Like everyone else I’ve tossed around the words “call” and “anointing” to mean discovering the right place in life. Of course the implication is always this is the place where you will be the most fulfilled, satisfied and genuinely engaged. Campus Crusade used to call it “God’s wonderful plan for your life”. Over the years I’ve helped any number of young people find their calling and there are countless books on the subject. In my mind those people who are anointed are those who have found the perfect fit between the way they are designed and the work they have been called to do. Again the implication is usually that this is a prelude to their lives being ones of achievement, accomplishment and meaningful work.
I read the passage on Jeremiah’s calling this week and I have to say it jolted me. Anointing and calling were not at all about finding a “fit” for this young man. It was not about leadership or fulfillment or even a sense of accomplishment. I think Jeremiah may have thought that when he first heard the words about God shaping him for this very moment in time. I guess we would all like to feel that way about ourselves. Instead, it turns out calling and anointing for young Jeremiah are not about living a significant life but about suffering. Chosen to suffer in fact. I don’t know if I can sell this to people looking for their calling and their anointing as a way to a rich life. What if Bonhoeffer is right in saying that Jesus’s call is not to success or significance or fulfillment but to “come and die”? It would be wrong to feel sorry for Jeremiah–this was his calling. As he says from the perspective of an older man in Lamentations “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:…great is your faithfulness.”