The Touch of God

In both passages of Scripture this morning someone in survival mode is touched by God and their lives are transformed.

Have you ever felt like you were living in survival mode?  Maybe you have been in a life-threatening situation and you truly were just trying to survive.  Or maybe you were just trying to get to Friday, or the end of today, or past the next deadline.  Or maybe you were just trying to get the baby to sleep through the night, or to make ends meet until diapers weren’t part of the weekly budget.  Or maybe you’ve already started counting the days until Spring Break…33 days and 25 school days.  The reality is, we all have a tendency to live our lives just trying to get to the next marker.

When God called the prophet Jeremiah, the people were truly in survival mode.   Jeremiah was born and raised in Anathoth, a city of refuge in the Southern Kingdom.  It was a walled city, up on the ridge of hills overlooking the Jordan River.

A little geography review for orientation:  The Northern Kingdom was called Israel and the Southern Kingdom was called Judah.  Jerusalem was in the Southern Kingdom about 3 miles Southwest of Anathoth.  So, if you were coming South to Jerusalem along the river, you came to Anathoth before you came to Jerusalem.  Because of its topography and location, it was a city of defense for the Southern Kingdom.

This was important because the Northern Kingdom, Israel, had recently been overthrown by the Assyrians, and then the Assyrian Empire had collapsed.  Now the Babylonian Empire threatens to capture Israel and Judah.  Battles are prevalent.  Anathoth is in survival mode.

And in the midst of this survival mode, God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet, to speak God’s word.  This isn’t one of those “I’ve been chosen to be special!” moments.  This is a “Who, me?” moment.  Jeremiah says, “Hold it! Look at me.  I don’t know anything. I’m only a boy!”

Who is going to listen to this kid?  The city is packed full of people who fled from the north when Assyria invaded, and more people who came when Assyria crumbled, and more people who have come because Babylon threatens.  The walls are guarded by soldiers day and night.  Tensions are high.  Battles are frequent.  The whole city is in survival mode.  They aren’t looking for a kid to tell them how their relationship with God has gone wrong.

And Jeremiah knows it.  “Truly, I do not know how to speak.”

And Jeremiah recalls that moment, “Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me, “Now I have put my words in your mouth.”

The verbs here for what God is doing are interesting, I think.  It sounds common and mundane to say, “The Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth.”  God “stretched out” his hand.  God reaches out, stretches to reach Jeremiah and touches his mouth.  We don’t have a good way to translate this verb touches.  The root verb is naga, and it means touch.  But here in this passage it is in a verb tense we don’t have in English.  It is called hiphil, and hiphil is a causal tense.  So a better translation is that God caused Jeremiah’s mouth to be touched.

The only other place in Scripture we see this verb used in this tense is in Isaiah’s call.  Remember, Isaiah says he can’t be a messenger for God.  But he can’t do it because he is a man of unclean lips living among a people of unclean lips.  And God reaches out with a seraph with a hot coal and touches his lips with it and says, “Now this has caused your lips to be touched.”  Then, Isaiah responds, “Here I am, send me!”  Living in survival mode, God touches, he is transformed.

Jeremiah and Isaiah didn’t know what to say.  No one was going to listen to them.  But God touched them and placed God’s Word in their mouths.  And they were transformed and delivered God’s message to people who were in survival mode.

In the same way, Jesus’ touch is transforming in the passage from Mark.  Jesus and the disciples are in Capernaum.  He has been teaching in the synagogue, and they leave and go to Simon’s house.  Simon and Andrew are disciples and are brothers, so their families live in close proximity, probably share a common space.  And Simon’s mother-in-law lives with them, which means she must be a widow with no sons.  She is sick and in bed with fever; she is in survival mode.  Jesus came and seized her hand and raised her.  The same verb that raised Lazarus.  The same verb that raised Jesus on the third day.  And immediately she began to serve them.  Complete transformation.

It’s not that she got up and immediately started to cook dinner.  The verb for serve is related to the noun disciple.  Her life was transformed, and she began to live as a disciple, serving.

When we have been touched by God, our lives are transformed.  We go from survival mode to service mode.  God’s words are in our mouth and we immediately seek to do God’s will.  And there’s not one of us that God isn’t reaching out to cause us to be touched and transformed.  Just like God knew Jeremiah, God knows us.  “Before I formed you in your mother’s womb, I knew you, says God.  Before you were born, I had a special purpose for you, a calling for your life.”

The reality is that most of us are living in survival mode; we just want to get through today, or this week.  And while it sounds nice to say that God has a calling for our lives and that God causes us to be transformed so that we speak God’s word and do God’s will, most of the time, it is nothing more than nice, unrealistic words.

In one church, a parishioner called the pastor on it.  The church had chosen as its Lenten theme, “Forty Days of Love.” Each week members of the congregation were encouraged to show their love and appreciation in different ways.  A lot like the prayer station in the hallway encouraging everyone in the Farmington family to commit undercover kindness in February.

Well in this church, the first week they were encouraged to send notes to people who had made positive contributions to their lives.  After the service a man in the congregation wanted to speak to his pastor. The pastor describes the man as “kind of macho, a former football player.” The man told his pastor, “I love you and I love this church, but I’m not going to participate in this Forty Days of Love stuff. It’s OK for some folks,” he said, “but it’s a little too syrupy for me.”

A week went by. The next Sunday after service, the man was waiting to talk to the pastor again. “I want to apologize for what I said last Sunday,” he said, “about the Forty Days of Love. I realized on Wednesday that I was wrong.”  “Wednesday?” his pastor repeated. “What happened on Wednesday?”

“I got one of those letters!” the man said. It was from a person the man never expected to hear from.  “Every time I read it,” he said, “I get tears in my eyes.  I was so moved by that letter I sat down and wrote ten letters myself.”

The man was in survival mode; the survival mode most of us find ourselves in all the time.  What is acceptable, what is the norm, what is expected.  But, then he receives the letter.  Totally unexpected.  Thank you.  You have touched my life.  And he is transformed.  And he writes ten more letters.  He stops and appreciates.  He isn’t in survival mode anymore.

When we are touched by God, we are transformed, from survival mode to service mode; we are bearers of God’s word who are raised to serve.  And God is always reaching out, stretching to cause us to be touched, transformed, sometimes even through a letter, so that we can transform the world.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.