future-scaping? no thanks

 

SERMON PREACHED at St PAUL’S, ARROWTOWN 
St PETER’S, QUEENSTOWN, and the MISSION HALL, GLENORCHY
ORDINARY SUNDAY 4
(January 28^th) 2024

 

READING          

Deuteronomy 18: 15-20

As a concession to the 21^st  century I have set myself something of a challenge this year. It may sound counterintuitive for someone who has at least some pretence to be a biblical scholar, and who has always emphasised the place of scripture in preaching.

But while I do not believe that our practices of faith should kowtow to the busyness and noise of the society around us, so, no, we will not be having light shows and dry ice, I do recognise that we are not as well trained in listening and other habits of concentration as our forebears were.

As I look back over years of listening to four readings each Sunday I wonder if my commitment to biblical exposure wasn't hopelessly idealistic. I recognise that my own eyes would glaze over somewhere near the second sentence of the first reading and the rest would pass me by.

Consequently, I am in all the services of our parish reducing the number of readings – well except at St Paul’s where we’ve only ever had one at least since I started back here. Hopefully this will be an aid to our concentration and absorption. I will still do my best to rotate the readings in such a way that we get as broad an exposure to the texts of our faith as we can digest in a post-modern world.

That said, for those of you who are here week by week you know I’ve been doing this all January. But today is one of those challenging days when I feel to be fair I have to engage with the Hebrew scriptural text, and it is not at first sight the most riveting.

It seems that God in this text is being almost petulant in responding to the Hebrews’ whinging, and provides them with what the author calls, in the voice or Moses, “a prophet like me.”

But the authors are being careful here. The Hebrews were surrounded by cultures obsessed with oracles, soothsayers, the equivalent of crystal ball gazers. Had there been the counterpart of our astrologers’ columns their pages would have been well thumbed as punters desperately tried to discern their future.

Moses, speaking in the name of his God would have none of it. The God of our scriptures is almost militantly opposed to what I call future-scaping.

Consequently the tradition that we know as prophecy throughout the scriptures has nothing to do with Nostradamus and his convoluted nonsense – and I pull no punches there – or to the kind of predictions that say a tall dark stranger will tie up our shoe laces. Indeed, I want to be more militant still and assure you that prophecy in the hands of the servants of God has nothing to do with deciding that Putin, Trump, Biden or any other social and political figure is the Antichrist.

Perhaps this is a moment for me to say if you want to know more of my opinions on the matter feel free to purchase my book: available at a discount rate of only $25!

But I partially jest, much though I would encourage any of you to have a browse through my book. The far more important point is that the role of the prophet in the scriptural tradition is one of interpreting the present in the light of God’s call to justice and righteousness and compassion, interpreting the present in the light of God’s recurrent promise, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the ages.”

At the time at which Deuteronomy was written the Israelites were tempted to consult not only with all sorts of charlatans and to use their often lurid practices as a means to twist God’s arms. Such practices reached even to the extent of child sacrifice, but more commonly involved the throwing of dice like the Book of Mormon’s much loved urim and thummin, the writing of curses on food bowls calling for the execution of the state’s enemies, and a myriad other forms of magical nastiness. Such things grieved the heart of God and the authors of Deuteronomy were very keen to make that clear.

What then for us? I don’t want to say that demons leap out of the pages of astrologers’ vacuous prognostications in magazines and newspapers. In fact I think there is a greater element of the demonic in pseudo-Christians’ writings condemning various portions of society or leaders of society to hell, while often celebrating supposed worthiness of quite obviously dangerous and deceitful social leaders. I probably do not need to identify anyone, and there have been charlatans in every age. I do however maintain rigorously that it is by their fruits, including the fruits of their personal lives, that you shall know the servants of God.

Again: where does this leave us? It leaves us looking for the deliberations of those who urge justice, compassion, neighbourliness, concern for the most vulnerable, and, in short, all that came to be embodied in the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity.

No matter which side of the political fence we sit on in this or any country our leadership will fall short of the glory of God, also known as the fullness of Christ-likeness.

Our task with the aid of the Spirit of Christ is to watch and to look and to ponder and to see in each situation which leaders and which actions best express the values of the God of the Cross.