The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany: How to move on

Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28

It is interesting that the Deuteronomic "test for prophets" should be the Old Testament reading just after I dealt with that text in class. Specifically, in Old Testament Theology we were discussing the issue of what it means to evaluate the claim that someone has been sent from God. The lectionary text cuts off before what I think is the most important, and yet most difficult to understand, part of Deut 18. For verses 21-22 go on to suggest that, in time to come, people may ask how to decide whether a prophet is from Yahweh. The crucial point there is whether the prophecy or prediction comes true. And it is perhaps better to say "prediction" there instead of "prophecy" in order to avoid the unfortunate identification of prophecy with predicting the future. There was something to that, certainly, but this is not the only thing that the prophets did. The prophets understood the present situation to a greater degree than their contemporaries, and were able to make "predictions" of the future based on that deeper understanding, but they were not in any sense exclusively lookers into the future, like modern-day fortune tellers or the quack of quacks Nostradamus. We should perhaps better think of the Old Testament prophets, in a way, like political pollsters. These people look for the likely behavior of voters in a given election (or even a hypothetical election), and while their predictions are usually fairly accurate, there is always the possibility of surprise on the actual election day. In that sense, no one REALLY knows the future. Knowing the future is more to be understood along the lines of having a more comprehensive knowledge of the possibilities that exist and how to actualize one or the other of them, and the implications that flow from that, and how to actualize one or the other of them, and so on.

Perhaps the only place where this test for prophets is actually applied is Jeremiah 28, the dispute between Jeremiah and Hananiah. There, Hananiah predicts more-or-less immediate restoration for the land, and Jeremiah adds onto Deut 18 the further condition that a prophet who predicts peace is the only one who should be thus tested. But Hananiah dies two months later, rather than having time to wait the full two years of his prophecy to see whether it fails or succeeds. As it turns out, Hananiah was not correct, but we can naturally ask the question whether he would be considered a martyr for the true faith if he was. In any event, both of them certainly had followers/disciples that carried on and supported their message, though it appears that a too-facile, too-hopeful prediction such as that associated with Hananiah soon faded off into the background, like often happens with hopeful predictions in the face of overwhelmingly negative situations.

Psalm 111 and 1 Corinthians 8 also deal with different religious kinds of affirmations. The Psalm is a praise to God for the works he has created. They are established forever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness. This seems to indicate something of humanity following in God's example, which is indeed a quite good religious idea. Mark 1 also suggests that Jesus followed in the example of John the Baptist, preaching a gospel of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Specifically, 1 Cor 8 and Mk 1 have to do with doing the work of God by setting aside the works of darkness. This is, it could be said, the "negative side" of the Gospel. Although, as was noted in my Doctrine of Holiness class on Friday, cutting out darkness is indeed a positive thing, a thing to be celebrated, it is "negative" in the sense of "subtracting," in this case subtracting evil and all those things which battle against the purposes of God. John Wesley said that those attitudes and actions that remain within a Christian after salvation are those things which war against the purposes of Christ, and which are progressively removed through growth in grace. See Rom 7 in particular for a Scriptural account of such indwelling sin, that continually crouches at the door (Gen 4, Heb 12), but which we can master through the help of God.

Human life is all about transitions, and religion and theology make it their business to speak important words in the midst of those transitions. Birth to maturation, maturation to feebleness, feebleness to death, death to life, these are the places where religion makes its home. And for all the times in between, God is to be praised, for his works will be established forever. And the gates of hell will not be able to withstand the onslaught. Amen.