This Week's Sermons

Sermons for the Month
"The 'Only'"
DATE: February 1, 1998
SERVICE: Epiphany IV
TEXT: Jeremiah 1:4-10

"To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN

The Onlys - We all have preconceived notions about people? Even when we know only the barest facts about them?

Here's a test: What kind of person comes to mind when you think of an "only child"? Perhaps you see "only" children as self-motivated, bright, independent, natural leaders, generally mature beyond their years. On the other hand, perhaps experience has lead you to consider "only" children as spoiled, chronically lonely, privileged, attention-seeking and selfish.

Perhaps you grew up as an "only." In reality, those who grow up as "onlys" are probably just as apt to be any or all of the above as any of us who come from a family of three, four or five. For in our own ways, all of us are "onlys." No matter how tight-knit your family might have been, no matter how many brothers and sisters with whom you shared bedrooms, bathrooms, sweats and sweaters, everyone of us grew up as individuals, as "onlys" with unique histories and experiences that made us into the people each of us are today. It is this "only-ness" that gives us our unique sense of self and yet can also strand us in a sea of "only-ness."

Each of us, I dare say, has as much a drive for separateness and autonomy as we do for community and companionship. We are a vast population of "onlys" -- all standing side by side, wanting to be part of a community but not quite sure whether we want to connect to the "only" next to us. The paradox struggling inside all of us to one degree or another degree is, on the one hand, if we want to keep our "only-ness," our independence, intact, it means we have to give up on community while, on the other hand, if we want to be part of a community, it means we have to give up some of our "only-ness."

There is another irony about the fact that we are each an "only." For "as hard as we struggle for a sense of self, as much as we like to celebrate our real or imagined independence, we also use our sense of only-ness -- our by-myself, unattached, unsupported status -- as our greatest excuse for our inaction and inability.

Certainly THAT was Jeremiah's excuse that day in the temple when God came a calling. "Jeremiah! I want you to be my prophet to the nations." To which Jeremiah replied, "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy."

Suddenly confronted by a God-sized mission, divinely ordered to deliver a message to the world, Jeremiah succumbs to the "onlys." He turns his face to heaven and pleads the excuse of youth and inexperience: But God, "I am only a boy!"

However, as Jeremiah quickly found out, this "only" excuse doesn't hold any water with God. It was, in fact, THE whine that God had heard many times before:

Moses tells God, I can't stand up to Pharaoh. I'm only a shepherd. I can't even talk good (Exodus 3:12, 4:1).

Gideon tells God when God calls him to deliver Israel from Midian, "I am the least in my family," (Judges 6:15).

Saul tells David, you can't go out there and take on Goliath. "You are just a boy" (1 Samuel 17:33).

David, when the opportunity to become the king's son-in-law presented itself, demurred: "I am a poor man and of no repute" (1 Samuel 18:23).

Solomon, when facing the challenges of being king like his father before him, got cold feet: "I am only a little child" (1 Kings 3:7).

When asked for bread and water by Elijah, the widow of Zarephath replied: "I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug" (1Kings 17:12).

The "but I'm only" excuse can never stand up. Why? Because we forget on whom we are trying to use this dodge: God. To each of those halting, hesitant choices, God had essentially one reply -- "I am the only God. I will choose whomever I will choose." God doesn't get mixed up and call the wrong number by mistake. God wasn't trying to call the father Hilkiah and but got his boy Jeremiah on the phone instead. In the same way,

God wanted the stuttering Moses.

God wanted the leadership of Gideon.

God wanted David's slingshot to take on the giant.

God wanted the shepherd boy to marry a princess.

God wanted the mantle to pass to young Solomon.

God wanted the widow of Zarephath's smidgen of flour and oil.

God wanted Jeremiah no matter his age.

God wanted Jeremiah's message to go out to the poor as well as the rich.

It seems that God tends to choose "onlys" intentionally. In fact, God uses "onlys" to make "onlys" -- the only voice of truth, the only beacon of hope, the only spirit of love, the only words of wisdom. To be such an "only" means to stand alone, stand apart, stand firm, stand against and stand for. But in each place an "only" is called to stand, in every word an "only" is called to deliver, God's strength is there as well -- and God's strength is always sufficient.

In today's gospel text, we see just how wrong-headed and wrong-hearted it is to assume that an "only" cannot be divinely appointed and divinely empowered. When Jesus returns to Galilee and appears before his hometown crowd in Nazareth, his authority is doubted and his words are dismissed in anger because those listening to him hear "only" the son of a local family, "only" a craftsman by trade, "only" Jesus.

Called to offer the Good News of the gospel first to his own people, Jesus obeys. But when the unappreciative and uncomprehending crowd turns ugly and plans to attack Jesus physically, God's grace and sufficiency are made evident. Unharmed, unfazed and unencumbered by the crowd's threats, this "only" Jesus simply walks out of that skeptical, doubting, stubborn environment to continue his ministry before the rest of Galilee and the world who would listen.

As only Christians, we have each been called to bear witness to the greatest gift of love, the greatest sacrifice for our sake, that has ever been given. Like Jeremiah, we are called to preach a message to a world that often seems either so self-centered it refuses to hear the gospel or is so downright hostile to the vision of redemption that the church offers that it rejects it. But still we are the only ones who can change the world. Washington doesn't seem to be doing it. The media doesn't seem to be helping much.

But what is even more tragic, however, is that when we become aware of the size of the mission God is asking us to undertake, we often come down with our own bad case of the "onlys," which can include: "I can't because I'm only human, only ordinary, only young, only old, only half-up-to-it, only an amateur, only a few years left, only one good lung /kidney /eye /hand, only me, only this, only that.

Haven't we all at some time recited an "I am only" litany about ourselves when feeling overwhelmed and under-prepared? The great Indian leader Mahatma Ghandi who freed India from British rule once said, "Whenever you are in doubt or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test: Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man [or woman] you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore his control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to Swaraj (self-rule) for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melting away."

Instead of clinging to the insecurity of being an "only," we only need to take hold of the power that our status as the "one chosen by Jesus" reveals. Try replacing the defeatist four-syllable message "I am only" with a different four-syllable mantra: "I am the one." I/we are the One God has chosen:

The one person

The one team

The one congregation

The one family

The one town

The one state

The one nation

The one continent

The one world.

James D. Bell, associate dean of the business school at Southwest State University, gave a 1996 commencement address in which he told this story:

It was noon, in the South. It was summer, it was hot, and two men were working in a railroad yard. They were swinging eight pound sledgehammers, driving spikes into railroad ties. They stopped a moment to notice one engine and one "very fancy car" going slowly through the yard. The engine stopped in front of them, a window in the fancy car came down, and a man stuck his head out of the window and said, "Charlie, is that you, my friend?" One of the workers in the yard put down his sledge and replied, "Joe, I haven't seen you in ..." And the other man finished the sentence, "Twenty five years. Come in out of the sun so we can talk." The man in the yard wiped the sweat from his body, put on his T-shirt, and went into the car. About a half-hour later, he came out of the car. Charlie and Joe shook hands. The car slowly pulled out of the yard, and Joe leaned out the window once more and said, "Let's keep in touch." The car disappeared down the tracks.

The man who was left working for the last half-hour (working, but not quite as hard as before) asked, "Do you know who that is?" and answered himself . . . "That's the president of the railroad! How do you know him?"

And Charlie replied, "We started to work twenty five years ago out here in the yard." Then the worker asked two more questions: "You mean the president of the railroad started out here, swinging a sledgehammer?" "Yes," was the reply. "Then, how come he's the president, and you're still out here in the yard?"

Charlie said: "Twenty five years ago, I came to work for only $1.25 an hour. But he came to work for the railroad!" ("Working and Living," Vital Speeches, LXIII (15 April 1997), 413.)

In God's infinite wisdom, and with God's infinite power, God has chosen each of you, only you, only us as the only one who can stand as a particular kind of witness, perform a unique kind of ministry, give a distinct shape to Christ's body here on earth, in this place. You are the only one God chooses for your particular task. Only you can do God's work as only you can do it. Together with every member of the body of Christ, we make up this community of "onlys," this community of faith.
AMEN