The Essence of Prophecy

PROPERS:         PROPER 14, YEAR C  

TEXT:                 ISAIAH 1:1, 10-20

PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, AUGUST 11, 2019.

ONE SENTENCE:        The call of God to his people is a call to righteousness                                         and not lip-service or superficiality.  

                                    

            I love to mentally collect political quotations, especially when they are humorous.

            For example, Adlai Stevenson was asked about a full-page letter Norman Vincent Peale had published in The New York Times, opposing the candidacy of Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy.  Peale had contended in that advertisement that Kennedy would do the bidding of the Vatican, if he were elected. Stevenson, twice a Democratic nominee for president, disagreed, of course.

            Stevenson commented in response: “I have always considered the epistles of Paul to be appealing. But I find the epistle of Peale to be appalling.”

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            Likewise, Senator Bob Dole – known for his rapier -like wit – looked at the head table of a large dinner.  At the head table sat Jimmy Carter, Jerry Ford, and Richard Nixon – all former presidents.  Dole observed: “Look – See No Evil, Speak No Evil, and Evil.”

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            Along that same line was a comment that Harry Truman made.  When his supporters urged him to give ‘em hell, he responded: “I never gave them hell.  I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.”

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            That was the position that the ancient prophets found themselves in.  

            We often think of prophets as some sort of clairvoyants who peered into the future and foretold things that were going to come to pass.

            Hardly. The prophets such as Isaiah, whose words we heard today, Jerimiah, Ezekiel, and even Elijah and Elisha spoke God’s truth to a people who didn’t want to hear it.  They were usually alienated and lived outside of the mainstream. Some were even punished for their faithfulness in proclaiming God’s vision.

            Today’s first lesson comes from Isaiah.  He is one of the three major prophets of the Old Testament, along with Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  He prophesied in Jerusalem and Judah in the days after Assyria had laid waste to the Northern Kingdom, Israel.

            He spoke words of judgement to the leaders in Jerusalem and said that, because of the faithlessness of the people, Jerusalem and Judah would fall, too.

            He did not sugar-coat his words.  He compared Judah to Sodom and Gomorrah.  He spoke of the false and superficial piety of the people’s religiosity. He said that God would ignore their pleas for mercy, and that they must turn toward good – doing justice, rescuing the oppressed, defending the orphan, and pleading for the widow.

            This was not a political statement.  It was God’s word.  It was the essence of the Law – over, under, around and through the Holy Scriptures. And because of the people’s ignoring those basic tenets of the covenant, the kingdom of Judah would fall.  Just as the kingdom of Israel had fallen.

            When we are talking about prophecy, we are talking about something that is grounded in the very idea of who God is.  It is grounded in his righteousness.  It is founded in his words of justice, peace, righteousness, concern for the poor, the widowed and the orphan.  Jesus laid claim to those same values in his Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes.

            Those people who have dared to speak truth to powerhave done so and paid an enormous price.  Think of Jesus, Thomas a’ Becket, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and the countless anonymous women who stood by their faith in the Roman persecutions.  

            By their very nature, prophets rankle the souls of the people.  They point out to us things about ourselves that make us very uncomfortable.  Their perspectives make us squirm.  They prompt us to examine ourselves – to look within, even though we may resist it for a time.

            Sadly, prophets are like artists – their greatness, their truth are generally not recognized until long after they are gone.

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            That was largely the life of Isaiah. And Jeremiah… and Ezekiel… and Elijah… and Elisha… and the minor prophets, also known as The Twelve.  Their words were not – for the most part – words of comfort.  Unless, of course, the people turned from their unholy ways. Then, indeed, there was good news.

            Prophets today remind us of the same things – placing trust in things other than God; many people forgetting about the poor, the sick, the widowed, and the orphans.  Many have lost capacity to care for the ger, the Hebrew word for a sojournerin the land.  The modern-day prophets remind the people of God’s expectation that holy justicebe done.

            And let me be clear:  These are not political statements, these are straight out of our Holy History.

            Yes, there is great discomfort when the people hear the words of the prophets – and through them, the word of God.  But, as we see with Isaiah, that is nothing new.