Before I begin today, I just wanted to let
you know that Liturgy & Worship will likely be calling us to celebrate
Alleluia Saturday next year. Now, stop
groaning. I think you will all enjoy
this liturgy. I’ve only really spoken to
Christian, who heads the committee, but he was all in after hearing about
it. Knowing everybody else on the
committee, I think passage will likely be unanimous. What is Alleluia Saturday, you ask? It would have been yesterday, as today marks
Septuagesima. That’s fancy speak for
saying 70 days. In the practices earlier
Church, the next three weeks were their own season where we were called
seriously to examine ourselves in preparation for Lent. The season started 70 days before
Easter. A by-product of this season,
though, is what excited me and then Christian.
Alleluia Saturday was the day that the Church banished the Alleluias
from worship until Easter. This, of
course, was done by whipping a choir boy out of the church. From the laughter, I can tell y’all think you
know where this is going.
Upon reading about this sacred tradition
now, for inexplicable reasons, lost to the Church, I thought Jim would be a
great choir boy. He was all in at first
when I asked him about serving in that role; heck, he’d done a solo a couple
weeks ago. Then I shared the
liturgy. Jim was then quick to nominate
Robbie. It made more sense to him that I
would want to whip one of my own kids out of the church. I had to remind Jim that Robbie was a lot
faster than me and him. I thought the
comedy of Jim running, me chasing his with a whip, the occasional pause for
breath by one or both of us, might make the liturgy memorable for those present. Heck, maybe we could tie giving to the number
of whips I got in, thereby inspiring him to run slowly. Christian naturally agreed, but allowed the
rest of the committee would need to be consulted. I think we’ve all settled on Robert as a good
compromise. You can see by his face he
was not yet consulted. The thought was
that DHS would assume people were speaking about my son when they reported the
priest for beating Robert, but that Robert would be only a step or three faster
than Jim! So maybe next year, guys!
I must confess a certain desire on my part
to preach on Mark‘s Gospel today and the demonic. I suppose my personal big spiritual wedgie in
this area was a number of years ago—when my nicely ordered western brain had to
come to grips with the reality of supernatural evil. And, truth be told, there is a lingering
fascination on the subject both with Adventers and those around us, and we do
have a few mystically attuned individuals among us. But I really felt called to preach on
Deuteronomy rather Mark. As I said, Mark
felt more personal preference, so I went with our Old Testament reading this
week. So, if you want to follow along,
turn to Deuteronomy 18:15-20.
This is not rhetorical, I really want
answers. Who do you consider to be
prophets during your lifetime? I’m
waiting. Billy Graham. Good.
Anybody want to argue about him?
Any other prophets during the course of your life? Martin Luther King, Jr. Certainly!
Any others? Mother Theresa. Hmm.
I’d have to say yes to that, I think.
She changed the way a caste of women viewed themselves simply by serving
and loving them. I know she impacted
others in India with her service, but I think her real ministry was with those
girls. Any others?
Some wondered at the early service why I
did not ask us to name false prophets.
In truth, that was the easier question, was it not? We’d be here for days citing televangelists,
prosperity gospellers, scam healers, and political sycophants with theology
degrees were I to ask that question. No,
I wanted us to think for a moment about prophets. Are they common? Do we still need them? Does God still send them? In many ways, our questions are like those of
ancient Israel.
A bit of stage needs to be set. To take you back in history, we are at the
point in Israel’s history where they are about to cross over the river Jordan
into the Promised Land. Those of us who
grew up on Charleton Heston’s Ten Commandments know this scene fairly
well. Moses is about to give his mantle
of leadership to Joshua because Moses is not allowed to journey into the
Promised Land. Moses has disobeyed God,
and God was not buying his excuse “those people You gave me made me do
it.” The first set of the torah was
destroyed by Moses when he came down the holy mountain and found the people of
Israel in an orgy of sin. The people of
Israel have, as a result, spent their time in the wilderness dying off. Now, as the name suggests, Moses is giving
Israel “the law” a second time before he departs the scene.
Imagine the anxiety that Israel must have
felt on the banks of the Jordan that second time. First of all, any students of human nature
had to be worried some idiots might infuriate God again. Can you imagine your worry that, at the banks
again, someone or something would cause your brothers and sisters once again
not to trust God? There had to be a bit
of worry floating around in the camp. I’m
sure I would have threatened my neighbors with a punch in the kisser if they
forced me to wander in the wilderness any more by angering God. Plus, Moses will not be journeying with
you. For the entirety of your life,
Moses has spoken God’s word to you.
Whenever something needed to be done or said, Moses was there to tell
you what God wanted accomplished.
Whenever catastrophe befell the people, Moses was there to remind you
that God was redeeming you. Whenever
enemies attack the camp, Moses was there to remind you that God was fighting on
your behalf. Now, Moses was leaving. Was God?
Now you get a sense of the angst that would have been added to the excitement
and worry of heading into the Promised Land, the Land that was promised to
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob so long ago!
No wonder the people needed God and the comforting thought of Him
leading them.
So, will God still go with them? Or does this fulfilment of His promise mean
the relationship is at an end? Will God
raise up another to speak for Him, or will He now go silent? After all, Israel has certainly given God
many reasons to abandon them.
In many ways, we are like those in Ancient
Israel. Does God still speak to us? Does God still raise up prophets? I mean, we have the Bible and we have the
work and person of Jesus Christ, His Anointed.
Do we really need anything else?
Prophets, in case you have forgotten or
were never taught, were an interesting group of people. I know some modern denominations, like our
own, speak loosely of priests serving the roles of priests, pastors, and
prophets. Those of us in clergy are
often uncomfortable with the role. By
nature we are people pleasers. Nothing
is harder for people pleasers than telling other people they are not pleasing
God. But that was often the role of a
prophet in Israel. They called all the
people back into a right relationship with God, signifying that things were
going wrong.
Prophets were not political, at least in
the sense you and I understand the term.
Prophets were not really part of the king’s court or administrative
system. Now, when the king failed in his
duties to lead the people in the worship and study of God, prophets were to be
obeyed by the king. Think of that for a
second. We all joke about how good it is
to be the king, yet Israel’s king was required by God to listen to the prophet
and obey. In some ways, I suppose, we can
think of prophets as serving as God-inspired vetoes or corrections.
Usually, prophets were not those charged
with leading worship. That
responsibility fell to the priests and elders.
From time to time a priest or elder would be called by God to be a
prophet, think of Samuel a couple weeks ago, but those were the exceptions
rather than the rule. It may seem a
minor thing to you, but consider . . . imagine you have come into my office to
ask about something in your life. I give
you the answer you do not want to hear, but you know it’s the right answer, the
answer that calls upon you to trust God rather than whatever idol you are
considering. What’s our relationship
like then? Typically, you are mad at me
for telling you that you need to change your behavior. I feel bad because I know I have just
criticized you. It does not matter how
fair the criticism, our relationship is strained.
But I have the advantage of being the
sacramentalist at Church of the Advent.
If we are to worship God here with the Eucharist properly, I have to
lead it. During that worship we are
called to confess our sins and to be at love and charity before we consume the
Blood and Body of our Lord. Whatever
strains exist prior to that celebration of the Eucharist must be addressed
before we take communion, else we heap condemnation on ourselves. I must reflect whether my instruction was
loving; you must reflect whether my instruction was in line with God’s
instruction. Ideally, one of us
recognizes that we are in error and truly repents and makes peace. Prophets in Ancient Israel had no such
opportunity to be reconciled. Heck, for
their prophesies and judgements, they were often run out of town, threatened
with physical violence, imprisoned, or in any number of other ways cut off from
the people to whom they were called to speak.
Many of our struggles that we have with
respect to prophets are no different than those experienced by Israel, as our
passage today demonstrates. In the
Episcopal church, and in other denominations, we have processes in place which
are designed to help us transition from one clergy to another. Often these transitions, though, are anything
but smooth. Ever heard of a failed
call? What happens when a search process
drags on? We begin to wonder if
something is wrong with us, or we begin to think something is wrong with those
clergy? Does God know our
struggles? Has God abandoned us? And to be fair, those of us on this side of
that experience have the same emotions when we are not called to a church that
we really think could benefit from our guidance, to one to which we believed we
are called. You and I, of course, have
the promises of God’s fulfillment in our Savior Christ. Because of that perspective, we should never
doubt His love and care and concern for us.
Still, we worry; still, we doubt.
In our story today, Israel was just getting the torah for the second
time. Can you imagine their worries and
fears? And let’s not forget, the last
time mom and dad were here, things did not go very well.
Moses’ sermon also carries a word of
warning to the people. Moses reminds the
people of their history, of their desire to have a prophet among them. God, in typical God fashion, gave the people
what they wanted. Have the people always
listened to Moses even though they knew, absolutely knew, that he spoke with
the voice and authority of God? No. The people have ignored Moses and God, the
people have railed against Moses and God, and the people have complained
bitterly about the leadership of Moses and God.
Yet here is Moses and God reminding the people and us that anyone who
does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in His name, He will hold
accountable. Because Moses and others
have been among them, the people of Israel can never claim they did not know. When Israel rejects God and His teachings,
when Israel chases after the Ba’als in the generations to come, it will be
their conscious sin. There will be no
“We/I did not know.” The same judgment,
of course, applies to us. When we fail
to love God with everything and when we fail to love our neighbor as ourselves,
we have no excuse. God holds us
accountable. Thankfully, that punishment
has been born by our Lord Christ, but He bore it for us.
God, though, reminds would-be prophets of
the seriousness of His call. If a
prophet who speaks in the name of another god claims to speak in His name or if
a prophet of His speaks a word He has not given the prophet, that prophet shall
die. A modest section of Deuteronomy is
given over to this question of discernment regarding prophets. If a community discerned that someone was not
a prophet, the words of that individual were to be ignored and the individual
was to be put to death. Looking back on
it, we may think that a harsh punishment.
But can you imagine living in a time and place where people would
pretend to be God’s appointed leaders and try to lead His people astray? How can we ever relate to that context? Why are you all laughing?
Lest we think this is something for that
day and age, what does Jesus say to us who claim to be leaders in His Church if
we cause others to stumble, to fall away from God? That’s right, I heard a couple
“millstones.” It is better for us that a
millstone be hung around our necks and for us to be cast into the sea than to
intentionally mislead someone. And let’s
be fair, some clergy, some modern prophets make honest mistakes. Jesus’ death covers those honest
mistakes. But there sure seems to me to
be a cacophony of voices who should really be afraid of our Lord’s return, who
should be glad we are not a Christian nation and that they are, thereby,
subject to testing. No doubt some of you
have the same thoughts about me or, if you are visiting, your home clergy. Perhaps now, though, you get an idea of the
wrestling match we face regarding comments on social media, on wading into
“social” issues that are being fought outside our flocks, why some of us seem
to be double-minded. It is a hard thing,
a brave thing, a crazy thing, to stand before someone in God’s name and
proclaim His will, His word, His truth.
If His people won’t listen to us, how well will we be received by those
outside His flocks?
That leads me to one last characteristic
that we often gloss over, but I think is essential to understanding God’s call
of prophets. God’s calls prophets from
among us. Why? Think of the audacity of the claim that mere
human beings can relate the mind or heart of the eternal God. How is that best done? Relationally.
Moses bore the wanderings in the desert just like the people. Yet, on top of those pains, he bore the pangs
of leadership. How was he ever going to
save Israel from Egypt? How was he ever
going to water them? How was he ever
going to feed them? How was he ever going
to teach them the heart and mind of God?
Heck, the impossibility of his task was made obvious while he was on the
Holy Mountain receiving the torah for the first time. The people had witnessed all these miracles,
they knew Moses was on the hill getting God’s instructions of what life in full
communion with a holy, righteous God looked like, and still they could not
wait. Eventually, they began to sin
boldly even as Moses was retrieving that for what they asked! But the relationship between prophet and
people allows the prophet both to intercede with God on behalf of the people—he
or she really knows their needs and desires and fears and so on—and to relate
God’s instruction in a language that they can understand.
This last point is important but often
ignored. Every group of God’s people has
its own language, its own culture. You
and I are Episcopalians, we are Anglicans.
Those of us who travel know the claim that our churches are very similar
all over the world. But they are only
similar; they are not exact duplicates.
The music may differ, the preaching style or length may differ, the
order of worship may be jumbled. Think
on it this way, if I remind you all today that we have a chili cook off before
the big idol feast next weekend, how do you hear that? Most of you know I played a lot of
football. Most of you know I like to
watch football when I can. Several of
you know that I’m not as invested in the game next week because God’s team, the
Steelers, are not playing. See, you are
laughing. What if you were from North
Korea? What if you were from South
America or Africa and had spent no time among us? Is there an edge to what I am saying? Of course.
Americans set their schedules around the NFL much like people did false
idols in the ANE. Is the NFL part of
spiritual warfare in this country? I
think so. Do I really believe the NFL is
a Ba’al, no? I do think our love of
gladiatorial style games is used by the Enemy of God to tempt us to forget our
priorities, though. How many of us skip
church when the Titans play? Ouch! I know, there’s that prophet thing again,
calling us to assess our priorities. Our
relationship, though, allows us to have difficult conversations. If you come into my office making sure its ok
to blow off God because you have tickets or because the game is important, what
will be my answer? See, you know me well
enough to joke that such activity is only forgivable when they play the
Steelers. In all seriousness, though,
when I tell you that worship, giving thanks to God, should be primary in your
life in such conversations, am I being a jerk, mean, a football hater? Of course not, I’m trying to help you in your
relationship with God.
I also understand the difficult
relationship with have with this reading.
While we as part of God’s Body will worry whether He is paying attention
or directing us, we will chafe a good bit at His instruction. Validation or vindication becomes very
important to us, whether we are “in the pews” or “in the pulpit.” Much of what we talk about we cannot know for
sure, based on our own experiences, until after our death. In a culture that tolerates God, we recognize
that false prophets may not have to give an accounting until they face the
Lord. We recognize that those wolves in
sheep’s clothing will prey, literally prey, on the weakest. They will use the fears and hurts and desires
of those suffering the most to squeeze out of them their last dollar, their last
bit of confidence that they are loved by God, their last bit of imago dei. How does a body, claiming a correct
relationship with God, function in such an environment? Can we only be satisfied that God will, in
the end, glorify those who trusted in Him and punish those who clearly despised
Him? Must we accept that God is content
to let people dishonor Him for now, knowing that one day in the future, all
will acknowledge Him and His?
The answer, of course, is no and yes. On the one hand, you and I have an
obligation, as members of this mystical Body, to help our other members of the
Body to discern. When we hear false
teaching, when we hear false prophesying, we have an obligation to speak
against it. We do so not because we are
correct and the false ones are wrong, but because we do not want to see other
parts of the Body stumble. We don’t want
the enemies of God to convince those of a weaker faith that their salvation is
in any way dependent upon their own efforts to give or upon who it is they
follow, save Jesus Christ.
But it’s that pattern of life of Jesus
Christ that reminds us that we do not need to be too concerned with what others
say and “do” to God. He will be
vindicated. He will take care of Himself
and all those who place their trust in others.
So, while we work in our own lives to see Him glorified, and repent when
we fail, we recognize that God is sufficient unto Himself. Jesus lived a life of a prophet, calling the
people of Israel and the rest of the world back into right relationship with
God. In fact, Jesus lived a life in
accordance with the teachings in this book!
What did He get for His efforts? Honor? Glory?
Vindication? No. Humiliation.
Torture. Death. But even though it appeared for a time that
the enemies of God had won, still God was not finished! He raised Jesus from the dead that Easter
morning teaching us that we who share in that Resurrection will one day be
vindicated and glorified in our Lord!
Brothers and sisters, I have spent more
time on prophets this last week than I could ever imagine a couple weeks ago. But it seems to have been timely given events
in the wider world and my conversations with some of you over events in the
news. As God would have it, Holly will
be installed as rector at St. Paul’s this Thursday, with a great reading from
Numbers a part of the service. There,
Moses complains to God that he is not sufficient to the task that God has given
him, that he lacks so much of what needed to lead God’s people. God famously gives some of His spirit to
other elders within the camp, that they might share in the burden of
leadership. When that Spirit falls on a
couple men not at the Tent of Meeting, Joshua is concerned that they should not
be prophesying, that Moses should put an end to it. Moses rebukes Joshua’s concern for his honor
and laments famously “Would that everyone was a prophet of God!” You and I live in a time that Moses, and all
Israel should have, longed to see. By
virtue of our baptism into Christ’s death and Resurrection, you and I are
promised a share in the Holy Spirit. When
needed, you and I have access to that Spirit for discernment, for serving, and
for being led into all truth. In many
ways, as shadowily as we see things now, we are in much better position than our
Old Testament brothers and sisters who came before. We have that perfect example of living in
full communion with God in the Incarnation.
We have the reminder in His death that the world rejects its Lord and
Creator. And we have the Resurrection
and Ascension of our Lord that signal of power that God can keep every promise
He has made to us. One of those promises
was that there will always be a prophet from among us. It might not be the guy or gal in a robe, it
might not be the Vestry member, it might come from places unexpected. But God will always call His people back to
Him. More amazingly, sometimes He will
ask of us that we be the prophets in the lives of others!
In
Christ’s Peace,
Brian†
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