The Rev. Joseph Farnes
All Saints, Boise
Proper 25C
The prophet Jeremiah is one of the most fleshed-out people in the Old Testament. We get so many biographical details of what he went through as a prophet – the suffering and persecution he endured to try to speak the truth to an unhearing government and a callous nation. Very memorable is the time when Jeremiah was thrown into a cistern and abandoned until rescued by a Cushite eunuch named Ebed-Melek[1]. Being a prophet was a thankless job, and it did not bear apparent fruit in Jeremiah’s lifetime. The government was still destroyed, Jerusalem was taken into exile, and the land lay waste.
Jeremiah is not a happy prophet; truly, none of the prophets really are happy people, even though they remain hopeful; they remain hopeful that God’s goodness will prevail, heal, and restore in the long run. Prophets like Jeremiah are called to speak truth in a time when a comfortable, satisfying lie is preferable. Prophets are stuck being the “Debbie Downers” of their generation because they peel back the façade and reveal the decay and slime that’s been plastered over. They are not the fun people at parties. Stretching from the earliest prophets down to John the Baptist, prophets in the Bible lead a lonely, frustrating life.
And the prophets are also looking to God and even there they find themselves frustrated and alone: frustrated that God does not swoop in to act decisively for justice and to act swiftly in mercy; lonely that the prophet is in a social wilderness, rejected by people and yet compelled to proclaim God’s word to them.
Prophets are not ultimately popular in their lifetime, and in their deaths their words are often sanitized. Take a look at our prophet Martin Luther King, Jr. – derided and rejected by whites because he was impatient for freedom and refused to just “go slow”, derided and rejected by the comfortable middle and upper classes because he was impatient for economic justice for all God’s children, derided and rejected by so-called patriots because he dared question the inhumanity of the Vietnam War. But now? His words have been warped into “Why can’t everyone get along and never upset anyone ever and never mention race ever again?”
Prophets like Jeremiah are also sanitized – for so many Christians, the role of the prophets is simply to predict the future. The prophets are relegated to being little more than holy fortune tellers who cryptically predict the fall of Jerusalem, the coming of Jesus, and the spooky stuff in the Book of Revelation. Thus, the real power of the prophets – the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that drives them to see more deeply and speak more boldly – that real power gets relegated to the past. Remember, in the Nicene Creed we proclaim that the Holy Spirit has spoken through the prophets – is the Holy Spirit silent now?
No! The Holy Spirit is not silent and passive. The Holy Spirit is not relegated to the past. The work of the prophets is a ministry of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit speaks not only through the words of ancient prophets but the Holy Spirit speaks to us still today.
And so we find ourselves in a moment much like Jeremiah. The chaos in government and the economy, the upheavals and splits in our social fabric, the upwelling of callousness, contempt and cruelty … and it’s hard to stay hopeful and courageous in the face of it all. We find ourselves tempted to withdraw from the world, but the world needs us. We find ourselves wanting to be distracted by some kind of happiness and delight, but the world needs us to pay attention.
The world needs us to pay attention because we can bring the insight of the Holy Spirit to the complexities of our crises. We look at the big picture and see a world that is so fixated on accumulating money and power, and we proclaim the name of Jesus who took the lowest place and proclaimed that love and humility are the way of God, the way we are meant to follow. We look at the small picture, and we see sacred children of God, made in God’s very image, no matter who they are.
We, like the prophets, have to see with the eyes of the Holy Spirit and speak with the tongue of the Holy Spirit. If we say we are the heart and hands of Jesus in the world, then we must also be instruments of the Holy Spirit, too.
We have to look deeper than the surface level. Social media has made it easy to keep it surface level or even to downright lie – but the Spirit is a spirit of truth. We have to look deeper. Ask questions. Face difficult truth.
We have to speak more clearly. It has amazed me in the last few years how much even words of mercy and compassion are lambasted by so-called Christians because mercy and compassion are rejected by their favored political leaders. And notice right now whether you feel I’m speaking for or against your own political sensibilities; right now, our barometer on truth, our measurement of whether to listen to someone is based solely on whether they agree with us politically, or say the right words that we already want to hear. If we’re not listening with the power of the Holy Spirit, who is Wisdom and Discernment, then we are going to be misled and manipulated.
And with the gift of the Holy Spirit we also find ourselves with the gift of self-reflection, the gift of contrition, to be able to face our own shadow side, our own unhealed side. If we are going to look outward, we must also look inward. What is it within me that pulls me away from loving God and loving my neighbor as myself? Will I acknowledge it, will I ask God to heal it, will I ask God to nudge me forward even if I’ll still struggle? How will I join with God in making me more like who I am called to be? Would I dare to let myself be called as a prophet of God?
Prophets are not the most cheerful bunch, as I said, but neither are they a hopeless, defeated bunch. Prophets are empowered by the Holy Spirit to see and speak more clearly. They are coworkers of the Spirit, called to this ministry to proclaim truth out of deep, abiding hope in God.
Are we willing to be coworkers of the Holy Spirit in our day and time? Are we willing to do what is right, to speak the truth, to love our neighbors near and far in thought, word, and deed?
May the God of such prophetic hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] Jeremiah 38