Would That We Were All Prophets
5/27/07
Rev. Dr. Jon Smoot
Numbers 11: 24-30 and Acts 2: 1-21

At Tuesday’s Presbytery meeting, we had two motivational speakers talk to us about what it might mean for our congregations to become “missional” – which means outward and other-oriented, not inward and survival-oriented. They were trying to get us to learn a new language – the language of the un-churched and the church-ignorant, but still putatively hungry hordes of modern society. These are people who don’t know our church-speak language, our traditions or rhythms, don’t have even what meager base of scriptural or theological understanding that we may have – but may come to church anyway, to have some un-named need fulfilled. One funny and not-so-funny comment made was about the typical new church-ignorant family that shows up to church; a “4-3-2-1 family”: a family of four, who comes to church in three cars, knows two of the ten commandments and keeps one of them. That drew a snicker, but not much more than that as most of the people at Presbytery are over 60 and probably didn’t quite know what to do with that joke – or maybe it struck too close to home. Tough call.

There were some helpful and not so helpful things said by these two speakers – but one thing rang loud and clear with me – something that has often distressed me about the typical institutional church. One speaker said that most churches are obsessed with three supposed markers of church vitality – the “ABCs” of church health: “A” for attendance, “B” for Buildings, and “C” for Cash. More crudely, what we usually obsess about are three “B”s: Bodies, Bricks, and Bucks. The problem with that, he said, was that it is “disturbingly easy to ‘score high’ on these measurements even while not sustaining significant conversation with God or enjoying redemptive relationships with other people.” If I were to paraphrase him, it would be, “What’s God got to do with it?”

Look at most churches’ session minutes, and probably a lot of ours, and the needs concerning “bodies, bricks and bucks” would feature prominently and consistently. Rightly or wrongly, I got a little distracted at Presbytery with all of this talk – and my mind wandered off to something Presbyterian writer Frederick Buechner once said: “Maybe the church as we know it is on its way out, and maybe it’s high time. Maybe we have been doing the same kind of thing in more or less the same kind of way with diminishing results for so many centuries now that even God is getting fed up. Maybe the institutional church as it has evolved must wither away in order for God to replace it with something radically new and alive and holy in ways that no longer seem possible the way things are. Maybe the Church as Big Business should declare bankruptcy. Maybe the best thing that could happen would be for all of its buildings and real estate to be sold and the money given to the poor and the clergy to be gathered together and sent to colonize the moon, so that we will have nothing left except for God and each other, which was where it all started in the first place. Who knows? Who can presume to tell God what this new thing is that God must do, but, at the same time, who can doubt that it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that God will do it?”

I yearn for the day when church means “nothing left but God and each other” And I know it sounds a bit disingenuous while I draw a paycheck from you, but I can dream, can’t I, even if it is from the moon…?

So, let’s talk for a moment about Buechner’s last thought – “Who can presume to tell God what this new thing is that God must do, but, at the same time, who can doubt that it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that God will do it?”

Granted that there will be an institutional church for at least another hundred years, because they have inertia and/or endowments, how might we tap into this new thing God wants to do with us? Two questions emerge from the Buechner quote: “Who is the Holy Spirit, and what’s the Holy Spirit got to do with it in our daily lives?”

Who is the Holy Spirit? Try this: The Holy Spirit is God who comes up through us. Not just God above us, or God for us – but God in us, coming up through us! If we think of the Holy Spirit as God who comes up through us, then the uniqueness of every human personality becomes a primary actor in God’s drama and plan for shalom. You and I are uniquely part and parcel of God’s continuing incarnation in the world. And so faithfulness to God ceases to be some pre-programmed obedience to a general revelation in which we are all to walk and instead faithfulness becomes a creative and unique response to God’s claim upon our peculiar, even eccentric selves.

If the Spirit is God who comes up through us, then there is nothing human that is foreign to the Holy Spirit. Our everyday, mundane experiences contain all of the stuff of holiness and of our human growth in grace. No compartmentalization of Sunday from the rest of the week; no division of sacred and common. Our world is teeming with messages and signatures of the Spirit. Our encounters with one another are potential sites of the awakening and energizing that characterizes the Spirit. But so much goes unnoticed. We are too busy to name the event that is blessed in its ordinariness, holy in its uniqueness, and grace-filled in its underlying challenge.

And there are challenges: To not only recognize the holiness of each moment and each encounter, but also to prophesy – to forth-tell... Not fortune telling or future telling, but forth-telling. Faithful living before God is not just asking, “What would Jesus do?” Faithful living before God means finding our unique voice to speak up for God. If the Holy Spirit is alive and kicking in us, we have a story to tell about God’s good news of joy and justice. The gift of the Spirit poured out on Pentecost is the gift of speech, of prophecy – to speak in a language that others can understand of the majesty, the beauty, the sovereignty, and the loving grace of God. And it is a gift and responsibility given to us all. I’m sure that somebody on the Day of Pentecost remembered Moses’ shot-from-the-hip response to a jealous Joshua in the Book of Numbers, “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets!” But that day is now, those prophets are you and me.

And don’t be tempted to think that only preachers can be prophets (and on good days, we can be). We seriously misunderstand today’s scripture texts if we think that only preachers are called to be prophets. You are called to be God’s prophets – all of you. Martin Luther once said that we preachers speak on Sundays so that the whole church can preach all week long. The Spirit who comes up through you gives you good news to speak in the office, at school, at home, on the Hill, or wherever you are during the week. What we are to prophesy is to boldly witness to God’s grace, truth, joy, and justice in our everyday lives.

Note carefully: Our prophetic speech is not religious talk, or church-speak, or hitting people over the head with the Bible, or an attempt to convert them to our way of thinking. Bishop William Willimon notes that Spirit-filled speech tends to be economic, political, and social, for this is where the cultural abuse of the poor, the disadvantaged, the voiceless is lodged – those abuses and violences that enrage God just about more than anything else. As we pray, study, read, worship, the Spirit is teaching us a new language that is not vapid or insipid or timid – the Spirit is teaching us to forth-tell with uppity speech and to act with uppity engagement with God’s world.

In April, 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote these uppity, prophetic words to the Christian Church in a letter from the Birmingham City Jail: “So here we are moving toward the exit of the 20th century with a religious community largely adjusted to the status quo, standing as a tail-light behind other community agencies rather than a headlight leading men and women to higher levels of justice…There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; the church was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being “disturbers of the peace” and “outside agitators.” But they went on with the conviction that they were a “colony of heaven” and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be man-intimidated. They brought to an end such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest. Things are different now. The church is so often the arch supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent sanction of things as they are.”

People of God, who will speak up for God this week? How big are we in commitment? Shall we choose to be a thermostat, cooling down or heating up the environment in which we find ourselves this week? Will you allow the Holy Spirit, God who comes up through you, to tailor your tongue, your talents, and your time to God-affirming and life-affirming purposes?

Would that we were all prophets: Pray God the Holy Spirit, to make it so in you and me. Dare to pray, over and over again: “Come Holy Spirit, Come: Come up through me, and speak.”

(Resources: Two resources were especially helpful in the preparation of this sermon: The Living Pulpit – “Holy Spirit”; and Pulpit Resource, No. 27, Vol 2, Year A. Other resources: A Guide to Prayer for All God’s People, p. 187; Interpretation Commentary, Acts; New Interpreter’s Bible, Acts; Knox Preaching Guide, Acts.)