Dear Sisters, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, what exactly is a ‘prophet’? The word ‘prophet’ comes from a Greek word literally meaning ‘one who speaks forth’, a mouthpiece. It is in this sense that we understand the prophets in sacred Scripture, as those who do not only speak in God’s name, but also specifically speak what God has given to them to say. We often hear their writings read to us in the first reading on Sundays in Ordinary or Green time, as now. They are God’s spokesmen, His messengers. In the Creed we say that the Holy Spirit ‘has spoken through the prophets’. This means that God has chosen them for a particular ministry to His people, above all else speaking to God’s people in a time when God’s voice is not being listened to or obeyed. There is, then, often a note of rebuke, even of warning, in what they say to the people. The essential message is: ‘you have stopped obeying God and now God has sent me to remind you of your duty to Him and the dire consequences of ignoring Him.’
Today’s first reading comes from one of these. Ezekiel, a priest of the Temple, wrote 600 years before our Lord, at a time when the chosen people were living in exile after Jerusalem had been conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. Ezechiel addresses the Israelite people, and the prophet’s message is that their difficulties, although they seem to come from foreign kings and armies, are all in reality self-inflicted. The people of Israel, he says, have been unfaithful to God. They have forgotten Him or have compromised their faith in Him, mixing it up with service of other, false, gods. The people have sinned, and so are now paying the price. The calamity of exile is not God’s vengeance, but the result of the people’s folly.
Now that they are living in Babylon among the Assyrian pagans, many of the Israelites are being tempted to abandon faith in God and to worship the Assyrian deities. After all, it seems to them that the Assyrian gods proved more powerful than the God of Israel who apparently failed to save them from defeat. So, now that they are living virtually as slaves in a foreign land, maybe the gods of the Assyrians will favour them, and don’t people often simply like to back a ‘winner’?. This is where Ezechiel speaks prophetically to the Israelites, to call out their unfaithfulness and to urge them to repent and return to the worship of the One, True God.
But how is it that Ezechiel comes to take on such a role as God’s spokesman? Well, he has received several extra-ordinary revelations from God, in which the Lord says such things as we have heard in the first reading: ‘the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard him speaking to me. He said to me, Son of man, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are impudent and stubborn.’ These words set the scene, describing the Holy Spirit’s entry into Ezechiel’s mind and heart to call out the Israelites’ apostasy, their revolt against God. Then the Spirit announces Ezechiel’s mission: ‘I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord God”: Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.’
Ezechiel will now go out among the exiles and shake them out of their spiritual sloth. He will summon them to change their ways, to abandon false gods and to prepare themselves for their return to Jerusalem because God is about to free them. At the time God judges right, He will indeed most wonderfully restore them to Jerusalem where they will re-establish the Temple worship of God as in the past days of glory and faithfulness.
Now the message of the prophets, men like Ezechiel, is never ended when they and the people they addressed died, but through them the Holy Spirit speaks to the Church ever afterwards. This is why we still read these texts to this day, over two and a half thousand years later. They are not merely ancient historical documents; they are ever-relevant expressions of faith, of reproof, of divine judgement, of encouragement, and of hope and mercy. But the mercy only comes after the people recognise sin, and hope only comes after repentance has at least begun in earnest.
It is necessary to add a brief word about the importance of being able to distinguish between true prophets and false. When the wicked King Ahab was trying to discern whether it was God’s will for him to attack a neighbouring kingdom, he sought advice from as many as four hundred prophets who all told him to go ahead and he would win. Surely, if so many agreed then they must be right? Yet one prophet alone, called Micaiah, stood out and warned Ahab not to attack, telling the king both that he would suffer a terrible defeat and that he had heard God saying that He would deceive the four hundred false prophets in order to trick the wicked king into going to his downfall and death. In his anger, king Ahab ordered that Micaiah should be imprisoned until he, Ahab, returned in triumph. Micaiah’s answer was simple: ‘if you return in peace, the Lord has not spoken through me.’ And so it turned out; Ahab marched out at the advice of the four hundred false prophets and was killed in battle. The truth of Micaiah’s prophecy was proved in the event.
In recent weekday readings we have also heard how even earlier still, Amos preached a similar prophetic message of reproof from God to the Samaritans and was told by the royal priest of Samaria to go away because his message was not welcome; it was disturbing and not pleasant to listen to. Amos replied that he was not there of his own accord but only because God had called him away from his usual job as a herdsman and had sent him to preach to the Samaritans.
Our Lord Himself also taught us to distinguish between true and false prophets, saying; ‘Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.’ And ‘Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.’ Those words are a strong warning. How often do we, any of us, want to be spoken well of? Yet our Lord tells us that to be spoken well of is a sure sign of not speaking God’s words but one’s own. Instead, those who speak God’s words must expect to be excluded and reviled, mocked, and as say nowadays, cancelled.
Exclusion, mockery and cancellation; these are things which a true prophet should expect to experience rather than the adulation and approval of the powerful and of the many. Men like Amos, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezechiel, not to mention our Lord Himself, all experienced rejection and persecution on account of speaking the truth in God’s name. For that is what a true prophet is. And thus will a true prophet be treated.
I say all this now, because I sense that a time is coming very soon when such things will become more frequent and more pressing in this country. This is indeed a time when God’s truth is most certainly being attacked and His laws most defiantly not being obeyed. Just to take a few instances: even now, simply to speak publicly the truth that each of us is either male or female from conception and not from personal choice; to speak openly about marriage being between one man and one woman for life and for the procreation and upbringing of children; to speak about the wickedness of destroying innocent life in the womb, or destroying the innocence of children with so-called sex education and by foisting on them celebrations of pride in something that is offensive to God; or to speak about the danger of seeking to end life by assisted suicide; to speak about all these things already arouses the displeasure of those who exercise power over us, and brings down the wrath and fury of many people among whom we live. Even now there are already those who, having witnessed silently in the streets to the abomination of killing innocent human life in the womb, have been arrested for it. If such silent witness were soon to be made illegal by Parliament, then it would undoubtedly issue in even more than arrest: imprisonment or crippling fines.
In the years ahead I foresee that it is more than likely that we will find our Christian faith not just being attacked and mocked in the media as is already increasingly the case, but that we will in all probability see those who openly profess it cancelled, ostracised, excluded from the public arena and even imprisoned for speaking the truth against laws that may come to be passed. Our Lord in the Gospel today says that ‘a prophet is despised in his own country among his own relations and in his own house,’ meaning among his own fellow citizens. He also says elsewhere, ‘Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.’ Since these are the explicit words of our Lord, then know that we must prepare ourselves for a time ahead when we will be increasingly called upon to be resolute in the face of more and more vehement attacks. Furthermore, we have already seen vastly increasing in number and influence in our midst those who fulfil our Lord’s words, ‘Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think that he is offering service to God.’
In years gone by, we used much more often to sing Fr Faber’s hymn, ‘Faith of our fathers, living still in spite of dungeon, fire and sword.’ Who knows but that such times as once were endured bravely by our fathers in the faith only a few hundred years ago, may not soon return with equal fury and violence, and may try our resolution to the limit? (and indeed our Lord warns us that many will fall away under the pressure.) Well, even if such trials were to end in death, they are not for ever. Remember the words of St Paul in today’s second reading: ‘I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong’ and remember how the Apostle St James reminds us of what comes after such times of trial: ‘Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.’
Make A Comment
Comments (0)