Readings: Amos 7. 7-15, Ephesians 1. 3-14, Mark 6. 14-29
When the façade of Westminster Abbey was renovated in the 1990s, it was decided to place a row of statues of 20th Century martyrs in the spaces above the main door, which had been unfilled since the middle ages. They are, in my opinion, rather poor sculptures but the idea of putting them there and the force of prophecy which many of them represent is inspiring. It is right that as you enter one of the most significant churches in this country, and maybe the wider world, you should be reminded that preaching the gospel is as important and as dangerous in our times as it ever was.
Not all martyrs are prophets, and not all prophets get themselves killed, but among those above the west door of Westminster Abbey are Dietrich Bonhoeffer, imprisoned and eventually hanged by the Nazis; Archbishop Janani Luwum who spoke out against the tyranny of Idi Amin in Uganda and was murdered by him; Archbishop Oscar Romero who defended the poor and oppressed of El Salvador and was shot saying mass by a right wing gunman; and Martin Luther King leader, as everyone knows, of the Civil Rights movement, assassinated by another gun man. These were all men made in the mould of the Old Testament prophets, and perhaps most like the last in the line, whom Jesus thought the greatest of those prophets, John the Baptist. Like Amos preaching righteousness- upright and straight dealing with God and our fellow men, our 20th century prophets preached the gospel of respect exemplifying love for our fellow creatures, in places where murderous greed, self interest or fanatical megalomania kept the government or the established prejudices in power.
I want to explore two features of prophecy, both the Old Testament variety, and those prophets whom I have mentioned from the much more recent past.
The first is that prophecy is about the power of the word and it usually runs up against the sword- or gun, those lethally active tools. Prophets are poets and orators. Their words may stir people to action but with some exceptions which I’ll come to, they are not usually actors or executives themselves. They tend to oppose the executive power of the state and even when leaders-like Elijah or the two archbishops they represent the people; the governed, not the government.
That prophets employ words does not man they are unworldly; the righteousness which Amos seeks to restore in Israel and the social justice and human dignity promoted by later prophets, have a practical application. Prophets are threatening enough to be feared and killed by the establishments which they seek to persuade, cajole or shame into change. It has to be said that the typical prophet is not very subtle; one can’t help thinking that John the Baptist might have been more effective by being a little less loud or that people might have paid more attention to Jeremiah had he been a little less abrasive. But prophecy is about speaking out.
Curiously, however, early in his healing ministry Jesus is thought, by Herod and others, to be one of the prophets because of the miracles he is performing. There are instances of prophets performing miracles-some intimate and some spectacular in Elijah and Elisha’s cases (and interestingly neither Elijah nor Elisha did a lot of talking, or not that is recorded) but more typically prophets pronounce, publically and aloud, rather than taking matters into their hands. They are loud enough to make themselves unpopular but for the most part not to achieve their immediate objective; the prophets like Amos and Jeremiah who foretold the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests of Israel and Judah, did not avert those catastrophes; John did not reform Herod’s court; the bravery of Romero, Luwum and Martin Luther King, made, in immediate terms, little difference to the injustice which they confronted. In their immediate objectives they might be seen as failures, partly of course, because they were successfully silenced by their opponents. But this does not diminish their importance.
The second feature which I want to explore grows from this; it is hard to identify prophecy without some perspective, whether historical or geographic. It’s easier to see the significance of ancient and modern prophets after their time, not perhaps a long while after, but some distance in time makes the ideas they propound clearer as distance in space does for those outside the society in which the prophetic utterances are being made. This, however, brings a danger that we may not fully understand what the prophets are saying; its more obvious on the case of the Old Testament; for example, the plumb line which Amos refers to may actually mean tin, the metal, which was vital in the making of bronze, and which was apparently sometimes put on walls. I have to say plumb line seems to make rather more sense! But it’s an example of how precarious sometimes our understanding may be. And even easier seeming contexts may be rather more difficult than they appear; I suspect the situations in El Salvador and in Uganda in the 1970s was not quite a black and white we think now. One complication which seems to stretch across history is the somewhat ambiguous relations between prophets and authority. This is most explicit in the case of Herod’s fear and respect for John, which seems to go beyond a cynical regard for John’s popular influence. Rulers from Ahab to Idi Amin have taken, initially at least, an equivocal and cautious line with their outspoken critics, especially when those critics speak with religious authority.
That surely is the real point about prophecy; the prophets speak with the voice of God. In Old Testament terms the word of God is quite literally put into the prophet’s mouth. The modern prophets whom I have mentioned would equally believe they were spreading, or perhaps defending, the Gospel, although in each case the basis of their belief could equally be a more humanistic concern to defend human rights. We, as Christians will find an ethic based in the belief that we are all children of God, all fellow creatures aspiring to perfect creation in a heavenly kingdom on earth, but from the prophetic point of view it is the universality of the message that carries force.
The traditional Jewish division of the Hebrew Bible, does not separate the historical and prophetic books. Prophecy includes what we would call history, because history shows the working out of God’s will just as prophets proclaim that will. Equally it means that prophets exist in history, that is the story of the relationship between God and his creatures who sometimes walk righteously and sometimes sink into disobedience. Meanwhile the prophets maintain the universal standard, Amos’ plumb line, but do so in a specific historical and geographical context. As I have said this can make it both easier and harder to discern; it can make it comforting and inspiring and also challenging and strange, but despite the apparent remoteness, despite too the worldly failure of may prophets, this is why they remain inspiring, worth reading and worth commemorating in statuary on churches. Amen