Sunday, January 31, 2021

Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Psalm 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28

The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. All those who do his work have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!

What does it mean to speak a prophetic word of God in the world? Over the past few weeks we’ve seen the stories of some of God’s prophets: Samuel, Jonah and John the Baptist. The words they spoke and the work they did was not always easy. They were not perfect; as a matter of fact they were often afraid, uncertain, and unwilling to do what God was asking from them. Even Moses argued with God. In the end, however, they did as God asked, spoke the word that He sent them to speak and in doing so they called people to God and changed their lives. They did great things and are still remembered today for their gifts and their impact.

The prophetic word of God is a message sent through a chosen vessel for God’s people. The message is not always the lesson we want to hear. Samuel’s message to Eli was frightening because it meant death and an end to God’s promise. Jonah didn’t want to take that word to Nineveh because it meant mercy for his enemies. John’s message disturbed the status quo; the call to repentance required an acknowledgement of sin. Some prophetic words are messages of grace and hope; as a matter of fact, every warning comes with a word of promise. John did not just call the people to repentance, he promised that they would see their salvation.

It is hard, though, to know for certain that the words we hear are from God. The prophets do not always fit our expectations. Samuel was young. Jonah was an enemy of the Ninevites. John was downright bizarre. Why would anyone listen to them? Yet, people listened and were changed by the Word. It wasn’t Samuel or Jonah or John who made the difference, it was God and His word. We know this because the word was fulfilled.

Today’s Old Testament lesson is believed by many to refer to the prophet Mohammed. As Christians, we believe that it refers to Jesus Christ. Muslim apologists present compelling reasons out of scripture for their point of view. So do Christian apologists. Who is right? What is true? We have to be careful about who we believe.

God tells us that we can believe those prophets whose words come to pass but that those who try to speak for God that have not been called will die. It is no wonder we ask “How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?” Moses tells us, “When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.” This is certainly helpful, but the answer is not always timely.

The one we can rely upon is or Lord, Jesus Christ, who was the prophet about which was written in Deuteronomy, and He dealt with the simplest and most personal issues. He spoke about pennies, not trillions of dollars. He talked about loaves of bread rather than worldwide famines. He dealt with people’s hearts and not the national policies of Rome. He invites us to join His ministry and to speak His Word into the world.

This is frightening, given the consequence of speaking presumptuously about God’s will. Perhaps this is why most people would rather keep their faith as a personal experience and stay out of the public, or even the religious, forum with their point of view. They are afraid to talk for fear that they are not really hearing God’s voice, especially when that word is different or even contradicts the words given by people in positions of leadership, authority and power. Yet, we are called to speak God’s Word into the world, the word of hope and peace that comes only from God. We are called to speak prophetically, but we must ensure that when we speak we make it clear whose voice we are using. All too often we insert our voice, presumptuously, into God’s mouth.

We lived in England for four years and we attended a local village church for two of them. We became very active in the work of that church and the neighboring churches. Bruce sang with the choir. I joined a prayer ministry and worked with a committee that planned millennium events. Even the children, though they were young, we able to get involved by serving as acolytes and helping in other ways during church and community gatherings. We attended Bible study and potlucks, suffered through freezing temperatures in an unheated building and became close friends with the people in and around that village. It was a wonderful experience. Though it was not unusual for military members to occasionally visit the church for worship, few became as active as our family.

When it was time for us to leave, our vicar asked me to give my testimony of thanksgiving on our final Sunday about our time in England and how God had touched us while we were there. I was happy to do so, but it quickly became more than just a few minutes of testimony. Our vicar gave me the lectionary scriptures and helped me work out some sermon ideas. I was nervous because I had never preached, but I had plenty of time to prepare. I prayed and thought about what I would say, but I never managed to put my words on paper. I was afraid when I stood in front of the congregation. Could I really do this? But I spoke from my heart and in the end it was a powerful message of gratefulness to God for His many blessings. The sermon had an impact on the congregation, and though I was embarrassed by the many congratulatory comments, I also recognized that something extraordinary had happened. God put His word into the mouth of a simple woman who simply wanted to say thanks.

That’s what happens when people preach God’s message of Good News to the nations from their hearts: He touches the world with His power and His authority to bring healing and wholeness.

Jesus entered the synagogue in His hometown as the lowly son of a carpenter. He was not an experienced preacher and it was not expected that He would preach. He didn’t have the training and had not been studying interpretation for years like the scribes and teachers of the Law. They got their authority from the Torah, but also taught with their interpretive biases. Interpretation tends to obscure the message given by God, and that is what had happened to the people in Jesus’ day. They’d lost touch with the God who’d set them free, and had been burdened by the Law as it was falsely understood by their leaders.

There are many these days who are trying to claim to be God’s mouthpiece in our crazy and topsy-turvy world. Since the questions we face are so great, it is up to us to remain in prayer at all times so that we will be so familiar with His voice that we will know. And, we can in trust that God is still speaking through His people. We need not fear the warning in today’s Old Testament passage, because God can use our mouths to share His Good News.

Perhaps that’s the key, isn’t it? We aren’t called to be prophets that foretell the future or claim we know what God is doing; we are called to share the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness that comes from faith in He who died on the cross for our sakes. We are prophets when we speak the Gospel, when we call people to repentance, when we invite people to trust in God. We need not point at every sign and claim our interpretation is true because the scriptures have given us the true sign, Jesus Christ. This is news so good that we should never keep it to ourselves.

Jesus came and preached with authority. His actions authenticated His words, glorifying the God from whom He received His power and His purpose. The people were amazed by His words and His actions. Yet, even with such obvious authority, there was one thing that the people just couldn’t seem to do. They could not stay silent. Sometimes the command for silence does not make sense to us. Wouldn’t Jesus want the world to know the extraordinary things He was doing? Why didn’t He want the world to know His identity? On several occasions He told the disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Messiah. We are left to wonder why Jesus would want to silence them. Doesn’t Jesus want others to know?

In the Gospel lesson for this week, Jesus commanded the demon to be silent and get out of the man whom he was possessing. The spirit did indeed obey Jesus, but it did not do so quietly. “The unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.” Jesus did not want the demon to disrupt the holiness of the moment. They were in a synagogue. The spirit knew Jesus; it knew Jesus was the Holy One of God. It was too early for this information. It was not time. And it came from the wrong source. Who would believe a demoniac? Jesus silenced it, but it did not go down without a fight.

This incident is a foreshadowing of another battle Jesus would have to fight. The scribes and teachers of the law were, in essence, possessed by an understanding of God and the scriptures that was burdensome for themselves and the people to whom the ministered. Jesus came preaching something new, but it was not unfounded. The people recognized His authority. They saw the truth. They knew He was right. The leaders did not want to lose their power and position. They, like the unclean spirit, wondered what Jesus wanted with them. “What are you doing here?” they asked. Jesus came to set them free, but it would take God’s Word, God’s power, God’s grace to make that happen.

There is only one God. Paul makes it clear in today’s passage that the other gods in this world are nothing, but Paul also reminds us that we have idols that distract us from the truth. Those idols are nothing, they are not real, but they do hold the place of God in the lives of those who believe. All too often those things are ideals or beliefs that have no foundation in God’s Word, like the prophecies of false prophets. All those things or people or words in which we put our trust and faith are gods to us, even though they are not God and are really nothing when compared to God. They are impersonators, given the power and authority of a god even though they are nothing and have no power or authority.

Paul writes, “We know that we all have knowledge.” Lots of people know about God. They have read the scriptures and have prayed. Many people go to church and hear God’s word read and preached. They sing the hymns and do the work of the Church. They serve in the community and live a moral and faithful life. Yet, knowledge is not the center of a relationship with God. Love is. And in this we all fail. We lose sight of God because we are easily distracted by the imposters. We do not recognize the real thing because we are caught up in our own knowledge of what we believe God should be and what we think God should be doing.

In the Old Testament lesson, God promised to give prophets who will speak His word into our lives. The Israelites were afraid to hear God’s voice and to see the fire of God’s presence, so they turned over the hearing and seeing to another. They told Moses to get God’s Word from Him and deliver it to them. They didn’t seek to know God themselves; they only wished to know what Moses would tell them. There is nothing wrong with learning from others, from listening to what they can teach us about God and His Creation. However, when we let go of all responsibility for knowing God personally, we run the risk of depending on people who do not really know God or speak for Him. Moses had that intimate relationship with God and could be trusted, but he was followed by prophets, priests and kings who were not trustworthy. They spoke words for other gods or claimed to speak for God when they did not know Him. The people followed those false prophets, over and over again. They lost sight of God.

The people in Jesus’ day were not much different. They, too, believed what the leaders of the temple and in their synagogues told them. Were they afraid of God’s voice or fire? I don’t know. Perhaps they were too lazy to seek God on their own. That seems to be a modern problem. Perhaps they were too confused to understand God’s Word without the teachers. Again, that happens in the modern world. Perhaps they had been manipulated into believing in an idea of God that was not true; the manipulation in our world today is pervasive.

When Jesus came and preached they heard something different. They called it “new,” but Jesus was preaching the pure, unadulterated Word of God. There was something in the teaching, not the presentation, which struck the people as true. He wasn’t just a good spokesperson; He knew what He was talking. He knew God, and when He spoke, He spoke with one who has authority. The difference between Jesus and the Jewish leaders must have been shocking; after all, they had been listening to them for so long that they didn’t recognize the falsehood. When they heard Jesus, they knew that He had something the others didn’t have; they knew He spoke the truth. He showed the people the beauty of God’s Word and the freedom it offered.

The pandemic began last year just at the start of wildflower season. I love to chase after the fields of flowers with my camera. I rarely ever interact with people along the way, but my wildflower adventures tend to be daylong affairs and I was concerned in those early days about whether or not I would be able to find an open restroom. I didn’t go. I missed it, though I did begin looking for flowers during walks around my neighborhood. My photos weren’t of large fields of wildflowers, but of small, seemingly insignificant blooms in gardens and on bushes in my neighbors’ yards. I enjoyed my local adventures but I am looking forward to my adventures this year.

Digital cameras make it much easier to get the perfect picture because I can take a hundred photos from every vantage point to get just the right lighting and background. There’s something about the symmetry of the petals and the brilliant colors that always catches my eye and my lens. But there’s something even deeper about my wildflower adventures; I find so many moments of worship as I gaze on the incredible beauty of God’s world whether it is in an open field or my neighbor’s yards.

It is very easy to praise God when we are surrounded by His creation. The most breathtaking and inspiring moments of my life have often been in extraordinary places. There’s nothing like standing on top of a mountain, seeing the snow-covered range that goes on and on. At night, the sky above those mountains are filled with so many stars that they are impossible to count. A beach at sunrise with nothing obstructing the view of the rising sun is amazing. Standing at the foot of a giant redwood is beyond imagination and words. A field full of bluebonnets, a rainbow sweeping over a plain, and a perfectly still mountain lake can raise in us a sense of wonder and praise like little else.

We are also awed by the power that God has given to the creation. The roar of a lion, the thunder and lightning of a storm, the constancy of the waves crashing against the shore reminds us that we are just a small part of God’s great big world. They are not always pleasant. It is fearful to be in the path of a tornado or a hurricane. The tiniest mosquito can spread deadly disease. Yet, even these have a purpose and are given by God to do His will. An out of control raging wildfire is frightening, but is a necessary part of the natural process of forest growth and renewal. We don’t always understand these things when they cause us harm, but God is always worthy of our praise.

In today’s Psalm, the writer praises God for something much different than the tangible blessings of creation. It is difficult to identify with God’s work in the scriptures. Yes, we have the stories of the Exodus, but we were not there to cross the Red Sea with Moses and the rest of Israel. We can read about the miracles of Jesus and believe in His healing power, but we have not experienced His physical touch. The psalmist knew God’s mighty works among His people, but those works were merely a memory, handed down by generation after generation. Yet, these are still worth our songs of praise. God did these things, and in them we see His power, faithfulness, and grace.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” is a hard saying for most of us. Fear in our world is a bad thing. We fear terrorism. We fear disease. We fear losing everything we own. We fear those things that can bring us harm. We don’t want to fear God; He has been so good to us. His faithfulness and mercy is beyond comparison. Yet, He is fearsome. He has warned us to beware of what we say about Him, threatening death to those who claim to speak in His name that have not been called. This does not mean that we should be afraid of Him. Instead, we are to be in awe of Him. “Holy and awesome is His name.” If His name is awesome, how much more so is He? He is worthy of our praise and our obedience.

And so, we are called to praise Him, not just for the beauty of His creation and the goodness of His dealings with His people. We are called to praise Him because we fear Him. We know of His power. We also know of His mercy and grace. He is faithful. Wisdom is seen in the lives of those who live according to His good and perfect Word. We are called to speak His Word into the world so that all will know His goodness, His power, His mercy and His grace.

Moses was the first of many, but Jesus Christ our Lord is the true Prophet that God promised to send to speak His Word to us. There was power in the mouth of Jesus, but His power did not end there. Neither did His authority. The people were amazed by both Jesus’ words and His actions. He spoke about the Kingdom of God in a way that was obvious to everyone: this guy knew what He was talking about. His authority set the people free from the falsehoods that bound them. His words were self-authenticating; He didn’t need anything outside of Himself to make His message true. He was speaking from the heart, not His heart but from the very heart of God.

The trouble with the false prophets is that they don’t speak for God or with His voice; they speak for themselves while claiming to be from God. There is no authority in their words because it is only God who can give us authority. Yet, we know that in Christ we have that authority, the authority to cast out demons and to bring redemption into the lives of those who are burdened by the words of false prophet. In our modern age we might reject the idea that demons exist. Our demons might not even be evil spirits, but we all know brokenness and oppression. We all struggle with sin and pain and evil in this world. We all have something that can cause us to fall.

The psalmist spoke about the work of God. We know that it is His Word that is powerful. Jesus did nothing physically for the man in today’s story. He never touched him, never told him to go wash. He simply spoke the words of command to the demon, “Get out” and the demon left. Yet, it was this work that brought Jesus renown. So, too, the works of God brought His renown to the four corners of the earth. His works, according to the psalmist, are works of graciousness and mercy. They are works of power, healing, wholeness. His hand overcame their enemies, brought them freedom and peace. He was always faithful, always upright. Moses’ and the psalmist’s words looked forward to Jesus.

It is our responsibility to speak these same words to our neighbors. We are not given Christ’s power and authority to abuse them, or use them for our own benefit. We are called to speak God’s word into their lives, as they are called to do the same for us, to point to Jesus and to share His Gospel so that all might know His truth. He brings healing and wholeness through His word spoken into broken lives. It is when we try to do God’s work our own way that we risk the consequences of false prophecy. It is up to us to remain in prayer and God’s Word at all times so we’ll be so familiar with His voice that we will know it is true.