The Rev. Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

 © 2025, Dr. Tamilio

Today’s Old Testament reading has a special place in my heart.  I was twenty-four years old.  I had just finished my Master of Arts degree in British and American Literature at Northeastern University.  I should have been applying to Ph.D. programs.  My goal was to teach undergraduates all about T.S. Eliot and to absolutely enthrall graduate students on the fine points of twentieth century literary theory.  Sounds like a hoot, huh!

However, I didn’t apply.  I couldn’t understand why, but it didn’t feel right.  Maybe it wasn’t the right time.  Maybe it wasn’t the right thing for me to do.  It was also at this time that I started going back to church regularly.  I spoke to my Pastor about this.  I informed her that my deeper passion went beyond literature.  It involved philosophy, which I had studied as an undergraduate, as well as theology, which I had never studied.  I’ll never forget, as long as I live, Rev. Lisa looking at me with a pensive, intuitive gaze — as if she could see right through me — and saying, “I think you need to go to seminary.  I think you’re being called in to the ministry.”

I said, “Really?” but what I wanted to say was, “Are you out of your ever-loving Fantasy Island mind?”  It wasn’t because I had anything against theology.  That was the gap I was looking to fill!  I longed to plunge deep into the Scriptures and learn everything I could about the Jesus I grew-up learning all about in that church.  I can still smell the red Pilgrim Hymnals.  I can.

The problem was I did not feel qualified.  Me?  A minister?  “If Rev. Lisa was hearing the voice of God,” I thought, “then she needs to get her hearing checked.”  She told me to grab a Bible and read Jeremiah’s call narrative.

Jeremiah didn’t think he was worthy either.  Why?  He was too young.  I thought I was, too.  I still pictured ministers as bald, middle-aged men…not some guitar playing, book lovin’ twenty-four-year-old.  What did God say to Jeremiah?  “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy,’ for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.  Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.”  The Old Testament scholar Robert Davidson says it is “as if Jeremiah [is] saying, ‘Look, God, you are making a tragic mistake, you’ve picked the wrong person.’”[1]

I ended up enrolling into the Master of Divinity program at Andover Newton Theological School a year later.  The rest is history, as they say.

None of us are worthy.  None of us are qualified.  We are a broken, ego-driven, greedy species.  Are anyone of us without sin?  Are anyone of us not dragging some memory in tow that we’d rather jettison?  Don’t dignify such stupid questions with an answer.  None of us are worthy.  None of us have the words.  We’re too young to speak regardless of our age.  You’d have to live multiple lifetimes to acquire wisdom that would know enough not to approach the throne of God.

Jeremiah felt the same way.  God gave him the words.  He touched his mouth.  He blessed him.  He said, “Here they are.  Go, speak my Word to the people.”

We are saying goodbye to a new/old friend.  It wasn’t long ago that Maureen Gawron-Copp (or as those who know and love her call her, “Mo”) walked through our doors.  I remember the day, because I thought that she looked an awful lot like someone who used to attend here, Charles Monaghan’s late wife, Pam.  What’s even stranger is that Charles was visiting us that day!  Mo immediately became an integral member of this family.  She fit right in.  She dove right in, actually, and got her hands duty serving this church in numerous ways.  Most of the time it was behind the scenes.  Volunteering at the Senior Suppers.  Attended Bible Study.  Designing our incredible new graphics.  Serving as a Deacon and a liturgist.  This is a woman with many, many talents for ministry.  You will take them with you to South Carolina.  You will find another local church to attend.  It will be a lucky congregation to have you as a member of their family.

But you’re not leaving this family.  This will always be your home.  For years to come, your name will echo through our halls when people say, “Remember that time that Mo said…” or “Remember that time Mo was at the Christmas Fair and…”  Fill in the blanks.  There are many blanks to fill, many memories to share, many stories to tell, and many new memories that you, your husband, and Patch will create together.  Where it is warmer.  Where it is much warmer!

Think of this as a “commissioning.”  We are sending you out into the mission field to bring the love you have felt and brought here to others who need to experience such love.  You might be thinking or feeling, “Me?  I don’t even know where my new spiritual home will be, let alone what I am to say or do when I get there.”  This is what Jeremiah said.  Not to worry.  God will lead you.  He will lead you where you are to go and what you are to say and do when you get there.

Indeed, God leads us all in this glorious ministry.  He said the same thing to his disciples.  They weren’t exactly qualified either, were they?  They were fishermen, not rabbis or bible scholars.  That didn’t matter.  When they needed to speak, Jesus said that he would give them the words to say.  Centuries beforehand, the Lord touched Jeremiah’s mouth to give him the words he needed to speak.  He touches our mouths as well.

Last Sunday, we reflected on 1 Corinthians 12 and how, in this chapter, the Apostle Paul claimed that the Church is comprised of many different members who possess a variety of gifts.  Did Paul say that they all need to go to seminary to get a graduate degree in theology?  Hardly.  But they do need to use their gifts (however grand or insignificant they may think they are) for the upbuilding of the Church.  We are to do the same.

And the Church is more than this congregation.  It stretches far and wide.  Branches of it are found in Canton, in South Carolina, and halfway across the globe.  All of us are called to proclaim the Word and to serve God using the gifts he has given each of us.

J.D. Greear is the Pastor of a mega-church in South Carolina.  We’re not sending you there, Mo, but we will send you with his words: “True religion is when you serve God to get nothing else but more of God.”  Go, my friend, and get more of him.  Amen.

[1] Robert Davidson, Jeremiah, vol. 1(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1983), 12.