Postmodern Prophets

We desperately want a call like Jeremiah’s...or do we?

January 27, 2013 By 2 Comments

by Mike Stavlund

Old Testament Reading:  Jeremiah 1:4-10

For Sunday, February 3, 2013: Year B—Epiphany 4

Preachers are a funny breed. We take ourselves, our work, and our words very seriously—as we should—yet we assiduously maintain a veneer of pious humility. We work hard at something difficult in order to make it appear effortless. We imagine that we can change the world, or at least our little corner of it. Every week, we redouble our life’s investment in our spoken words, hoping that we can somehow evoke some of the Divine Word by these earnest efforts.

Yet underneath, we bear deep insecurities. [Read more...]

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Arranged Marriage or True Love?

March 18, 2012 By 1 Comment

Is God’s love expansive or needy?

by Lia Scholl

Old Testament Reading: Jeremiah 31:31-34

For Sunday, March 25, 2012: Year B—Lent 5

Abraham Joshua Heschel, in The Prophets, writes, “It was in love that God and Israel met.” Our passage today is a perfect example of the relentless and pursuing love of God.

Or, as some believe, the sign of God’s relentless lack of boundaries.

When a spouse is unfaithful to his or her spouse, over and over again, should the injured spouse continue to pursue the adulterer? I hear, in my mind, the countless number of women I’ve counseled who are dating or married to men who are abusive and unfaithful. “But I loooove him!”

Does love abide? And should it?

Should Love Abide?

Israel and God have a covenantal relationship, much like marriage. God brings to the negotiating table love, land, independence from other political entities, and a way of being in the world that would set Israel apart. Israel has expectations from God. Israel expects love, land, independence from other political entities, but also wealth, the death of their enemies, abundance, and milk and honey. Israel is to bring to the contractual relationship their faithfulness, compliance, and generosity towards God. God expects that the people of Israel will obey God’s commands, follow God’s law, and serve only God.

Israel has turned away from God, and they are worshipping idols and false gods. In addition, Israel is not doing the things that make Israel special—they are not treating the foreigners with kindness, they are not caring for the widows and orphans. Jeremiah clearly thinks that Israel is a bad spouse.

Marriage Is Hard.

Let’s face it. Marriage is hard.

And all of us have heard about spouses that care more about themselves than they do about their partner. There’s the husband who cheats because it feels good in the moment. There’s the wife who spends irresponsibly, because her immediate wants are more important than anything else.

It’s really difficult to put your spouse’s needs and wants ahead of your own. Over and over again, Israel takes care of Israel’s needs. Leaving God as the spouse whose job it is to satisfy Israel. There’s no partnership here.

But why would God continue to pursue this unfaithful spouse?

[Read more...]

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Prophet and Loss

January 15, 2012 By 8 Comments

The Ninevites repent, but Jonah does not, what is the point of this story?

by Russell Rathbun

 Old Testament Reading: Jonah 3:1-5, 10

For Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012: Epiphany 3

Jonah is a good prophet. 

It is not like he gets the word of the Lord wrong—he gets it right, he knows what is going on. The Lord wants him to tell the Ninevites to repent and he knows they will and that God will be gracious and merciful to them.

Old School?

Jonah doesn’t want this to happen. He hates the Ninevites. He doesn’t want to see them saved, loved, brought in by God.  He wants them to burn—to die painful deaths. He is a good prophet, but he is old school.

Jonah likes the idea of prophesying to the king about how the Lord wants to kill Israel’s enemies and take their land. He doesn’t want to hear about God loving his enemies. And these weren’t just any enemies—this was Assyria

Nineveh

Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrians, Israel’s traditional enemy and eventual conqueror. With a population of 120,000 people, some classical accounts say it was the largest city in the world in its day.

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Hit Me With Your Best Shot

January 9, 2011 By 15 Comments

Dare I Shoot Isaiah’s Arrows?

by Jennifer Johnson

Old Testament Reading Isaiah 49: 1-7

For Sunday, Jan. 16, 2011:Year A - Epiphany 2

As a seminary student, I lapped up the call stories in Scripture as milk to the hungry kitten. I knew the story of the first Isaiah who lamented over having unclean lips, of Jeremiah who expressed concerns over being too young, and the various apostles who were interrupted in their jobs by Jesus to “Follow me.”

Why Are There No Plumbing Classes In Seminary?

What an idiot I was. Back then I pictured myself in all the warm fuzzy moments of people’s lives. I’d preach inspiring sermons and my flock would sit in rapt attention until my benediction when they’d go charging out the door to work tirelessly for the Kingdom. They’d tell me how my service and leadership had changed their lives. Instead, I got “Nice sermon. Umm. Did you know the basement’s flooded?”

Oh, it hasn’t all been building issues. I’ve had my share of holy moments. I’ve wept at the bedsides of the dying. I’ve endured the middle of the night calls when tragedy struck. I’ve held startled babies at their baptisms and taught pre-schoolers “Seek Ye First.” I’ve also been tempted to wrench my hair out in handfuls at the stiff-necked propensity of people not to “do right.” However, unlike the words of Isaiah in this servant song, I’ve never had to convince a people to return to a homeland some of them have never even seen, especially when that homeland was in ruins. I’ve never publicly spewed judgment on them because of their lack of obedience or faith.

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God with Us

December 13, 2010 By 1 Comment

Does God’s presence require both salvation and destruction?

By Sonja Olson

Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 7:10-17

For Sunday, December 19, 2010: Year A – Fourth Sunday of Advent

If God is with us, is that a good thing?

If you spend any time with the prophets of the Old Testament you know a lot is made out of the doom, destruction, and calamity of God’s wrath. But Isaiah is a peculiar prophet. Not only does Isaiah hear pictures on the temple walls speaking to one another, has an angel touch his mouth, but also his very name means “Salvation is of the Lord.”

A prophet whose name means salvation? It doesn’t make sense. Prophets aren’t known for such happy news. But “salvation” occurs twenty-six times in the book of Isaiah compared to the seven times the word is used in all of the other prophetic books combined. Where is the death and doom?

How nice.

In the Isaiah passages we have read so far this Advent season, Isaiah tells of a time when all nations will recognize one true God and there will be no need for warfare. The wolf will live with the lamb. The blind will see. The deaf will hear. The lame will leap like dear. How nice that sounds. So many nice things are told to us in weeks one, two and three of Advent.

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Prophets Are Terrible Dinner Guests

November 28, 2010 By 13 Comments

Does John really want people to repent?

by Danielle Shroyer

Gospel Reading: Matthew 3:1-12

For Sunday, December 5, 2010: Year A − Advent 2

Let’s all just admit it: nobody likes prophets. We pastors try to be reasonable about this by explaining that it’s hard when someone shoves our bad choices in our faces — even though it’s probably good for us. Sometimes, this is true. But let’s be honest. We don’t like prophets because they are jerks. They are horribly pessimistic. They have the remarkable ability to be simultaneously pompous and whiny, which is an ungodly level of annoying. And they are almost always RUDE. (I mean all-caps rude, too. Can you imagine prophetic Twittering? ALL CAPS, ALL THE TIME. We’d hit the unfollow button without thinking twice.)

Here comes another one…

Case in point: John the Baptist in this week’s Gospel text. Here he comes, all decked out to prepare the way of the Lord in his weird get-up of camel’s hair and locust-honey trail mix. (Lest we forget, prophets have a way of being showy, too.) John is making the rounds in the wilderness giving the typical prophet speech about repentance and getting yourself on the right path with God, and then he invites people to come down and put their money where their mouth is by getting baptized.

How a prophet gets his name in lights

Now, you’d think the goal of prophet-ing would be to convince people to see things your way, particularly when you’re claiming that your way is also God’s way. And I can only imagine, in those pompous prophet-brains of theirs, there exists some sort of hierarchy of targets on which a prophet would hope to be successful. There are your average follower-types at the bottom, the ones who will jump in line just because you told them to do so. Then above that, there might be the people who like to follow the most interesting new thing, and above that, the people who were inclined to believe what you’re saying but maybe needed one last push to get there.

After this, I’d imagine, it gets interesting. You get to the real converts, the people who were swayed by your words, and at the very top, at the pinnacle of prophetic success, the people you are directly speaking against, the people who most need to hear what you are saying and therefore will be most reluctant to accept it. If you can get those people, then you’re a shoe-in for the Prophet Hall of Fame, buddy. This kind of repentance makes the angels burst into song.

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Seriously, Isaiah?

October 24, 2010 By 1 Comment

Where do we draw the line between prophet and lunatic?

by Jake Bouma

Old Testament Reading: Isaiah 1:10-18

For Sunday, October 31, 2010: Year C – Ordinary 31

Well, this is certainly a hell of a way to open a piece of prophetic literature. Isaiah wastes practically no time at all in convincing us that he’s either a raving lunatic or a prophet with wordsmithing skills of hip-hopical proportions.

Instead of A Show

For two-thirds of our reading, Isaiah makes himself perfectly clear: God is pissed. “I do not delight,” he says, “my soul hates,” “I will not listen,” and so on. Isaiah the prophet bursts on to the scene with some really bizarre stuff. If it doesn’t seem strange to you, I suggest listening to a worship song called “Instead of A Show” by Jon Foreman, the lead singer of the Christian super-group Switchfoot. The first time I listened to the song, I remember thinking that Mr. Foreman must have an unbelievable amount of courage to have written this song for consumption by Christians (“You shine up your shoes for services,” he croons, “There’s blood on your hands.”). Either that, or he’s lost his mind.

But “Instead of A Show” is clearly based on this text from Isaiah. Jon Foreman has translated Isaiah for our modern age, and if it seems strange to us, it surely must have to Isaiah’s audience as well. Wouldn’t the hearers of Isaiah’s message have questioned, “On whose authority do you say these hyperbolic statements?” or, more straightforwardly, “Are you serious!?”

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Don’t Shoot the Messenger

October 4, 2010 By 2 Comments

What if you’re a prophet, but the message that God gives you to proclaim isn’t revolutionary?

By Tony Jones

Old Testament Reading: Jeremiah 29: 1-7

For Sunday, October 10, 2010 – Year C, Ordinary 28

Jeremiah seemed to generally have a pretty sour disposition, which I guess can be expected since over the course of his prophetic career he was attacked by his own brothers, beaten and put into the stocks by a priest and false prophet, imprisoned by the king, threatened with death, thrown into a cistern by Judah’s officials, and opposed by another false prophet. Why so much grief just for doing what he’d been told by God? Probably because God gave him such a difficult message.

Whose Address Is On that Letter?

Among other things, Jeremiah had to preside, in the Lord’s stead, over the expulsion of the Israelites from their Promised Land into Babylon. Although this happens because of the false worship of Israel, it’s not a message they want to hear.

We pick up the story in approximately 598 BCE. Most of Israel is in Babylon, and a couple of prophets named Hananiah and Shemaiah are telling the people that their exodus from the Babylonian Captivity is imminent. When the Babylonians had invaded Judah and carted off the Israelites, they hadn’t destroyed the Temple, so the Israelites were particularly receptive to Hananiah and Shemaiah’s message of hope.

[Read more...]

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