August 24, Ordinary 21C (Jeremiah 1:4-10)

I find it fascinating what biblical texts “become.” This passage from Jeremiah has long signaled the reluctant prophet motif, and that will provide my focus. But many today hear this passage in the context of modern debates concerning abortion. Conservative Protestants long regarded abortion as a difficult but not divisive issue. But antiabortion activists deployed this passage alongside Psalm 139:13 (“For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb”) to advance a simple argument: If God was preparing biblical authors prior to their births, what would it mean had someone chosen to terminate those pregnancies? In the case of Jeremiah, would not the world have lost a prophet? Whatever our contemporary views concerning reproductive ethics, we can easily track the argument.

If we are honest with ourselves, we might acknowledge that we have developed the reluctant prophet motif into a template that shapes our imaginations concerning ministry and vocation. If I had a nickel for every seminarian who has told me how long they resisted their call to ministry, why, I’d have a lot of nickels.

We do not know the precise origins of the reluctant prophet model. In canonical perspective, Moses provides the classic case. Moses encounters God in the burning bush, receives the call to confront Pharaoh and lead Israel out of Egypt, and responds, “Who am I” to do all that (Exod. 3:10–11)? Moses requires assurance after assurance, not least because “I am slow of speech and slow of tongue” (4:10). But to each objection God grants an accommodation. In diverse ways Moses’ reluctance continues throughout the Exodus story, yet eventually he brings his people to the edge of the promised land. A broad pattern involving divine call, prophetic reluctance, and divine assurance applies to Gideon (Judg. 6:11–40), Isaiah (6:1–13), and Jonah. Acts even presents Paul and Peter according to this model.