· Deuteronomy 18:15-20
· Psalm 111 (10)
· 1 Corinthians 8:1-13
· Mark 1:21-28
This is an interesting lectionary to preach, because it tells us about "authority". Yeshua taught "with authority", not "like a scribe". And then we look at the passage from Deuteronomy and it tells us how to recognise a real prophet.
A real prophet is one who can perform signs and miracles in the name of Jehovah. Jesus did these miracles: raising the dead, curing the sick, withering a fig tree, multiplying food, changing water into wine, walking on water. This seems amazing to us, and yet if we read the Hebrew part of the Bible, we find out that Elijah also did all these miracles, which is why when Jesus asks later "who do the people say I am?", the disciples answer "some say you are Elijah." Jesus then gives his disciples the power to do miracles in his name, to prove their authority.
But for all that, Jesus and Elijah's miracles are actually not that cool compared to the grand-daddy of all prophets: Moses. Moses is the only human being in the Bible who speaks to the Lord face to face, as a friend. (Exodus 33:11) Moses is above even prophets, as the Lord said: "when there are prophets among you, I the Lord make myself known to them in visions; I speak to them in dreams. Not so with my servant Moses; he is entrusted with all my house. With him I speak face to face – clearly, not in riddles; and he beholds the form of the Lord." (Numbers 12:6-8)
Humans, other than Moses, cannot speak with the Lord face to face, or we die. This is made very clear in the Scripture. None of us, other than Moses, can see God and live. Even Jesus did not speak with God face to face during his ministry. And when Moses spoke with the Lord face to face, his appearance was changed, and he had to wear a veil afterwards when he was among the people.
So, when we hear accounts of someone having died, gone to Heaven, spoken with God, and then returned to speak of it, we should be very cautious in accepting their claims. Speaking with God face to face is not something you just do and come back from. If God chooses you to come and meet him face to face, it will change everything for you forever; more importantly, God will give you authority to lead his people. God does not talk to living people face to face just to have a chat about the weather. And by the way, God does not need to let people die before he can talk to them. If God wants to talk to you, he just shows up – and you know it.
Not many people claim to have spoken to God face to face, but there are countless people who do claim to speak with God, and many who claim to do miracles in the name of the Lord. I watched a DVD by one of those modern preachers who name their ministries after themselves and become extremely rich. This man claims to heal the sick. One claim he made in the DVD is that one day he preached to a gay man for 45 minutes, and then the gay man was saved and [SQG] "relieved from homosexuality". Then this formerly-gay man went home to his hometown, and brought all his gay friends to his home church, and all of them were saved and [SQG] "relieved from homosexuality." Now whatever you believe is the cause of homosexuality, I think we can agree that being able to turn gay people straight would be quite miraculous, and it would certainly be written about and publicised. So I tried to do some research and find evidence that this preacher did in fact preach gay people into straightness. Except for his own claim in the DVD, I did not find any reference to this miracle anywhere at all. Not one.
The Roman Catholic Church puts a lot of resources into finding real miracles. At Lourdes, there are doctors paid by the church to examine those who claim miraculous healing, and certify the miracle – or not. These doctors hardly ever find any miracles, even though they're looking for them and paid to find them. So when preachers claim to heal people, again, we have to take their claims carefully. Prayer can relieve pain and give a patient strength to fight their condition. It does not work miracles. God works miracles, not humans. And God works miracles in his own time, when he's trying to tell us something.
As for claims of visions, they seem less common now than claims of miracles. People no longer write books like Ezekiel or Revelation. Yet in the Hebrew texts, visions are more common than miracles. A vision from the Lord, like a miracle, is a spectacular event. People do not get a vision from the Lord and just go on calmly with their day.
Finally, the most common claim is of having conversations with God. One person I know claims God wakes her up at night to pray for people. Is that possible? I suppose. But then, menopause and old age make you wake up at night, and why would God wake you up to tell him to ask him to do something? If God wants to do something for your friend, he's not gonna tell you to ask for it; he'll just up and do it. Again, those rich preachers tell us how they have conversations with God, in plain language. Daily. Several times a day. Is this true? Perhaps. But then I think about Samuel, when he was a young boy serving Eli, and the Lord called him. He heard the angel of the Lord calling him, and thought it was Eli calling. The voice wasn't within him, but outside. Samuel did not recognise it. And when Eli recognised that it was the angel of the Lord, and Samuel listened, the messenger said what he had to say and then left. In the Bible, people don't just talk to God all the time about random stuff – and God talks to people rather less than they talk to him.
So do we never hear God anymore? I'm inclined to say it is at best very rare. Preachers today are not prophets, and not even "disciples" in the way that the first-generation Christians were. We do not get words straight from the mouth of God as the prophets did. We are, in fact, the Scribes. The same Scribes that Jesus railed against. And most of us are Pharisees, too. We bring no new word from the Lord: we only study the recorded words of the Lord, and try to understand. We do not have authority from God, but from the congregation. The church gives us a position of authority. Not even the capital-C Church, the body of Christ, but the individual small-c churches, the human organisations of people with similar images of God. That is all the authority we have. We do not speak for God, or from God, but only about God, about the knowledge and the understanding that we have acquired by studying. We certainly hope that our interpretation is true to God's intention, but we don't know for sure.
The moral of all this is to remind us to be humble. We, none of us, have authority to claim to speak for the Lord, but only to share with others a God of our own understanding – and realise that they too, will have their own understanding of God. None of us are prophets, so none of us should claim to have received any kind of communication or vision straight from the Lord. When that happens, we'll know the difference. And certainly none of us have the authority to work miracles, which is to say, we cannot substitute prayer for action. If we ask the Lord to help our neighbour, we have done nothing, because the Lord knew our neighbour's suffering before we did, and cares more than we do. Our prayer is self-righteous and lazy. It is up to us to help our neighbour with our own hands, as is in our power. If we also pray with or for them, that's fine, but if we pray and do not act, we are just the kind of hypocrites Jesus hated.
We, the Scribes and Pharisees, will be last in the Kingdom of Heaven if we are self-satisfied. But if we humble ourselves and serve our neighbours, the sinners, prostitutes and tax-collectors, then we will have a place at the right hand of the Lord, with the sinners and prostitutes.
Praise be to God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
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