What… is your name?
What… is your quest?
What… is the capital of Assyria?!
In case you are wondering, I just cited from my all-time favorite movie. No, it is not Star Wars (yes… you are my father, I know). No, it is not Die Hard. It is not Good Will Hunting, it is not Forrest Gump, it is not The Godfather. It is most certainly not Monty Python and the Holy Grail… oh wait, yes it is. Ni.
With the exception of the third question, these questions I ask at the beginning of this blog are rather easy to answer. For simplicity’s sake, Assur was the capital of Assyria. By process of elimination, these questions are easy to answer. What is your name? It should not take you more than half a second to answer that. What is your quest? This one might require some thought but, again, it should be fairly easy to answer. Every person reading this, and every person breathing at the time I write this, should be able to answer those two questions. The capital of Assyria, well yes, you may need to do some research on that. But for as long as you can remember, you know your name.
It’s all in a name
My name is Luke. When I started this website in July of 2022, I did not wish to reveal any information about me. In fact, I went by my inverted initials, S.L. Thirteen months ago, had I encountered the “Keeper of the Bridge” in the film I’ve referenced, I would have been cast down into the pit. At the very first question. I have been cast down into quite a few pits in my life, but not for answering that my favorite color is “Red… no, blueeee!”
If a stranger were to ask me, “What is your name?,” more than likely, I would casually respond, “Luke.” I am almost certain you would answer with your real name as well. But if the stranger skips the small talk and asks you, “What is your quest?” What will you answer? I can think of at least a few replies in this very moment. “To live a happy life,” “To have and support a family,” “To serve and honor my God,” or “To make sense of this very thing we call life.” In my personal opinion, each of these answers contains a degree of truth. Yes, I want to live a happy life. Yes, some day I hope to have and support a family. Of course I want to serve the God of my understanding. But what is my quest?
Let’s skip the medieval jargon. I’ll ask it plain and simple: what do you want to do with your life? What do you want people to remember you by? If you are anything like me, I am positive you do not want to be remembered by your favorite color, or your ability to recall the capital of an ancient kingdom. And I promise you, I am striving to make a point of this. Bear with me, please.
What is your quest? You are given a lifetime to answer this question. Numerous people have played a role, major or minor, in how you answer this question. You have completed an education, whether elementary or doctorate, to answer this question. And sadly, as I have come to realize, many people still do not know. With all the education, the love, the support, the forgiveness, the faith, you name it. There are millions, if not billions, of people who cannot answer the question posed at the beginning of this paragraph.
What can we learn from Jeremiah?
Seemingly, the prophet Jeremiah begged this same question thousands of years ago. One of my mother’s favorite verses, Jeremiah 1:5 (CJB) speaks from the mouth of God, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I separated you for myself. I have appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.” Based on this verse, it is easy to conclude that Jeremiah was “set apart.” This is a common theme in Christianity, one I have touched on in a few previous posts.
So common that at the age of sixteen, I attended a youth camp with my church under the theme “set apart.” I hardly need to include any details on how distorted this theme was. “If you are a Christian, that means God has set you apart!” That does not sound too bad, and in all fairness, it is mostly in line with what Scripture teaches. But, the caveat is that being “set apart” somehow makes a Christian superior to, say, a Jew or a pagan. If we are all created by the same, loving being, then how is one person greater than another? How is it that one person is set apart, but the other is destined for nothing?
Under the Christian mindset, are we not all created by the same being? Does not this same being value the Christian as well as the Jew? Here is the catch: Jeremiah was not a Christian! And, neither was Jesus! Yet, they were clearly set apart. The people of Judah in Jeremiah’s day likely experienced the same feelings contemporary Christians in the United States do; they believed they were set apart, but Jeremiah viewed the people of Judah as “covenant-breakers.”1 Might I ask: who was truly set apart? Jeremiah, or the people of Judah?
There is much information to unpack in Jeremiah 1:5 alone. Before Jeremiah was conceived, God had set him apart. Before he was born, God planned his days. His calling is not determined by the counsel of humankind; not the people in his community, and certainly not the religious leadership of his day. As one researcher notes, “True prophets do not assume their calls, they acknowledge that unless God calls them, they are not his Prophet.”2 Jeremiah did not assume he was called; he did not require a pastor to tell him he was set apart.
Conclusion: Set Apart for What?
The problem that I see today, as I witnessed at that church camp several years ago, is that the church enforces a purely human requirement to be “set apart.” Without your pastor signing a document confirming your faith, you cannot be called to God’s will. Without belonging to a church body, you are as good as one who does not believe. As I emphasize in my posts, I am not criticizing every individual church. I am, however, attacking the universal church for indicating you must belong to a local body to be set apart.
I believe every person has a quest. Every person is set apart. Whether they attend church, or synagogue, or nothing at all, the God who created them has set them apart in some kind of way. You will not determine your quest by sitting idly in a sanctuary once or twice a week. Your pastor cannot tell you what you were destined for. Jeremiah did not need human counsel to explain his purpose or mission. He needed only to listen to the voice of God and understand that he was not merely a number.
What is your quest? I cannot answer this for you. What I can tell you is that you do not need any person, regardless of education or ordination, to solve this question for you. If you believe in God, listen for his voice. You may not hear it audibly, but I can promise you that you will feel it somehow. If he has created you, he has set you apart. But you cannot be set apart if you do not listen for his calling. You cannot be set apart just because the man holding the Bible tells you that you are. From my personal experience, the beginning of my quest was seeking the counsel of God. And, I can assure you, it is an excellent starting point.
- Ndishua, Julius. “The Call and Tasks of a Prophet: An Exegetical Analysis of Jeremiah 1:4-10.” E-Journal of Religious and Theological Studies 8, no. 2 (2022): 49.
2. Ibid., 53.