Deut. 18:15-20; Mark 1:21-28
Rev. Laura J. Collins
February 2, 2003
Two weeks ago we celebrated the life and words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during our worship. For late 20th century American Christians, Dr. King is probably as close to a prophet as most of us have come. Sometimes people of my own generation decry the lack of prophets in our lifetime -- we were not old enough to hear Dr. King ourselves, so we only have the tradition which has been passed on to us.
Where are the prophets, we wonder? Why doesn't God send them?
In today's readings from the Hebrew Scriptures and the gospel, the people are seeking prophets. They long for someone to come along and lead them, fire them up, show the way. Or so they think. In each text, something is discovered about prophets and about what happens when they come.
In Deuteronomy the people decide they want a prophet because they're afraid that God might actually show up and they're pretty sure they couldn't handle that kind of close encounter. So they say, "Don't come yourself, God. Just send us a prophet." God agrees. "You're right, you can't handle seeing me for yourself. OK, a prophet is what you'll get."
Then we hear two important things about a prophet: first, the prophet will come from among the people and second, once the prophet comes, the people will be held accountable to heed the words the prophet speaks. Not only to hear, but to heed. To do what the prophet says. If we don't know, we can claim ignorance, but once the prophet speaks, the responsibility lies with us. So maybe we don't really want a prophet after all.
I think this is why we look around so often and say, "Where are the prophets for this generation?" Because once we admit that someone is a prophet, then we have to fall in line with what they say. So we listen to everyone skeptically, we look for their weak spots, we challenge their credentials, we doubt their authority. It's easier to find fault than to hear words that require response.
God says the prophet will be like Moses and come from among the people. Now Moses has a good reputation these days, but let's not forget that when the bush started to burn, Moses was watching sheep and lying low, because he was wanted for murder. Besides which, he stuttered. He probably wasn't what we might expect today. A prophet should be someone with a stellar reputation and the ability to speak with flair, right?
Maybe not. A prophet comes from among the people. A prophet is one of us. A prophet is someone we know. Someone whose trustworthiness is based in our relationship with them.
This past Tuesday, at the meeting of the National Capitol Presbytery, the moderator for the Presbyterian General Assembly preached. Now for those of you unfamiliar with Presbyterian politics, we joke that the moderator is our Pope. But really, the moderator is a person elected for a one-year term to provide a voice of national leadership for our denomination. And Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, a Palestinian American, is our current leader.
Rev. Abu-Akel is not a great orator. He has neither the voice, the style nor the poetry of a top-notch preacher. But he has something more important: authenticity. He spoke clearly and directly about the importance of our faith and particularly of forgiveness. As he told the story of his own family being driven from their home by the Israelis in the 1948 war and later leaving the refugee camp to which he and his siblings had escaped and seeing the demolished villages all around him, he spoke with neither bitterness nor hatred. He spoke, rather, with passion and a sadness that is still fresh. So when he calls for forgiveness among enemies in the Middle East and forgiveness among bickering parties in our own denomination, it is clear that his call is not shallow or easy. It is the call of a prophet.
When Jesus spoke in the synagogue in Capernaum, the people were amazed because he taught "as one with authority." But he was just a guy from down the road. How could this be? His authority was not based in education or wealth or career or any other form of status. His authority came from within. And the people could see it and hear it. It was authentic and they knew it.
Now in Deuteronomy, God warns us that once we get a prophet, we become accountable. In the gospel story, something similar happens. Once Jesus speaks, the unclean spirits in the area get upset. "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?" The spirits recognize at once that the authority of truth has the ability to shatter the power of lies. What is pure can illuminate what is filthy. What is real can crush what is illusion.
As the unclean spirit left the man in the story, we are told that it "convulsed him" and came out "with a loud cry." The lies don't let go easily. Disillusionment can be painful. This may be why the prophets are hard to hear.
There is a guy in a very small town in upstate New York who teaches Sunday School in the local Methodist Church. He also wrote a book a few years back called The End of Nature.(1) In it he warned of the impacts of global warming on our world in the years to come. This was before Kyoto,(2) before the most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,(3) before most of us were ready to hear the alarming news of climate change.
On January 7, 2003, on the front page of the Washington Post, the warnings of that book made headlines. The famines in Africa are increasing and an already subsistence-level farming economy is becoming desperate. According to the Post, "nearly 40 million ... Africans at risk of starvation may be among the first human victims of global climate change."(4)
If we had heeded earlier prophets this might not come as a surprise to us. Bill McKibben, that Methodist Sunday School teacher and writer, tried to tell us. Did we want to hear him?
So what do we hear about prophets from these texts? They are from among us, they speak with an inner authority not determined by external standing. And once they come we are accountable to them and whatever is unclean will be exposed.
The question, I think, isn't, "Why aren't there any prophets?" The question is more likely, who of these people around me are the prophets? Am I ready to listen? Do I recognize the truth when I hear it? Do I even want to?
And maybe the question for each of us is also: am I one of the prophets?
Jesus spoke as one with authority. And then he died as a criminal. But before he died, he took bread and broke it and blessed it and said, "The truth that you see in my body will be broken, but it will not be destroyed. It will be broken, like bread, so that it can be shared. See I am giving it to you. Take, eat, accept your authority."
(1) McKibben, Bill. The End of Nature. (Back to text)
(2) Kyoto Protocol, an international plan to reduce CO2 emissions below their 1990 levels. T he Protocol will go into effect 90 days after ratification by 55 countries. This ratification is expected to take place sometime in the next few months when Russia signs on.(Back to text)
(3) The IPPC is a body of approximately 2000 scientists and economist who advise the UN on climate change and who, in early 2001, released a report confirming the urgency of reducing CO2 emissions to nearly zero in order to stabilize the climate and avoid ecological disaster. (Back to text)
(4) Washington Post. "Bizarre Weather Ravages Africans' Crops." January 7, 2003, A1. (Back to text)
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