Poetry and 13-year-olds. Not a very likely combination.

Thirteen-year-olds and pizza, yes. And hip-hop, yes. And Abercrombie and Fitch, video games, Blink-182, MTV and PlayStation 2 -- yes.

But poetry? Don't think so.

Adolescents know about it. They see it in books. They know it is boring. And they know that there is no way that they are ever gonna write any.

Not until someone like Miss Gayle comes along, that is. Miss Gayle's an earthy, soulful, "gutbucket from the South" -- a woman who puts feelings into words and makes words into music.

Miss Gayle showed up one Monday afternoon in the spare room at the back of Annapolis Middle School. She started talking about her mother, Pearl. Started almost singing a sad, sad poem about her mother, and her mother's death. By the time she finished, every kid in the room, including the toughest of the boys, was crying. One of them, 11-year-old Deonte Ward, was crying so hard he had tears dripping off his elbow.

Miss Gayle showed them, said 13-year-old Deondre Richardson, that "using words is power."

Next thing, the kids were writing poems. Sitting for two hours straight and writing. And they weren't just writing. They were rewriting. Adding flavor. Cutting the fat. And practicing their performances. And then they slammed their poems, right along with Miss Gayle Danley, the 35-year-old national poetry slam champion. (Darragh Johnson, "Empowering young poets," The Washington Post, December 30, 2000, B1)

A "slam" is an open competition for poets, created by Marc Smith and designed to bring poetry back to the people. At every slam, poets have three minutes to read or perform an original creation. Five judges who have been randomly selected from the audience score each of the poets on a scale of 1 to 10, considering both the performance and the craft of the poem. Cash prizes are awarded when the top three poets at the end of the slam are given permission to pass a hat. The one with the most money in the hat wins the Audience Prize.

Of course, money is not the point -- especially when prizes top out at a mere $40. What matters is touching human hearts, and showing that words have power.

Here's a sample slam, by a boy, about an aunt who drank too much and died too young -- a poem called "She Always Kept It Real":

She took it too far To the limit Until the inside of her body shut down One moment she was looking around and talking to us One hour later the hospital called us and said we should get down there quick The day was Nov. 2, 2000 The funeral. My younger brother was crying so much you would have thought he had made a puddle ... I am still sad I could tell her anything ... She always kept it real.

Such words have power. They touch our hearts and move us to a new place. And if this is true in a visual and electronic culture such as ours, consider how true it must have been in an oral culture such as Jeremiah's.

When Jeremiah resists the call of God, it is not because he doesn't understand the power of words -- it is precisely because he does that he demurs. Like one of the youths in Miss Gayle's class, he argues that he is too young to use words with power.

God's call itself came in the form of a poetry slam:

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations (1:5 NIV).

After Jeremiah protests, God promises to put his words in Jeremiah's mouth, and the case is closed. Jeremiah will function as a prophet to Judah and throw a few Scripture slams of his own throughout his illustrious career.

Jeremiah is not so much different from us. God says that he "formed" Jeremiah, he "set him apart," and he "appointed" him. Formed, set apart and appointed. It's true of every one of us.

That means we are equipped for every challenge or opportunity God throws at us. And while we work with icons and pictures, music and video, and fascinating media technologies, there are some jobs for which words, words that we trust God will put in our mouths, are the preferred media.

We need words to execute forgiveness, or make a confession, for example. Fine wine and roses help, to be sure, but nothing makes up for: "I was wrong; will you forgive me?" David's slam goes like this:
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; According to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.

We need words to express comfort to the grieving.

We need words to nurture relationships.

We need words to witness to the core tenets of our faith.

We need words to participate in redemptive confrontation.

We need words to make promises and commitments.

So immersed in an electronic culture are we, that we're afraid to use words in any context that goes beyond the mere sharing of information. Words that express intuition or have emotional impact are increasingly difficult to utter.

Jeremiah was extremely uncomfortable with his prophet role. He didn't see himself as someone, especially at his age when God called him, who could confront sinners in their sin. Surprising, then, to hear him throwing some slams of his own in his new prophetic role:

You are a swift she-camel running here and there, A wild donkey accustomed to the desert, Sniffing the wind in her craving, In her heat, who can restrain her (2:23-24).

Or this,

Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem, Look around and consider, search through her squares. If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city (5:1).

Or this,

Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know (33:3).

God reminds us in this text that we weren't formed, set apart and appointed to be speechless, word-less Christians who excel in nonverbal communication. God prizes the power of the word. Jesus himself came to us as the Word of God. Scripture is full of proverbial wisdom about the value and power of words. "The word spoken in due season, how sweet it is." The apostle counsels, "Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone" (Colossians 4:6).

Jeremiah thought himself too young to play with God's word.

He wasn't. And neither are we.

Nor are we too old. In fact there is no excuse for not using the words we need to use when the occasion calls for them.

God set us apart and appointed us for the very moment when we might need to say, "I love you," or "I was wrong," or "God loves you," or "I am here to help," or "What can I do to share and bear your pain."

His words are in our mouths. Let's start slammin'.

Let's now take a moment of silence to allow God's Word to take root in our hearts. Amen.