To Be Prophets

Rev. Tom Lenhart
Sermon January 28, 2007
“To Be Prophets”
Jeremiah 1:4-10, 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13, Luke 4: 21-30

The lectionary today gives us three of the more familiar passages we encounter on our three-year Sunday cycle through the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The first from the book of Jeremiah is God’s famous call God to a very reluctant Jeremiah. It contains the poignant statement of God that “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you: appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1: 5) The second lesson from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is the famous chapter on love that is a staple of weddings. (1 Corinthians 13: 1-13) And the final one is the passage from Luke in which we learn that Jesus is a not simply the Messiah – one chosen by God -- but a prophetic messiah come to preach the “good news” to the poor and to proclaim the release of the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind, but who as a prophet will have no acceptance – no honor -- in his home town or in his own country. (Luke 4: 21 –30) You might ask what do these passages have in common. Quite evidently the Jeremiah passage and the Lucan passage relate to prophets and prophecy. But I also believe that Paul’s tribute to love in First Corinthians bears on the question of prophecy and prophets.

What is a prophet? Or perhaps better what is prophesying? From Jeremiah we learn that prophecy is not our words but God’s words. It is that moment of incandescence when God speaks to his creation through a human being. If you go to Webster’s Seventh Collegiate Dictionary and I suspect to any modern dictionary you will find that the synonym for the word “prophecy” is the word “prediction.” So often when we think of prophets we think of fortunetellers and the like, who by looking at ashes or tea leaves or the stars predict the future. To be sure there are in the words of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible from Isaiah and Jeremiah to Amos statements about what is to happen in the future to the Israelites. But the crux of the words of the prophets relate to the present time. Jeremiah rails against the corruption of the faith of the Israelites by the worship of other Gods and by the cult of the Temple priests who elevated ritual over substance – over obedience to the Mosaic Commandments. (Jeremiah 7: 1-15) Jeremiah’s words are fundamentally about the divergence between the reality of the times and God’s will for the people. Jeremiah and other prophets repeatedly talk about how the people have broken their covenant with God. Yes, he predicts the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the chosen people as a result of their waywardness and sinfulness but it is usually conditional on the continued violations of the commandments and covenant. The focus of these prophetic words is on the present time. Prophecy is the cry of a divinely inspired conscience addressed to the present. It identifies the future consequences but most assuredly it is focused on the present and the hope that those to whom it is addressed will heed the prophetic injunctions before it is too late. Phil Washburn, the minister at he Scarsdale church has characterized the prophetic tradition as “God’s ‘no’ to the way ‘we the people’ are believing and behaving.” And that “no” is -- as well – often coupled with a woe -- namely, that the present conduct left unchanged will lead to a terrible consequence, whether it be the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the people or domination by a foreign power.[1] As we know the list of woes suffered by the Israelites was long and most were predicted by those lone and often ignored voices of the prophets.

And so the message of our Luke passage -- that a prophet is not without acceptance or honor in his own country -- should not come as such a surprise. Who really wants to hear the divine "nos" and woes! The story of Jesus' return home that Luke describes occurs in various forms in all four gospels. There is, therefore, a high probability that after preaching to others Jesus was actually rejected by his own people, indeed by his neighbors. Jesus had been in Galilee preaching and healing and then returned home. As a devout Jew he went to the synagogue and was given the privilege to read from and interpret scripture. He chose Isaiah’s prophesy about the one who is to come and to proclaim the good news for the poor and to do good works for the oppressed.

Audaciously, he then proclaims that he is the fulfillment of that very prophecy. The reaction of the people is interesting. “Aren’t you Joseph’s son,” they ask? To some that may simply be a way of suggesting, “Come on we know who you really are;” while for others it may be more a question of uncertainty that seeks proof – “how can that be? Show us --do those miracles here. We are your people, you owe us; we have a special connection with you.” Whatever the sentiments of his neighbors, they cannot accept the answer they get from Jesus. For you see what he says is that his teaching and life are not for them alone, but for all. Jesus reminds them that just as the prophets of old, Elijah and Elisha, saved lepers and non-Jews so too have and will he preach salvation to the gentiles in Galilee. This message of Jesus was of “good news” for all and that message could not be accepted in his hometown by his neighbors. His resounding “no” to their parochialism garnered him nothing but ill will. Indeed, if you think about it – that is the story of his life – the story of his journey that leads to Jerusalem-- that his words -- often “nos” – some times gentle sometimes not -- to slavish obedience to religious rules and ritual, to exclusion of those who were different -- were to be rejected by the authorities whose institutions and practices were challenged by such words. Like the prophets of the Hebrew Bible there was no honor for him in his home country.

You may be asking what has any of this to do with us. I am quite certain that I am not a prophet and I suspect that each of you would disclaim that prophetic role or calling. But the reality is that we are part of a church that is called by faith to speak God’s words and to do God’s will -- in other words to be prophetic. We are here because of the prophets of old who through their words -- re-centered the compasses of the churches of the past. And yes, we as the church have at times been prophetic -- speaking out against religious intolerance, slavery, child labor, and segregation to name a few. And so I think there are in these scriptural passages points worth thinking about today on this annual meeting Sunday. It is a good time to reflect on who we are as a church and begin to chart a course for the coming year.

First, as a church called to be prophetic, we must be concerned about the here and now. We are, of course, indebted to and the product of those who have come before --to those who have given us this building, financial resources and wonderful traditions that we value and cherish. But to be truly prophetic we must look at the present and not live in our past. And that look must be hard and realistic. Are we living out the message of our faith both in the church and in our world? Are we spreading the good news to all, including the poor? Moreover, a prophetic church does not linger in dreams of the future that have no grounding in the presence. Such living in the future was once described to me as buildings sand castles in the air. Not much permanence or substance there. As both Jeremiah and Luke remind us – much of what the prophetic church must do is to say “no.” Thus, it is that we are challenged to say “no’ to racism and genocide and destruction of our environment. God through Christ has suggested in our Luke passage that we have a special obligation to champion those who cannot champion themselves – whether it is the poor, the oppressed, or the undereducated. When we see those conditions our prophetic obligation is to say no loudly and to follow up with thoughtful action. That, of course, is not to be confused with having a political agenda. Jim Wallis, the progressive evangelical, an interesting combination – has said, God is neither a Republican nor a Democrat and that is certainly the case.

Such prophetic actions may not make us always popular in the moment. “Prophets are not without honor except in their own country.” Moreover, we must not let current or popular mores and values dictate what we do. At times we as the church will have to take positions that are not shared by all around us. Indeed, there may be times when we must challenge the status quo.

Sounds simple but there is one big challenge. How do we separate true prophesy from false prophesy? Jeremiah said,

Jeremiah’s test seems to be that false prophets are too gentle – too supportive of the status quo – that true prophets are harder. They say “no” more than they “yes.” I have no doubt that that is true but I must say I don’t find it helpful in truly sorting out what I or the church as a whole should do. Yes, we must be courageous and prepared to say “no” and be unpopular at times but it doesn’t advance the ball much for me. In Deuteronomy Moses suggests this test,

This Mosaic standard for identifying true from false prophesies also doesn’t offer much help. If it turns out to be true it was true prophecy, and if it doesn’t, it was false. This hindsight test strikes me as about as useful as the test used to identify witches in Salem, Massachusetts. As you may know those suspected of witchcraft were tossed into a local river. If they floated, they were witches; if they sank to the bottom and drowned, they were not. I never thought the community or the alleged witch learned much from this test. Perhaps, we need a “prophecy o meter” that points right when we are true prophets and left when we are false ones. (Or vice versa depending on your political leanings). Unfortunately I’ve yet to find one.

But we are not left entirely to guess how to act as the prophetic church. Interestingly, I think the passage from Corinthians on love supplies a reference point. “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” (1 Corinthians 13: 2) I would paraphrase Paul to say that true prophecy is characterized by being propelled by love while false prophesy is motivated by other concerns. Love is a word that is forced to carry much in our language. In other languages there are often multiple words for love, as in Latin with Eros, caritas and agape, among others. The German Philosopher Josef Pieper has noted that under girding each aspect of love -- is the assertion that it is wonderful that another exists -- whether it be caritas -- loving charity, Eros --passion for one’s beloved or agape --God’s love for the world.[2] In other words love presupposes a relationship of a lover and a loved one – true love is never a soliloquy. The theologian H. Richard Niebuhr said of love

We mean [by love] at least these attitudes an actions; rejoicing in the presence of the beloved, gratitude, reverence and loyalty to her [or him].[3]

It is not principally about self, though an individual is enriched by loving as well as being loved. Love takes us out of ourselves to others. It is inclusive not exclusive. An old friend who died recently said this about love:

As a church formed in the prophetic tradition we are challenged to speak out and to be the conscience of our times. But in engaging in that awesome task we must always ask whether what we prophesy embodies love. Is it motivated by that assertion that it is wonderful that others exist? Does it acknowledge our brotherhood and sisterhood with all of God’s creation? Does it demand that people be released from those things -- such as hunger, scarcity, lack of education, and violence among others --that keep them from being the best they can be. Before you say but life is more complicated than that. It’s not so easy to know what is right – the choices are more nuanced. Let me first agree life is complicated. It may be that we can do no more than point out the problems and leave to other institutions the details of the policy solutions. But I do think some “no’s” are easy – for example, genocide wherever it takes place and whom ever is involved violates our faith’s commandment to love our neighbors, even our enemies. Yesterday was the 61^st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The German churches failed to say no. Let it never be so for us.

It is also true that the issues are not always clear or without cautionary aspects. But love is not naïve. True love can be hard. As Pieper reminds us love is “not synonymous with undifferentiated approval of everything the beloved person thinks and does in real life.”[5] Indeed, in affirming the wonderfulness of another’s existence, we are affirming not simply whom they are but whom they can be if truly in God’s image. As every parent knows there are times when we do not accept certain behavior from our beloved children. We criticize and correct not for our sakes but for theirs. Prophecy too can never be uncritical of the beloved for to do so is to not truly love the other.

Being the prophetic church is not easy and we will not get it right always. But so long as we are a church that seeks to act out of love we will not be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Amen

[1] From a sermon preached by Phillip Washburn at the Scarsdale Congregational Church on November 4, 2006

[2] Josef Pieper, Faith Hope Love, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1997) p.173

[3] Robert Luccock, On Becoming the Best We Can Be, Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1991) p. 141

[4] On Becoming the Best We Can Be, p. 139

[5] Faith Hope Love, 187