Dancing With Wolves

I am trying to navigate the theological tsunami that is threatening to permanently alter the face of our denomination. The amendments to the constitution regarding ordination standards, diversity, inclusiveness, interpretation of Scripture, and so on, are incredibly important to our identity as a people of faith, and incredibly divisive. You may find the whole mess really distasteful. Or it may just seem so distant from your daily life, your own effort to know and follow Jesus Christ, that you just tune out. Some of you may be thinking, “What’s the point of being in a denomination anyway? I just want to worship God and study the Word and try to live a good life.”

If you’re not thinking something along those lines, I applaud you. Because I, for one, am really depressed by the whole situation and wish I didn’t have to think about it any more.

But you know what? This is the passage that comes next in the series, and I have to play the hand I’m dealt. As you may have noticed, I don’t preach topical sermons, that is, looking around into the world and deciding what needs to be addressed and then searching for the Biblical passages that support what I want to say about the world. What I do is decide on a course of study at the beginning of the year- either a series, or a particular track out of the lectionary - and preach the Scripture passage that is presented to me as it comes up each week. I do it that way for two reasons. First, it keeps me honest. It means that I preach on all the Word, not just my favorite bits. And second, it takes away some of my control and gives the Holy Spirit room to surprise me - and you.

And I often am surprised, although I shouldn’t be after all this time. Without my knowing it, often the passage that comes up for a given week is exactly what people need to hear. But this week it’s almost too obvious. I ducked it for a good part of the week because, as I’ve said, I find the whole mess really depressing.

Jesus said these words almost 2000 years ago and I’m sure he didn’t have the slightest idea that I was going to preach on the Sermon on the Mount this year. Nor did he know that we would be arguing over the scope of his authority (God the father did, of course, but Jesus, in his human capacity, was somewhat more limited in terms of omniscience) .... And yet, here we are, being warned against false prophets right at the very moment in our church history when our leaders seem to be undermining the ground on which our faith stands. How did he know? Well, for one thing, false prophets are always with us. They come along in every generation.

Some are obvious, easy to identify - so-called prophets like Jim Jones who led his people to mass suicide in Guyana, or David Koresh who led his people into a more violent death in Waco, Texas. When Jesus says, “you will know them by their fruits,” the fruit of their teaching is clearly evil, clearly in direct opposition to the message of life that Jesus brings.

Some are less obvious. The followers of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, who taught that suffering is illusion, are still with us. And Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon has more followers every day, and in many ways their fruits are admirable: strong families, clean living, commitment to community, supporting the church. All these are good - and yet we know that they were false prophets. How do we know? Because their teaching adds to - and for that matter contradicts - God’s revelation in Scripture. And the Apostle John, who lived longer than any of the other apostles and gave us - so to speak - the last word on the subject, said “I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.” [Rev 22:18-19]

So we can identify one kind of false prophet by the fact that they lead their people off a cliff. Other false prophets can be identified by the fact that they place some new revelation above Jesus’ own words.

But there’s a third kind of false prophet that we need to be aware of, and this third kind is harder to get a handle on, because they’re very slippery. This kind of false prophet preaches a message that echoes the culture, that is attractive and easy to swallow, that sounds plausible, that caters to some natural human impulse.