Spot the Prophets

Yesterday's sermon from the 8.00am Holy Communion service at Wesley City Mission which generated conversation with me afterwards. Possibly because it mentioned the age-old and yet vibrantly live issues of recognising prophetic voices for the days and times in which we live and serve as followers of Jesus. See what you think. 

Recognising Prophets                                                     

Selected readings: Ezekiel 2.1-5   Mark 6.1-6

Opening text: Ezekiel 2.5. Thus says the Lord God - whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.

How will we know if there’s prophet among us? What’s the test? It’s a great question. Even if you think this sermon isn’t up to much, remember it started with a great question! There are prophets predicting my country – England – will win the 2018 world cup. Should I hear or refuse to hear? 

That lighthearted remark is downplaying the role of prophet isn’t it – as merely some sort of predictor of the future. The heart of prophecy isn’t necessarily foretelling. A prophet is – essentially - chosen by God to speak for God.  She or he is a selected and commissioned mouthpiece. Not speaking on their own authority. 2 Peter 1:20–21: “No prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

So two questions:

How shall we know if there’s a prophet among us?

How shall we know whether to listen or refuse to listen?

Let’s allow those questions to be the undercurrents of our thoughts this morning, bubbling below the surface as we spend time with the passages.

Firstly, Ezekiel 2.1-5. How shall we know if Ezekiel is a prophet? How did his original hearers know? He certainly had amazing revelations direct from the Lord. Does that give him enough credibility? Looking back to Chapter 1, we see that the prophet had an extraordinary vision of the splendour of the Lord and fell flat on his face! The language and style and spirit of the very complicated book of Ezekiel is similar to the book of Revelation in parts. In Chapter 1, it involves winged creatures and a crystal dome and a throne made of sapphire and everything was surrounded with fire. Wow! ‘When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of someone speaking’, says the prophet. That someone is God.

How would the people know that Ezekiel was a prophet among them? Well an early reason, presumably, is because God communicated to this person in ways that were powerful and awesome. Signs and wonders. Wow! He sees things we don’t and he can do things we can’t.

There’s something in human nature that makes us drawn to leaders who have special revelations and powers. In Mark’s Gospel, before we get to Chapter 6 which is our reading of today, Jesus has already done wonders. He’s driven out evil spirits, calmed a great storm on Galilee, done miraculous healings – a woman with flow of blood, Jairus’s daughter – and the people say, ‘Where did he get all this – what deeds of power are these?’

So, what are we deducing so far? We’ll know there’s a prophet among us when that person has sufficient special revelations from God and demonstrates sufficient amazing powers. When there’s the ‘wow’ factor. I watched children flying kites very high in the strong breeze on Suva’s seashore the other day and the little ones were gaping at them, open mouthed. WOW!

But if what we’ve mentioned so far is the only test of a prophet, we quickly run into a problem or two. What happens with prophets and prophecy when the wow factor is diminished? When prophets just have to keep slogging on with unpopular message after unpopular message and nothing very dramatic or wonderful happens. Do we still recognise them as God’s prophets? God tells his prophet Ezekiel actually to expect this kind of experience. Clearly it won’t always be angels and thrones and rainbows: it’ll be hard slog. Chosen by God to communicate for God, maybe: but, Prophet, prepare yourself for a rubbish experience.

Read on in Ezekiel and God who’s shown such amazing things to inspire his prophet warns that they won’t listen to him. In Chapter 2.7 - none of the people of Israel will listen to you. They won’t even listen to me, says the Lord.  At the end of Chapter 3 there’s a worrying prediction that Ezekiel, far from being an amazing communicator for God all of the time will lose his powers of speech for a while. ‘I will paralyse your tongue’. Ezekiel has a hugely difficult assignment.  It’s about seven years before the destruction of Jerusalem which had to be destroyed – so we’re given to understand here - because of its sinfulness, described as rebellion and transgression. He has to deliver unpopular message after unpopular message, most of the time with no ‘wow’ factor and no ‘hallelujah’ factor, because he’s not successful! Don’t count easy successes as criteria for deciding who the prophets in our midst are like some of the shiny modern day ‘prophets’ in the gleaming four-wheel drive and the snazzy suit, smiling to camera:  See – look what a successful and profitable preacher or prophet I am! God’s genuine prophet may not feature in the popular headline. He or she might well be ridiculed and laughed at.

Ezekiel 33.30-33 expresses this well and I like the Good News Bible translation. 

³⁰ The Lord said, “Mortal man, your people are talking about you when they meet by the city walls or in the doorways of their houses. They say to one another, ‘Let's go and hear what word has come from the Lord now.’ ³¹ So my people crowd in to hear what you have to say, but they don't do what you tell them to do. Loving words are on their lips, but they continue their greedy ways. ³² To them you are nothing more than an entertainer singing love songs or playing a harp. They listen to all your words and don't obey a single one of them. ³³ But when all your words come true—and they will come true—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.”

So that question again? How shall we know if there’s a prophet among us? Because the prophet himself or herself is outwardly very successful and everyone goes ‘Wow!’ No. Rather because God’s words through God’s mouthpiece come true, and everyone says, ‘Wow - I wish we’d listened’. Truth will be a major test.

Let’s go back to Jesus now, as presented to us in Mark’s Gospel.  Jesus: God’s most authentic mouthpiece. Jesus: God’s top prophet. In Mark 6. 1-6; at first it’s like the people are full of that ‘Wow – isn’t he amazing?’ factor. Many who heard him were astounded. That’s the NRSV translation. They said, ‘Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands!

But there’s a huge difference between being astounded and being persuaded. Between saying: this is amazing – and being convinced that this is true. They are astounded that he comes from Nazareth, that he’s the local carpenter,  that they know his biological family, his village and his relatives. And they were persuaded by him? Convinced by him? Not likely. They took offence at him. They were not persuaded that God’s words were in his mouth and God’s works were in his hands. Where’s the ‘wow’ factor disappeared to now? Only offence remains.

How shall we know if there’s a prophet among us? Another answer worth considering - that a genuine prophet of God may cause offence.

See the people surrounding Jesus in Mark 6.1-6 falling into a dangerous trap. A true prophet will come from the place we approve of and have the family background we approve of. It won’t be Nazareth, that’s for sure!  And God – surely – is much more likely to speak through one of our high powered lawyers or one of our highly learned Pharisees than through a common labourer: a carpenter with dirt under his nails and sawdust on his feet.

Think about that same trap for our times in the churches of Fiji and the Pacific. We have our theological Colleges like the Pacific Theological College and the Methodist Theological College at Davuilevu. In offering theological education and ministerial formation, aren’t they also meant to be equipping God’s prophets for the present age? Don’t we yearn to see those chosen by God who can communicate for God graduating from these Colleges? If so, how much does birthplace, village and family line affect decisions about who gets a place? About who is recognized or not recognized?

⁴Then Jesus said to them, ‘Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.’ ⁵And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. ⁶And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Surely laying hands on a few sick people and curing them is a pretty fine deed of power. But Mark’s wants to separate here supernatural deeds of power from Jesus’s prophetic, daily ministry. The big, headline making miracle; the amazing, earthshaking revelation; the water-walking and the storm-stilling. No. That couldn’t happen. But Jesus’s healing hands and pastoral care among the most needy? Yes. Jesus the prophet can still do that, despite their offence and disapproval.

And Jesus the prophet will keep on doing that, day in and day out, unflinchingly, until they put him on the cross. Just as Ezekiel the prophet kept slogging it out with unpopular message after unpopular message; so Jesus keeps slogging it out day after day. God’s voice, God’s hands: preaching, teaching, healing, forgiving, mixing with the wrong people, causing offence, challenging religious authorities, choosing sacrificial love in action rather than easy, attention grabbing popularity.

The Gospels tell us that the people of that day crucified the prophet in their midst, Jesus of Nazareth, God’s most authentic mouthpiece. ‘Father, forgive them’, said the Prophet on Calvary, ‘they don’t know what they’re doing.

Is there an invitation for us today to receive from all this? God’s invitation to learn the lessons of New Testament times and make sure eyes are open and ears are alert in our times for God’s true prophets – not least as elections rapidly approach in Fiji - and as all our churches of whatever denomination seek to speak prophetically to the issues of our age.

They crucified Prophet Jesus, Son of God, but they couldn’t silence him. Resurrection was the final victory over refusal to listen. It all came true. An empty tomb. Everything he’d prophesied. Everything he’d promised.

And perhaps God smiled and said, “So… you need a ‘wow’ factor to convince you there’s a prophet in your midst, do you?”

Well, try Resurrection.

Amen