RCL Year B (Epiphany 4) - February 1, 2009

The Rev'd Kenneth H. Saunders III
Christ Episcopal Church
Cleveland, NC

RCL Year B (Epiphany 4) - February 1, 2009

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

When I begin a sermon, sometimes I say what is called an invocation at the beginning, “I speak to you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit… or I may speak the beautiful words of Psalm 19 and say, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart, be always acceptable to you, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.”

There are different schools of thought on how and why this should or shouldn’t be used, but whatever the phrase, I am asking for God’s prophetic voice to be present with me as I speak to you…

I believe that is what preaching is... A message of a prophetic voice. That is why I work hard at sermon preparation and that is why I take it very seriously. It is why the ministers in our tradition need to be educated and licensed to preach.

But “preacher” isn’t the right word for what I do. In fact, it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck to hear me introduced as your “preacher.” Because preaching isn’t the point, Christ is. I would hope that I am so much more to you than a preacher, just like our service is so much more than a sermon.

So to call me simply a preacher is improper. And I never claimed to be a prophet, though I pray to God every day that I have a prophetic voice that points to God in all of God’s wonder and glory. So, please don’t call me prophet, either.

I am your priest. I am here to share with you the wonders and mysteries of God. Not necessarily to give you all the answers, but to help you live with some of the questions, and celebrate with you God awesome grace… to nurture you with the teaching, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers. I am your priest; maybe you should just call me Ken…

And though I have a certain authority that comes because of the responsibilities of my position, and I try to be very careful to use that authority in a way that will enrich our spiritual lives. The primary thing that I do is point to Christ, and show the world that it is only Christ who is the one that forms, informs, and transforms. It is my job to get out of the way and let the light of Christ shine through. I am convinced that something great will happen for you if you learn to let yourself relax a little, and be open to what the spirit of God is trying to do in your life.

Be willing to be uncomfortable sometimes, and let go and let God get close… to listen and then go where God leads.

Be willing to be like Moses, who was the prophetic leader of the Israelites. He was the one that had authority. At the point where we pick up the Old Testament Lesson, Moses and the Israelites were wondering around in the wilderness, and have been for almost 40 long years. Our story takes place toward the end of their travels, and God was giving the people the instructions that would govern their life in the Promised Land that God was leading them to.

Moses was getting old, and he was starting to realize that he wouldn’t be around for the final leg of the trip. The prophetic voice that led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt would soon not be around, and the people were starting to get worried.
So Moses assures them of God’s plan to raise up for them a new prophet from among them, a prophet that will lead them, and be the voice of God for them. This prophet will speak the words that God has commanded them to speak.

Moses gave this new prophet his endorsement, and assured the people that God will continue to guide them (and guide all of us) through prophets that deliver the divine Word of God. Those unlikely voices that you may not want to listen to. Those voices that take you to uncomfortable places. Those places that God is doing the most work in your lives.

There are prophets like Moses among you sitting right here in these pews. Because sometimes the prophetic voice isn’t just in the pulpit, it is among the people of God that are working for justice, freedom, and peace. Modern day prophets that preach the good word, God’s word, with the actions of their everyday lives.

We find Jesus today in the temple. He had gone there to teach on the Sabbath, but he did something different than their normal lesson that the scribes has always done. He was a true prophetic voice… He taught the people with authority. Jesus spoke with a prophetic voice, and revealed to them the divine word of God.

The Evangelist, Mark, tells us that in the crowd there was a man with a demon, or an unclean spirit. The spirit that cried out, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” Then Jesus rebuked him and said, “Be silent, and come out of him!” And the man was sent into a convulsive spasm and the unclean spirit left him.

What is so interesting about this story is not the fact that Jesus was teaching, or even the fact that he cast a demon out of a man. It was how he handled the situation, and the story that it tells us.

Jesus was teaching, but not like any other teaching that they had ever heard. Jesus was teaching with authority. One with the authority that was recognized only by a demon in their midst… A demon that challenged him, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” A demon that recognized him as the Holy One of God.

Among the ordinary everyday folk, there was only one that stood up and challenged Him. One that was right there in the middle of the synagogue. And Jesus performs an exorcism and casts the demon out.

But the story lacks a bunch of the Hollywood drama that we would expect to be associated with in an exorcism. Jesus’ prophetic voice said, “Be Silent, and come out of him!” Very simply, “Be silent, and come out!”

We could probably sit here for hours and challenge the happenings of the story, picking each detail apart saying that the man must have been a epileptic, or autistic… needing some kind of medicine or magic, but that’s not the point.

Jesus is the point, and his teaching with authority.
So many of us miss the point so much that we focus on the action, rather than the miracle. We focus on the demon, rather than the Christ. We focus on what has gone wrong, or the negative, rather than what went right, or the positive. It almost seems that we would rather have an exorcism, than do evangelism.

We would rather be content listening to the scribes rattle on in the temple, and teach what has been taught, and re-taught, and re-taught over the centuries. We would rather hear the comfortable words than the prophetic voice from unlikely messengers, or worst yet BE that prophetic voice to others.

Epiphany goes on for a few more Sundays, and Jesus continues to enlighten our paths with his path. A path that will eventually lead us into lent. A lent that ends in Jesus’ crucifixion and death.

We don’t need a preacher now. We don’t need someone to stand in a pulpit and tell us what we should and should not do. What we do need is Jesus. We need Jesus the Christ who teaches us with authority, to the point that demons, our demons (those parts of us that rear their ugly heads from time to time) come out, so Jesus can deal with them, and cast them out.

We need Jesus, who when he speaks, something will surely happen. We need Jesus, but it’s just me standing up here hoping to point you to him.

Hoping that God will use me as a vessel, a prophetic voice, to help you see Jesus a little closer.