On the second Sunday of Advent the tradition is to focus on the
prophets of the Old Testament. John the Baptist makes an
appearance in our Gospel reading, but he has a whole Sunday to
himself next week so we’ll put him aside for now.
The prophets of the Old Testament give us some of the most vivid
and interesting writings in the Bible. These were fascinating people
who used everything at their disposal to get their message across.
Hosea married a prostitute and used his marriage to describe the
unfaithfulness of the people to God. He gave his children really
appalling names; so meet his daughter LoRuhama which means
‘not pitied’ and his son Loammi meaning ‘not my people’. The
prophets used visual imagery to get their message across: Amos
spoke of a plumbline to illustrate how out of kilter God’s people had
become. Isaiah used song, Jeremiah used poetry. Jeremiah was
one of those people who seemed unable to shut up when it was
good for him he ended up down a well where people couldn’t
hear him.
All in all they were a determined and audacious lot. But what was it
that gave them this sense of urgency? What was it that made them
marry prostitutes and give awful names to their kids, or rendered
them so unpopular that people would throw them into wells just to
get away from the earache?
If you ask most people what a prophet does they would probably
say that these are people who predict the future. If you look at the
words of Isaiah in our Old Testament reading today you can see
where this idea comes from: he predicts a new beginning; a shoot
growing from a dead tree stump; a person of wisdom and
understanding, of righteousness; someone who will usher in a
new age of peace. Christians see this as a prediction of the
coming of Jesus the Messiah and so Isaiah’s words are a reach
seam in our Advent and Christmas liturgies: it was Isaiah who first
said ‘behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son’; at Christmas
we hear his words, ‘the people who walked in darkness have
seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on
them light has shined’; and his are also words which we
sometimes sing ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of
the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news,
who announces salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns”’.
Predictions of the Messiah. But prophets are more than seers
people who predict what’s going to happen in the future. Regarding
them them simply as predictors of the future is like taking the shine
out of a diamond by only looking at once face of the many cuts that
make it sparkle.
Prophets are overwhelmingly concerned with the relationship
between God and God’s people. They are people who look around
them and see what’s gone wrong. They see religious people
ignoring the hungry, they see where people have got their focus
wrong and so forget to keep God at the centre and start
wandering off to worship false Gods. Then, it was Baal the God
of a neighbouring country. These days it might be materialism or
success or fame even football.
It is this context of people’s relationship with God that drives the
prophets to say what they say and do what they do. Their aim is to
keep us on the straight and narrow by chastisement (get your act
together folks) but also by reminding us of God’s love. Although
they proclaim God’s wrath for human sinfulness they also remind
us that, in the end, God’s love will prevail. It is in this insistence on
God’s love that the Old Testament prophets lay one of the most
important foundations of the Christian faith. We see this prophecy
fulfilled in the birth, life, ministry and and death of Jesus Christ.
Here was God’s love walking the streets and rubbing shoulders
with the dregs of humanity and showing not anger or judgement
but love.
So the prophetic predictions of the future aren’t anything like going
to see the fortune teller at the fair. Iremember the gypsies coming
round when I was a kid they would predict your future if you
bought a sprig of lucky white heather. This is prediction with no
context probably just a trick or even simply a money making
device.
The biblical prophets are far from this. Rather, they are people with
their eyes on the here and now they see a little from the outside,
they criticise the religious and secular institutions, the behaviour of
the rich and powerful. They are unhappy when people are hungry
and sick, when people are on the road as refugees because of
war and conflict. They see the world as it is but as if through
God’s eyes. So, yes, they can be angry. But their ultimate message
is one of hope because they are immersed in their faith and they
know God to be both loving and faithful.
Today the second Sunday of Advent we remember the prophets
of the Old Testament. But prophecy is not dead. It has continued
down the centuries and is still alive today. In a time of terrible
plague when the population of England was decimated because so
many people had died whole towns were wiped out, Mother
Julian of Norwich faithfully proclaimed ‘All shall be well, and all shall
be well, and all manner of things shall be well’. In more recent
Martin Luther King, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela all
proclaimed their hopes, their dreams of justice and peace. Modern
prophets.
We, this small congregation in this rather obscure place half the
population of Blackburn seem not to know where Knuzden is also
have a prophetic role to play. Today the Church of England seems
driven by a model of success based on wealth and what we might
call ‘bums of pews’. We have neither and could do with improving
both. But we do have other things which are so often overlooked.
This is a church where you’re welcome even if you’re not posh
and even if you have no money, where social status matters not a
jot, where the hungry are fed both by our giving to the foodbank
and the food we serve out at holiday club. This seems to me to be
a much closer following of the way Jesus showed than can be
seen in many popular and ‘successful’ churches today. We should
be proud of this and talk about it be a beacon on a hill. Together
we are being prophetic we are demonstrating something about
God’s love in very practical ways just as the old testament
prophets all those years ago. But we need to listen as well. WHat
would the Old Testament prophets say to us today? They might
well challenge our giving not simply by saying ‘we’ve got to pay
the quota so cough up folks’ but maybe by asking us to reflect on
what we give really reflects our experience of what GOd gives to
us love, grace, hope and a place of welcome here at St.
Oswald’s.
Amen