unpopular prophets

CEpiphany4 2010 01 31

“There is a popular misconception that prophets are people who predict the future. A prophet is someone who speaks on behalf of their religious tradition, speaks on behalf of God, speaks on behalf of justice and mercy, and speaks on behalf of those who have no one to speak for them, folks like the widow, the orphan and the sojourner.” – Joseph S. Pagano, Preaching on B Pentecost VI (July 5, 2009), quoted in press release, Virginia Theological Seminary, January 22, 2010.


Jeremiah was only a boy when God called him – but he was sure of God’s call – and God reminded him: I knew you before you were born – and I will be with you always. God’s power is shown in his mercy and his care for his children.

Like Jesus, who in the Temple was found talking Torah with the Scribes at the precocious age of 12 – a Boy Scout’s age – Jeremiah was carried off (under protest in Jeremiah’s case) to Egypt for safety from an imperial threat. In Jeremiah’s case that threat was the empire encroaching on Israel from East and North.

Like Jeremiah, Jesus brought a word of prophecy to Israel – and was unpopular for it.

Jeremiah and Jesus both spoke truths to people that they did not want to hear.

Nobody has a monopoly on the love of God or the relationship with God.

We have that relationship, but certainly not because we deserve it.

Head west from downtown Palo Alto on University Avenue – when you arrive on the Stanford campus you see ahead of you at the end of the road a great big old church: Stanford Memorial Church. Up its grand entrance and into the building you proceed – into a large open circular space with balconies and a large stage, and a sound engineer.

When the bride and groom come to you hand in hand, you face them and begin Paul’s discourse on love – “If I spoke with the tongues of mortals and of angels…” After the service, everybody shakes your hand. Good sermon.

Great sermon, Paul – but how did the Corinthians like it? The first people to hear your words were not at a wedding. They were gathered as a church to listen to a letter read aloud – a letter from their founding pastor.

All too fond as they were of certain distinctive spiritual gifts – ones that made them feel special, that showed off their piety – they were so proud of what they had got hold of that they forgot why they had been given those gifts in the first place: for the common good.

Gifts are given us for the purpose of building up the body of Christ; they are given us for love. They are given us to empower us to love, as God loves.

What use is a gift without love? Eloquent speech, tongues, knowledge, prophecy – without the one vital element of love they are worse than useless – they are a new form of idolatry. They furnish a false identity – an identity not as God’s beloved children but as somehow finding security in yourself – in living by your own rules, by your own powers.

People who had turned from paganism – those first Corinthians, first to hear this letter – now sought a new identity – would they look for it in a source of power for themselves, or would they set it all at the feet of the living God – would they worship only him?

For people who follow the rules hoping that obedience will save them – or people with no rules at all (Corinthians again) – both fall away from trust in God.

The Corinthians were people who didn’t have much use for any rules at all. Freedom – in Christ, so they said – was what they were after. But it is so easy to fall into a false sense of identity. It was easy; it is easy – then and now – to attempt to gain status (in one’s own eyes) from the gift not the giver.

Paul brings them back – your true identity, your true self, is found only in the heart of God – God is love, and where love is there you will find God – so lay all this at his feet.

The desire for status, or a sure thing, for success or power however fleeting – for something other than God to rule your life or allow you to rule your own – these are false gods for false people.

We hear the call: Become the true people of God – the people who love on another as God has first loved us.

And what does that love look like? First and last, it looks like Jesus of Nazareth – a plain carpenter’s son, a peasant from a small village in Galilee – whose life is the best picture we know of love incarnate. And he is patient; he is kind…

And these characteristics, the same we find in First Corinthians Thirteen, are the work of the Spirit – the fruit of the Spirit – borne in us; borne in us when we too embody love and show to the world the presence of God.

Let us love another and the world – in spirit and in truth.


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