Wouldn’t it be great if we could succeed in all the things we want to do? We might have looked at someone’s beautiful garden, and said to ourselves, “How I wish I could make my garden look as beautiful.” Or we might see someone dancing or hear them singing, and we say, “I would like to sing like that, or dance like that.”

We are not being envious; it is just that we would like to be able to do more with our lives. Everybody has these feelings. Gardening and dancing are little things; we may want to do great things like ending the war in Iraq, or bringing the national and religious groups of Sydney together in tolerance and love.

We find ourselves saying, “When I’m Premier,” or “When I’m Prime Minister then I would do this or that.” Then we look in a mirror and laugh and say, “What a silly dream!”

Our readings today suggest that what we think is a silly dream, or something that we could never do, may be exactly what God is asking us to do.

Take the prophet Jeremiah. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” And Jeremiah answered, “Ah, Lord God, this is a silly dream you’re putting into my head. I can’t do it! I’m too young! I don’t know what to say! I’m too scared!”

How true this is! We look at the job, and even before we understand what it is all about, we start making excuses. Do you remember in the gospels the excuses people made when Jesus said, “Follow me?” I’ve just got married. I’ve just bought a block of land. I have to look after my old father. I’ve just bought a cow. I don’t want to give up my comfortable life. All the excuses in the world!

Sometimes the reasons are real; there are things we just can’t do. More often we are like Jeremiah, we are afraid because we might fail. We think we lack the skills, the experience and the confidence. We measure ourselves against those who’ve done great things and see ourselves as midgets next to giants.

The problem is that we are using the wrong sort of tape measure. Our tapes measure metres or money or property. The tape measure that God uses measures character; things like love, joy, faithfulness, faith and hope, determination and perseverance. Our measures tell us what we haven’t got; God’s measure actually gives us what we need.

God said to Jeremiah, “Forget your lack of years. Go where I tell you and I will come with you. Don’t be afraid, I will give you courage. Don’t worry about what to say, I will put my words in your mouth. Don’t worry that the job is too big, I am with you to change the world, to pluck up and to pull down, to build and to plant.”

This is really good news for us. God has called us to build the kingdom of God and will make sure we will succeed. True? Do we believe this?

Don’t worry if you are not 100% convinced, it is human nature to doubt and to be uncertain. Consider the people of Nazareth in the gospel today. Jesus read from the prophecies of Isaiah, “The Lord has sent me to bring good news to the poor and freedom to the prisoners.” But the people of Nazareth said, “Oh yeah? Isn’t this Joseph’s son? Can a carpenter’s son change the world? Show us some miracles and we might believe you!”

The problem with the people of Nazareth was that they thought they knew what God could and couldn’t do. Great prophets like Elijah and Elisha do miracles, not ordinary people like Jesus the son of Joseph.

Jesus pointed out that God works where God chooses to work and not where human beings choose. The great prophets like Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah and Jeremiah, too, went where God sent them and not where the people of Israel wanted them to go. Both the widow of Zarepath and Naaman the Syrian were foreigners, but that’s where God sent Elijah and Elisha. The people of Nazareth were filled with rage because they expected Jesus to stay with them. They wanted to throw him off a cliff because he had helped the people of Capernaum and wouldn’t help them, even though Nazareth was his home town. But God was calling Jesus away from Nazareth, so he passed through the midst of them and went on his way, leaving them puzzled and angry.

The message for us in these two readings is firstly that God is calling each one of us to do what God has prepared for us to do. It doesn’t matter if we are too young or too old, weak or strong, male or female, busy or with plenty of time. God will give to each one of us whatever we need to do the job. We are to be the tools God uses to build his kingdom.

We might be surprised at what God asks us to do. God might ask us to work in our own lives and the lives of people we know and love. God might call us to work among strangers, people we don’t know, people God wants us to love. A while ago, someone wrote on the whiteboard in the hall, “A stranger is just a friend I have yet to meet.” Maybe God wants us to meet some of those friends.

Next week we have our futures forum. This will be a time of listening to God. I know that God wants us to share God’s love and to grow in faith, fellowship and service to others. I want us to hear what Jeremiah heard, God’s promise of guidance and support. I want us to understand what Jesus understood, that God will call us out of our comfortable life into a ministry which could shake the world, or at least our little corner of it.

Read the little pink pamphlet, pray about it during the week, and next Sunday come ready to talk, to listen and to do.