free clinic at the hospital. She argues that the clinic would be able to help patients whom the hospital currently turns away, and offer preventative care to patients that would cut down on the number of surgeries that the hospital is required to perform. But, she is having a hard time making it happen. Every time she asks one of the more senior surgeons to help her, they respond by asking her “why?”
Then, at the end of the show, the Chief of Surgery tells her that he has not been willing to help her because he is going to retire, and he wanted her to begin learning how to get along without him. He also tells her that, although she is not ready yet, she will be the Chief of Surgery one day. He tells her that his replacement will just be keeping the chair warm for her – though he suggests that she might have to get a new chair because her legs are so short!
This is all surprising to Dr. Bailey. She has been seeing herself through the eyes of the senior surgeons. She mistakenly thought that the surgeon who kept her out of his operating room questioned her skills. She felt responsible for the mistakes her interns committed. She began to lose hope for the free clinic when the other surgeons didn’t support it.
But, then she sees a different picture of herself through the eyes of the Chief. He has discovered her in the sense that he knows what she can do better than she does. And, his discovery does more than simply restore her confidence. It creates a new image of her that she didn’t have before. His discovery actually helps to create the Dr. Bailey who could be Chief by inviting her to become someone whom she could not have imagined before.
Just in case we missed what was happening in the partnership between the Chief and Dr. Bailey, the writers give us a stark (and, of course, humorous) counter example in the behavior of the more senior surgeons. They too see themselves through the eyes of others. But, their models are not people they look up to particularly. Their models are their rivals -- each other.
As their rivalry becomes more intense, they all start to compete with each other in the same way. Ironically, the harder they try to show that they are dramatically different from each other, the more they all start to look alarmingly alike. One of them decides, for example, to stay at the hospital, where he had already decided he didn’t want to be, to compete for the job, which he really doesn’t seem to want to perform, just so that his long-time rival can’t have it.
The last scene in this story line opens with the four senior surgeons sitting on the floor like spoiled, petulant children. Dr. Bailey is standing over them demanding that they sign her petition for a free clinic. And, now she knows why she wants it.
She wants it because she needs it to reconnect with her passion to heal others. She wants it because she realizes that she needs to feel like she is making a difference in peoples lives and not just showing off her mastery of sophisticated surgical skills. She wants it because she used to believe in those senior surgeons, and now she needs more.
They all sheepishly sign her petition and note, laughingly, that “the Nazi’s back.” They’re wrong, of course. Dr. Bailey’s not back, she’s been discovered. They are seeing the emergence of a new person on her way to becoming the person that the Chief envisioned her to be.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
We are not all called to be prophets in the way that Jeremiah was called to be a prophet -- thank God. Yet, we are all called to live out our lives in partnership with God. And, that requires that we learn to see ourselves through God’s eyes, and that we come to understand what it means to be known by God, what it means to be discovered by God. This understanding may make us feel better, and it may not. It, however, will yield a unique image of ourselves that we would not have seen on our own. It will yield an image of ourselves that links our passion with the needs of the world.
There will, of course, always be the temptation to see ourselves through the eyes of other people. But, this temptation tends to breed jealously and envy. It tends to elevate our need to win to the point that we begin to see others simply as competitors to be defeated. It tends to turn our unique gifts and graces into something that looks just like the person next to us. And, it tends to redirect our passion away from the needs of the world.
“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”
We are being discovered by God and, I believe, that our awareness of what God sees in us will answer the question “why?” when it’s time to sign the petition for the free clinic.
AMEN
Comments? Contact George Maxwell at: GMaxwell@stphilipscathedral.org