The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet [Deuteronomy 18:15].
For a number of years, prior to our migration to Blacknall Presbyterian about four years ago, I had the pleasure of being part of an engaging, devoted men’s study group at Trinity Avenue Presbyterian that meets each Wednesday morning. I recall one Wednesday’s discussion of the Israelites’ “golden calf” incident set forth in Exodus 32. I’m sure you recall most of the details.
In any event, during the discussion, one of my friends posed an interesting question. He said,
Of all the sins named in the Ten Commandments, it would seem that the one that forbids the crafting of idols would be the easiest to avoid. Just don’t fashion voodoo dolls to worship. Don’t carve little statues of Aphrodite. Avoid making models of the solar system in order that you can worship the sun.
I recall that we all chuckled a bit. Then one in the group said something really intriguing. He allowed that idolatry wasn’t merely the worship “of graven images [Exodus 20:4-5]. He suggested instead that it was/is much broader, that it is the act of embracing the unholy. He went on to say that he recalled a history class in college in which the group had discussed and debated whether Nazism had been a form of idolatry. He suggested that all too many Germans had become comfortable with that extreme form of nationalism, that they had drawn a form of perverted strength from their devotion to it, and that because Nazism was in essence idolatry, it ended in utter destruction for its believers/practitioners.
Embracing the unholy: The golden calf idolatry incident is an unspoken backdrop to the Old Testament reading assigned for this upcoming Sunday, Deuteronomy 18:15-20 [Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, RCL, Year B]. 40 years of wandering around in the wilderness are complete. The Israelites have eaten manna for 40 years. They’ve been led by Moses and, to a lesser extent, Aaron. Virtually a full generation has died during their sojourn and a new generation has been born. This latter group “remembers” the enslavement in Egypt only through the stories related to them by their elders.
The Israelites are about to cross over into the Promised Land, but they’ll have to do so without Moses. He will not join them on the other side (nor will Aaron). In their new land—the Promised Land—they’ll have to avoid the embrace of the unholy.
And so, in this Sunday’s reading, the people receive the promise that Yahweh will raise up a new prophet like Moses. Where Moses was an outsider of sorts—first raised as an Egyptian, then fleeing the Israelites for decades after killing the Egyptian—the prophet to be sent will be from their own people. He will be called by Yahweh and the people are to listen to him.
A prophet from your own people—I suspect that it is more difficult to listen to a prophet who’s an “insider.” He knows the rules and secret handshakes. He knows where the bodies are buried. He has shared their meals, their worries, their doubts, and their fears. He has a perspective that is impossible to discount since it is as real as the perspective his “internal” opponents might have. His presence among them is impossible to ignore. What might the prophet say?
Some years back, one of my closest friends, Luke Bell, served as a Moravian pastor in Forsyth County, North Carolina. Always a bit of a burr beneath the saddle, Luke and some of his fellow pastors became concerned when the denomination began to meander dangerously away from Holy Scripture. Finally, adopting a stance that is popular among not a few these days, the presiding Moravian bishop announced, via a newspaper interview, that there were many, many ways to God. Jesus, the bishop said, was just one such way. In other words, forget John 14:6.
Luke, the insider, the prophet “from their own people,” following the prescription offered in Matthew 18:15, et seq., quietly made an appointment with the bishop to discuss the situation. But the bishop wasn’t interested in hearing from Luke. Luke’s belief was old-fashioned. I think the bishop said Luke was being “too binary.” And so, the bishop would not recant. Luke, therefore, resigned his post, and formed a small, spirit-filled house church.
These are my words—not Luke’s—but I wonder if the Moravian Church, like quite a few of her sister denominations, have embraced the unholy. To the so-called elite, modern mind, listening to the words of a first-century itinerant rabbi, a rabbi of, shall we say, uncertain lineage, can seem altogether unsophisticated. Jesus couldn’t have meant what He said so long ago. He didn’t have the benefit of our progressive ideas, our intellect, our experience with the real world. Luke Bell, a prophet “from their own people” arises, reminds those around him of Christ’s Holy pronouncements, but to many within the earshot of the prophet, the words of Jesus just seem to be—well—so binary. The prophet reminds us that once we start the process of placing an asterisk beside some of Jesus’ “quaint” statements, what do we have left?
Prophets from their own people—their words sting because these insider prophets have shared meals with us, have shared tears with us, have shared hopes and dreams with us. Their hearts have been broken along with ours. They’ve helped us bury our loved ones as we have helped them do the same.
This special prophet sees us pile high our plates and sees those nearby whom we ignore. From his or her perspective as an insider, these Holy prophets don’t talk about grand forms of idolatry. They point not to golden calves, but rather to our day-to-day activities that have become comfortable, even perhaps dependent upon, the unholy.
Like the Moravian bishop, we want to dismiss the words of prophets from our own people. We have to resist her message lest we be forced to change our lives. If the prophet is right in what he or she is saying, we will be required to disassemble our idols, and along with them, the security and stability that we’ve come to think they allow.
I’m reminded of a moment from years ago. It was perhaps 1985. The beautiful pipe organ at First UMC, Gastonia, had been acting up a bit. Oh, to be sure, our beautifully trained and talented organist could maneuver around the dead tones, but some serious work needed to be done on the entire electrical and pipe structure of the instrument. I forget the exact amount, but the estimate to do the refurbishment was somewhere around $250,000. As you know, back then, a dollar was a real dollar.
To commit that kind of money to the organ, the Book of Order required that we have a congregational meeting. When the problem was described and the floor was open to questions, the presiding district superintendent looked out on the congregation for the person whose question would likely be the most innocuous. He called upon a beautiful, blue-haired woman in her 80s. She stood barely five feet tall. She rose to her feet and said that she’d been a member of the church for more than 65 years, that she’d even sung in the choir in her younger days. She said our church was known for its music, that it had no doubt inspired many hearts over the decades. She was also sure that we had the resources to do whatever we wanted to do.
She said she did have one question: “Do we own the organ, or does the organ own us?” Then the prophet from her own people sat down.
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