Lectionary: Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28
En el nombre del Dios, que es Trinidad en unidad. Amen.
I once had a bishop who said that we all are prophets - and he wasn’t talking just to the clergy. I’ve pondered that for many years and I agree with him. I think we all will have a prophetic word to share at some point, even if it isn’t our life-long vocation.
In our Old Testament reading today, we heard Moses say that we should heed the prophet God will raise up from among our own people. But how do we know a true prophet from a false prophet?
We know it when we hear it. The truth of God reaches beyond our heads into our very souls; and we heed it because God’s Word is life-giving, because that Word, Jesus, lives in us… speaks through us… disrupts through us… heals through us… and loves through us.
In our Gospel reading, when the divine speaks through a faithful human vessel it is astounding, authoritative, and scary. Jesus’ teaching at the synagogue offers the congregation a fuller, deeper understanding of their Scripture that connects their hearts to their heads in a powerful unity.
They recognize the Truth (with a capital T), and it rattles them. They weren’t expecting it. They were expecting the same old, same old. But upon hearing Jesus, a man in the congregation voices a familiar fear: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?
I need to mention here that I don’t think this man was mentally ill, or demon possessed the way so many discuss this story. I say that partly because, according to their law, if the man been demon possessed he’d have been deemed ritually unclean and barred from entry into the synagogue.
It’s a real possibility that he didn’t know he was demon possessed until he heard the divine voice of Jesus. Or he knew but was able to fit in with the community without being noticed because they had bought in to the lies the demon represented: like racism, classism, or sexism.
Given what the Greek actually says there, that he was a man “in” an unclean spirit, not a man “with” an unclean spirit, I think he was probably a faithful member of that community who was astute enough to comprehend that what Jesus was teaching would upend his familiar world…so he was unwilling to accept it and closed himself to Jesus and his teaching.
I think his astute comprehension, together with his unwillingness to let go traditions and structures that served him - even if they didn’t serve others - was the unclean spirit in him which feared that his community would be destroyed.
And he was right - they would be.
If everyone is going to be brought to equality of respect, dignity, and opportunity, the structures that privilege some over others must be dismantled and reimagined. There’s a bit of good news in that for us though - reimagining is something we’ve gotten good at over the last year, amIright?
As we set about reimagining in our time, we’re wise to remember God’s penchant for choosing the unlikeliest human vessels through whom to speak prophetically, like the 22-year old “skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother,” Amanda Gorman, who knocked us all over with the feather of her prophetic words at the inauguration last week.
When Ms. Gorman said, “And the norms and notions of what just is Isn’t always justice” we recognized the Truth in her words and it rattled us too. Change is upon us. Some of what we love, structures that comfort us (but not others) will be dismantled. It feels like death, and in a way, it is - the death of injustice.
As Christians, we know that death is the gateway to new life, so unlike the man in the synagogue, we don’t fear or resist the truth we hear from the prophetic voices among us. Society does but we don’t, which is why we need to lead the way.
The pandemic has shaken us loose from clinging to certain familiar structures we never would have thought we could survive without… like worshipping without our Prayer Books or Hymnals, or in our buildings! But we have survived and we will survive whatever else comes.
Like the man in the synagogue, we are astute enough to notice that our familiar world is being upended by the truth spoken by the holy ones of God. This upending has a purpose. When God acts it is always to redeem - which is especially important to remember when it’s our favorite structures being dismantled, because
“…the norms and notions of what just is Isn’t always justice.”
So we let them go, our favorite, comforting structures, trusting that the becoming - the new life God is creating - is one of justice for all, not just for some.
We have seen the face of hate and heard its voice in ways we cannot deny or dismiss lately, and it’s ugly. But we are beautiful. All creation is beautiful because God made all of it, and all of us, and declared it all very good.
We are made in the image of the God of love who, as Dame Julian of Norwich once said prophetically, “did not say 'You shall not be tempest-tossed, you shall not be work-weary, you shall not be discomforted'. But… did say, 'You shall not be overcome.' God wants us to heed these words [Julian said] so that we shall always be strong in trust, both in sorrow and in joy.”
We may not all be brilliant poets, but we all are vessels of God’s spirit and speakers of God’s prophetic words. To be strong in trust and faithful prophets, we must be willing to surrender to God - utterly and completely, to move ourselves out of the way and give God’s Spirit free, unrestrained movement within and through us, practicing what I call the John the Baptist method: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (Jn 3:30)
Later this afternoon we will gather for Calvary’s Annual Parish Meeting. Every one of us, of every age, race, rank, and station is a human vessel of the Divine, a prophetic voice through whom God lives, speaks, disrupts, heals, and loves our community and our world.
So, come and celebrate as we enjoy time in community - the best way we can right now - on Zoom. Come and listen because God will speak.
There are prophets among our own people at Calvary, Columbia - and they are us. See y’all at 1:00!
*The icon of Julian of Norwich was written by Ann Davidson of Michigan.
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