18th Sunday after Pentecost
Notes
Transcript
And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”
In Numbers chapter 11 and again in Mark 9 it seems that we have an encouragement from Moses and Christ to let anyone take the pulpit and start talking. That’d be super and Pastor Matt would wish for this too.
It’d certainly make finding a fill in preacher easier! But we know this just is not the case. In the day of Moses how many Elders were there that recieved the Spirit? 70 - according to Numbers 2, there are about 600k people but in Hebrew it is a little more unclear. The possibility exists that there are 2-3 MILLION people being led by these 70 men.
What is Moses’ response to this burden of leading millions of people by himself? He complains:
Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,’ to the land that you swore to give their fathers?
Thus proving it takes seventy men to do the work of one woman.
But really- The spirit of God, at this point, is not poured out on all people and not all people are appointed to proclaim, to prophecy.
The scriptures regularly, and uncomfortably, restrain who, and when someone should speak. One does not need to look hard before we all bristle.
If we really read the scriptures and its qualifications for who should preach then none of us can stand.
James, the brother of Jesus, asserts this lesson to us:
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
The book of 2 Timothy lists so many qualifications to stand in front of a church that by the time Paul is done it feels like the church may be best served by having an empty pulpit.
It seems that we are choosing from the least of these when looking for someone to proclaim. Our own church body has this Doctrine from the 1580 Book of Concord:
The Book of Concord Article XIV: Church Order
we say that no one should be allowed to administer the Word and the sacraments unless they are duly called,
In turn then, we must ask what is it that we are to do, or not do? What exactly are the scriptures so fiercely guarding? We must define some terms to answer the question of who should prophecy and what should they say.
What is Prophecy?
What is Prophecy?
The Oxford dictionary of the the Christian Church says this regarding prophets:
It has also been generally recognized that the prophets were the inspired deliverers of God’s message not only about the future, but to their contemporaries, to whom they declared His will, and whom they recalled to His righteousness.
In this case prophecy is a forthtelling and a foretelling. A bringing of truth to a present time but also about a future time.
What is often left out of these definitions however is the importance of prophetic silence. Several times in the gospel of Mark Jesus strictly commands His followers to not tell anyone what He has done.
Even though the spirit of God remained on the Elders, 68 of the 70 cease speaking. Amos Chapter 5 encourages silence in a time of evil. There is even a 500 year prophetic silence after Malachi but before the gospels.
We are often encouraged to externalize everything in our lives as an act of catharsis but here in the church we revere what is unsaid just as much as what is proclaimed. Yes, we honor those who speak but this does not diminish the beauty and wisdom of those who sit as unopened books in our pews.
Prophecy then is just as much about knowing when to speak as it is knowing what to speak.
The old Catholic Latin mass intentionally leaves space for silence in its liturgy. There are long moments of quiet where one in a crowd of many almost wonders if something is wrong or missing as if God really is that far away.
This quiet is generous, granting space for hope and contemplation.
The generosity of the church
The generosity of the church
In Joel 2 and then again in Acts 2 the gift of the Spirit of God is poured out abundantly, just as God said He would. Men, women and children are all told that they will prophesy. They will all speak and see God.
Thus- the gift of speaking is given to all baptized Children of God.
“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.
What this means is that like in early Israel, all God’s people are given the gift but not all exercise it.
This gift of forthtelling is given to the entire church but in the generosity of the church, the assembly grants the prophecy of quiet. In the public assembly one is ordained and called by the congregation to speak.
This ordination does not negate the gifts given to the church, it distills and clarifies the gift of ordination given to the church. Pastors without congregations are not Pastors- they are clergy but not pastors.
The office of Pastor does not belong to the individual but to us- the church.
In fact, Lutheran theologian Kurt Marquart tells the us, the church :
“Her “prophetic” ministry is to take the apostolic Gospel of and about Jesus to the uttermost parts of the earth—that and nothing else.” -K. Marquart
Our job is not to sustain or anoint a prophet - it is to proclaim the gospel.
In this same way, you are prophets. You and I bear witness to Christ our King. The Psalmist reminds us
Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun,
Individually and communally it is our job to carry the gospel to the world to proclaim that God has come to bear the salvation of humanity.
This is the ultimate prophetic message: Christ Has come, Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.
It is our Christian duty to ensure that the good news of Christ is proclaimed from this pulpit and in every corner of the earth.
The good news of Jesus belongs to us, for unto US a child is born. It is our message of hope and as such it is our joy to prophesy that God will come again.
Proclaim this message. Amen.