Appropriating the Prophetic Word
The 21th Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 26, 2001
The Profit of a Prophet (To Uproot and Tear Down; To Build and Plant)
Jeremiah 1:4-10
4 The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." 6 "Ah, Sovereign LORD," I said, "I do not know how to speak; I am only a child." 7 But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, `I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you. 8 Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you," declares the LORD. 9 Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."
CONVERSION: A DIFFERENT WAY OF BEING HUMAN
It was approximately 125 A. D. when a Christian philosopher named Aristides penned his Apology to the Roman emperor Hadrian on the occasion of his visit to Athens. In this work, Aristides confronts Hadrian with the news that the human family has divided itself into four categories: Greeks, barbarians, Jews and Christians. This was quite a claim given that Christianity was less than 100 years old. His categories suggest that Christianity was such a radical departure from manner of living practiced and observed by everyone else at the time that it represented an entirely new way of being human.
Christian conversion represents a personal, relational, ethical, and cognitive revolution in the person who converts. The Christian faith represents a different worldview and a different manner of thinking about God and everything else in this world which he has made. In short, Christian conversion means literally becoming a new person - remade in the image and likeness of Christ.
It doesn’t end there, however. Authentic Christian conversion has a social and cultural dimension as well. The first Christians had no thought of bedding down, comfortable and content with their own religious awakening. Far from it, they scattered to the four winds from the upper room in Jerusalem where their community had been born. When plagues and famine fell upon Roman cities causing the rich and elite to flee, Christians stayed behind and cared for the sick and the starving and the dying. Though they were persecuted viciously by nearly everyone and martyred at every turn, the community grew until Christianity quite literally transformed the known world of the day.
This is the nature of Christian conversion. Far from being merely a placid, saccharine change of religious sentiment, once the good news of the death and resurrection of Jesus enters the human heart, nothing can ever be the same. Life breaks out in astounding ways and alters everything in its path, revolutionizing and recreating human lives, society, and culture, until the very kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord Jesus Christ.
This picture of conversion issues a pretty tall order for a small church in Northwest-suburban Chicago. If you are a Christian, you might have felt the stirrings of this transformation when you first believed, you may even be able to point to those areas of your life that have been transformed in precisely this way.
That being said, however, I think all of us recognize that we are still in process. As a Christian, you have tasted the first bite of a rich eternal banquet ¾ enough to be pleasing, but not enough to satisfy.
THE PROFIT OF THE PROPHET: THE CREATIVE WORD OF CONVERSION
4 The word of the LORD came to me, saying,
5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations."
It has been nearly 2000 years since the sacred beginning in the upper room at Pentecost in Jerusalem and we all recognize that the story of Christianity has not been one of uninterrupted triumph. You and I can point to the ups and downs, the triumphs and tragedies, the realized hopes and horrors of our pilgrim journey together as a community of faith. We can point to these features in our own congregation and in our individual lives.
? Given the ups and especially the downs, what keeps us on the road that leads to that great goal?
? In days of coldness and indifference, what reminds us to be attentive to the call to realize the full implications of our Christian conversion?
With these questions we turn to the prophetic Word of Yahweh.
We have spent several weeks at home in the writings of these prophets that God has elected to speak to his people, but we have given much attention to why they are there and what function they serve in our lives.
? What does a prophet do and what is the prophet’s role in God’s plan?
The prophetic word does not predict the future per se. Rather it describes our circumstances from God’s vantage point and names our experience. The prophets challenge our broken ways of being human and declare to us the hope of conversion and salvation in situations that seem hopeless and closed.
UPROOT & TEAR DOWN, DESTROY & OVERTHROW, BUILD & PLANT
9 Then the LORD reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, "Now, I have put my words in your mouth. 10 See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant."
In verse 10, our Lord uses six verbs to describe the mission of his prophet, Jeremiah. He says, I appoint you over nations and kingdoms to uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.
In the context of Jeremiah’s specific mission he was called to declare that the people of God were under divine judgment. For many years they had abandoned true faith and devotion to Yahweh and began to resemble the corrupted idols they worshipped.
Remember Israel and Judah had prospered under Yahweh’s blessing, but rather than using that blessing to be an extended blessing to others, they had become cold and indifferent. They polluted their faith by blending their allegiance to the one true God with the worship of pagan idols who indulged their self-satisfaction and greed.
They marshaled their wealth to give them power and they used that power to oppress and injure the weak and poor. When their violence and oppression was successful, they turned and gave thanks to the idols who had supposedly blessed them and empowered them.
Inexplicably this resulted in them giving thanks to corrupt idols for the blessing that Yahweh had given them. They used that blessing to oppress and injure others in his name.
Jeremiah was charged in this context to announce the judgment of Yahweh. Soon the armies of the Babylonians would appear at the gates of Jerusalem to sack the city, uprooting the fat and self-satisfied from the land and tearing down their city.
Jeremiah announced that Yahweh would destroy the nation and overthrow the oppressors, handing them over to slavery themselves.
Jeremiah’s word is not one of interminable suffering and destruction, however. For to those about to enter judgment and destruction he says that at the far side of exile and punishment they will again be planted in the land and would be re-established as a people. God would be faithful in spite of their faithlessness and would yet bring their conversion and salvation to a full completion.
? That’s what the prophets said to ancient Israel and Judah, what does the prophetic word say to us?
GOD’S PROPHETIC WORD TO HIS CHURCH
(v. 5b) I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.
The prophets were heralds that spoke a public Word, not simply to Israel and Judah, but to all the nations namely us!
The ways of God in uprooting/tearing down, destroying/overthrowing, building and planting are the same with his people today. We as his Church hear the same prophetic Word spoken and affirmed by Jesus Christ. He is God’s pre-eminent prophet.
Look at the ways of Jesus in our Gospel reading today (Luke 13:10ff).
10 On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11 and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, "Woman, you are set free from your infirmity." 13 Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.
14 Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people, "There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath."
Jesus declares a Word of salvation to a woman who has been captive to a spirit of sickness for eighteen years. Her condition is spiritual she is a broken being human. Jesus heals the woman on the Sabbath which was a day set aside by God as a blessing so that people could rest from their work.
But look at what happens, rather than rejoicing in the new freedom that this woman has found freedom from sickness and freedom from oppression by an evil spirit the synagogue ruler uses the blessing of the Sabbath as a tool to create another kind of oppression a religious oppression born of jealousy and selfishness.
Jesus responds by speaking forth a prophetic word:
15 The Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? 16 Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?"
He points out the synagogue ruler’s injustice and hypocrisy. Rather than using the blessing of God as a means to bless others, he has turned it into a tool of power wielded to inflict pain and manifest self-righteousness and self-satisfaction. Jesus points out that this man has blinded his eyes and deafened his ears to the extent where he can no longer recognize the salvation of the God.
17 When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.
Luke’s reflection on this event reveals that Jesus has uprooted and torn down the powers of his self-righteous opponents and planted and built-up a new people and a new kingdom in their midst.
CLOSER STILL TO HOME
Jeremiah is the most autobiographical of Ancient Israel’s prophets. With most of these guys the significance of the message overshadows the significance of the messenger leaving us with no picture of the internal world or the experience of the prophet.
With Jeremiah, however, the message and the messenger are equally prominent. We hear the word of Yahweh with Jeremiah, we listen as he proclaims Yahweh’s word, we suffer and weep with Jeremiah as his words fall on deaf ears, we enter into exile with him as he is taken from the land and we wait with him for the manifestation of God’s promised deliverance.
The point is that Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry was performed with great sorrow, persecution, and personal loss. Through his suffering, however, his prophetic voice literally enabled Israel and Judah to survive judgment and exile and sustained their hope for the appearance of God’s salvation which has appeared in Jesus Christ.
In the same manner, the prophetic ministry of Jesus was performed in even greater sorrow and ended with an even greater cost. Because of the death and resurrection of Christ, our slavery to sin has ended. A hopeless and defective manner of being human is no longer the only road before us. Conversion is a real possibility for us as individuals and it is the destiny of this broken creation.
As with Israel and Judah, God’s prophetic word calls those who are Christians to be continually converted and to live in a manner that reflects the new relationship that they have in Christ.
Ask yourself, has my faith grown cold and indifferent? Am I self-satisfied? Hear God’s Word in Christ: If you have grown cold and indifferent, God wants to uproot and pull down those things that have callused your heart and he wants to plant his love inside you and establish his kingdom rule in your life. In short, he wants to fully convert you so that you can transform your world.
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Copyright © 2001 by Rev. Michael J. Pahls
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Rev. Michael J. Pahls
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