A sermon by Fr. Gene R. Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois, on Sunday, December 9, 2012.
“PROPHETS
AND WARNINGS”
(Homily texts: Canticle 4 (Luke 1: 68-70) & Luke 3: 1-6)
For this, the Second Sunday of
Advent, our Collect says:
“Merciful God, who didst give thy
messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our
salvation: Give us grace to heed their
warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus
Christ our Redeemer; who liveth and
reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”
Each Sunday in Advent, a specific
theme emerges from the Collect for the day and from some of the Scripture
readings. On this day, we hear,
year-by-year, the account of John the Baptist, that rough-cut character who
stood on the banks of the Jordan River, calling people to heed God’s warning to
repent and be baptized, confessing their sins as they did so.
Indeed, the canticle we read
together this morning in the place of the Psalm, a canticle which is known as
the “Song of Zechariah” (or by its Latin name, the Benedictus Dominus Deus),
is the pronouncement of Zechariah, John the Baptist’s father, about his son’s future
role as a forerunner, one who will prepare the way. Zechariah says about his son, “And thou,
child, shalt be called the prophet of the highest, for thou shalt go before the
face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation unto his
people for the remission of their sins….”
John
the Baptist is remembered for being a prophet.
In fact, he is regarded as the last of the line of Old Testament
prophets, the completion of a long line of God’s messengers, whose work
consisted of calling people to amend their lives and to repent of their sins.
This morning, let’s take a good look
at prophets, and at their warnings.
We should begin by supplying a
definition of the word “prophet”. We
should begin by looking at the more common understanding which is encountered today:
The idea that a prophet is one who is able to foretell future
events. Attached to this definition is
the understanding that a prophecy is a forecast of future events. There is an element of future events present
in prophetic persons and words. But
there is a more basic definition: The
prophetic voice is one which speaks God’s truth. It is in this sense that we encounter the
word prophecy and the person of the prophet in Scripture. Prophets are speakers of
God’s truth.
In
Old Testament times, prophets stood outside of the established religious
order. That is to say, they were not
priests, in most cases.
Consider the eighth century prophet,
Amos, who was a “shepherd and the dresser of sycamore trees.” Amos was outside of the religious establishment
of his day. In addition, Amos was an outsider in another sense: Aa man
from the southern kingdom of Judah, who was sent by God to the northern kingdom
of Israel. It’s easy to imagine that
being a prophet is a very lonely occupation.
Consider John the Baptist: He was the son of a priest, and therefore,
able to serve as a priest, as well. (In
ancient times, there was no need for discernment committees, Commissions on
Ministry, and the like…one was simply born into the priesthood.) But, even though his father served in the
temple in Jerusalem , John the Baptist chose to
live a life outside the established order of his day…he stayed in the wilderness
area near the Jordan River , calling people to
repent of their sins and to be baptized.
John the Baptist’s voice was the
counterweight to the religious system of his day. In this vocation, he served the same role
that the ancient prophets did: serving
to articulate God’s truth from a position outside the established ways of doing
things.
And what of the warnings that John
and his predecessors pronounced?
Their warnings were meant to alert
people to dangers that they would not have been aware of otherwise.
Their calls urged God’s people to
closely examine their lives, their behaviors, and their attitudes. The prophet’s call is so important because it
is easy for God’s people to get comfortable with their religious practices,
thinking that because their worship was done “according to the book”, God must
be pleased with their offerings. Surely
that was the case in Amos’ day….We read in Amos 5: 21 – 24, God’s warning: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no
delight in your solemn assemblies. Even
though you offer me your burnt offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace
offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to
the melody of your harps I will not listen.
But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an
ever-flowing stream.”
The conditions of Amos’ day might
well have been the conditions that John the Baptist railed against. Amos’ words exposed the shallow nature of the
lives of God’s people in the eighth century BC….Amos said that God was not
pleased with the glorious worship and their festivals, because their day-to-day
behavior was so obnoxious and sinful….Apparently, in Amos’ day, truthful speech
and upright, moral dealings were in short supply. It is this aspect of our walk with God that
concerns the prophet.
John the Baptist’s cry echoes
against the walls of the temple complex in Jerusalem, a glorious and beautiful place
where correct, by-the-book worship took place daily. But such wonderful ceremony had apparently
become a panacea for the worshipper, a sort of liturgical sleep-aid which was
meant to calm and comfort the mind and to soothe the soul.
“Wake up!” is the Baptist’s
cry. “See that your daily walk, your
words, your deeds, and your attitudes, are all worthy of the righteousness of
God.” This is the Baptist’s message.
Prophets and their warnings are as
necessary and needful in our day as they were in Amos’ day, and in John the
Baptist’s day. The warning comes to all
Christian believers, for we can become too comfortable in our established
routines, thinking that our Sunday gatherings are all that God requires for a
good and right relationship with Him.
This warning applies especially to those Christians who worship in a
beautiful, majestic liturgical style.
The warning is put before us: We
can be lulled very easily into focusing on the events of our hour-long sojourn
with God in church, on the beauty of the liturgy, forgetting all the while that
God seeks to make us aware that our Sunday worship is meant to provide the
structure for living the other six days of the week.
The prophet’s task is to jolt us out
of our ecclesiastical nap, and into a full consciousness of our life in Christ,
constantly comparing His righteousness against our own actions, deeds and
speech. That’s the whole point of our
corporate worship together, yes, even fine, Anglican liturgical worship.
So who are the prophets today? Where can they be found?
Most anyone in the body of Christ
can find themselves in the prophets’ shoes.
Simple things that we say in a day-to-day situation can be used by God
for prophetic purposes. The preacher,
too, is called to a prophetic ministry, seeking to “afflict the comfortable and
to comfort the afflicted.”
May we, with the help of the
indwelling Holy Spirit, heed the prophets’ warnings, forsake our sins, and
greet with joy the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
AMEN.
