“Prophetic People”

Let’s talk about irritating sounds.  Are you one of those folks who can’t stand to hear fingernails squeal across the chalkboard?  Does it make your skin crawl?  Or maybe you are somebody who can’t tolerate Styrofoam squeaking against Styrofoam.  Could it be that you hate the sound of love sick cats?  Or does country music twang clang on your ears?  Which sounds drive you crazy?

I’ll tell you a sound that used to bother me.  When I was younger and my children were still living at home, I often didn’t finish my sermons until Saturday evening.  So it’s Saturday evening.  I have four pages typed on the sermon with another four to go.  I’m typing away about Christian tolerance and love.  Then gradually I notice it.  It’s the sound of children down the hall beginning to argue.  “Stop it!”  “Leave me alone!”  “That’s mine!  Give it back!”  My blood pressure begins to rise.  The sound grows louder and louder like a small earthquake.  I begin to grit my teeth.  (Love, think love.)  Finally there is full fledged yelling.  And soon, “Daddy!”  Hark. I think I hear the sound of tattle tales.  Give me fingernails on a chalkboard any day. 

Apparently Moses hates the sound of tattletales and bickering too.  God knows, with Israel’s forty years of wandering in the wilderness, he’s certainly heard enough of Israel’s gripping.  “Manna?  What’s this?  We want to go back to Egypt.  At least we weren’t starving to death in Egypt.  At least we weren’t dying of thirst.”  (Love, think love, Moses.)

And now we read how God has just gotten through putting some spirit on designated elders, and they’ve prophesied once.  They’ve been authorized to prophesy, you see.  Must be Presbyterian Jews, prophesying “decently and in order.” 

But then guys named Eldad and Medad start prophesying too--and without any authorization.  No session approval, no congregational vote, no task force or subcommittee or paperwork.  So a young man goes tattling to Moses, “Moses, Moses, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp! Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp!”  And Joshua, one of the chosen men, whines, “Moses, you’ve gotta stop ‘em.  We can’t have these unauthorized prophets running loose.  What’ll be next?”  And Moses says, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets . . .” 

If only all God’s people were prophets.

Jump ahead and listen to the book of Acts.  “‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.  Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those last days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.’” 

Who gets to prophesy?  Not just the Reverends and Most Reverends.  Not only the Ph.D.’s in systematic theology.  Not merely the eloquent and elegant. 

No.  Who’s going to prophesy?  The young men and women who haven’t paid their dues and been properly credentialed.  The old men and women who’re supposed to be relaxing in retirement in Florida.  Even the slaves, says Peter.  In the last days everybody gets to prophesy.  “All flesh.”  And that means you. “All ya’ll” as they say down South.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Not I.  I didn’t sign up for this.  I just wanted to sing a few nice hymns and worship God.  I just agreed to serve on a session, deacons, or a ministry team, not start some sort of weird prophecy thing.  Not I.”  Yeah you, says that annoying old Bible.  In these last days, after the birth of the church at Pentecost, the Spirit is poured out on all flesh.  God forms a prophetic people.  And we are it. 

But what does that mean anyway? 

There’s debate in the Church over what we mean by prophetic.  We tend to think of prophets as persons who predict the future.  And there is some of that in the Bible.  The Old Testament prophets predicted the downfall of Israel, unless she altered her idolatrous ways.  And we Christians believe the prophets predicted the coming of Jesus.  There is some sense in which prophets may be foretellers of the future. 

But the greater meaning of the word prophet is someone who serves as God’s messenger.  A prophet is a channel for God to talk to the faith community and the world.  And here is where the Church is arguing.  How are we, the Church, God’s prophetic people, supposed to be God’s channel? 

On one side, folks say the Church ought to be God’s prophetic people with the words she speaks to the culture, to the state, and to the world.  Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr put it this way, "The gospel cannot be preached with truth and power if it does not challenge the pretensions and pride not only of individuals but of nations, cultures, civilizations, economic and political systems.  The good fortune of America and its power place it under the most grievous temptations to self-adulation.  If there is no power and grace in the Christian church 'to bring down every high thing which exalteth itself against the knowledge of God,' the church becomes not merely useless but dangerous."

Unless the Church is a prophetic people speaking to culture, nation, and world, we are not merely useless; we are dangerous.  We’re dangerous because we soothe people into thinking all is well when all is not well.  Karl Marx complained that religion is “the opiate of the masses.”  If we do not speak out, we become false prophets and make his criticism true. 

So we’re called to speak out against injustice, oppression, and hatred.  That’s why you’ll hear preachers from this pulpit address various social issues.  You may not always agree; that’s your right.  But it’s the preacher’s right and responsibility to say it. 

By the Holy Spirit’s work, we are a prophetic people.  That’s why the General Assembly, the highest governing body of the Presbyterian Church, will continue to make pronouncements about various issues.  Some of those pronouncements, especially anything having to do with human sexuality or war, will slip into the newspaper.  Sometimes you and I may agree with what’s said, other times not.  But because we are a prophetic people those pronouncements have to be made.  To be silent would make us useless and dangerous.  

We are a prophetic people with what we say to the culture, state, and world, and, of course, to each other. 

But that’s not the only way of being prophetic.  Another contingent within the Church says the way to be prophetic is less through our vocal critique of the world and more through being a distinctive community.  We’re prophetic by being a community of faith that is “in the world but not of the world.”  We’re prophetic by being a people who live so differently from other folks that the world stands up and takes notice.  We live as a people who seek justice, who practice mercy and forgiveness, who live simply and give generously, who worship and pray and teach and trust in the good news.  Imperfect, yes, but transformed too. 

As a church we’re called and empowered to both ways of being prophetic.  We’re prophetic with what we say in words to culture, state, and world.  And we’re prophetic by being an alternative community of faith that lives lives based on the good news lived and taught by Jesus. 

A few years ago I drove to Pittsburgh to attend a workshop on youth ministry.  The keynote speaker was a Christian educator, a woman named Dee Koza.  And Dee told us a story about herself.  Dee grew up in a military household; her father was a pilot and they moved often.  In 1963 they moved from Massachusetts to a town in Alabama.  Dee was in middle school at the time.  With her strange accent, and being new, it was not an easy move for her. 

One day the school kids were playing on the playground during recess and the teachers called them to come in early.  Dee says from the look on the teachers’ faces she knew something was wrong.  The flag was lowered to half staff.  And in the hall, someone said the president had been shot.  Once they arrived in their classrooms, the principal announced over the intercom that President Kennedy had died.  And Dee says the teacher and the students actually began to laugh.  Dee stood up and she said, “Shame on you.  You may not like his politics.  You may not like him as a president or as a person.  But he’s a human being and a child of God.”  The teacher sent Dee to the office and the principal suspended her.  But both of Dee’s parents were working and could not be reached.  The only person the school could reach was her pastor, the pastor of the Presbyterian Church.  He came and got Dee and took her home.  And throughout the rest of that day cars filled with people from the Presbyterian church lined the streets around her house as folks came to support this little girl who had had the courage to speak the gospel truth. 

And years later, Dee and her pastor husband, went back to serve as D.C.E. and pastor in that church that dared to be a prophetic community of faith. 

Where do such people come from?  They come from Pentecost.  They come from the Holy Spirit that moves even now in you and me and the whole Church.  This Spirit is poured out on sons and daughters, young and old, rich and poor, elders and deacons, and even middle school kids. 

And they will see visions.  And they will dream dreams.  And they will prophesy.  Would that all God’s people were prophets. Amen.