Proper 26, Year A                                                       Micah 3:5-12
October 30, 2005                                                        Psalm 43
St. Margaret of Scotland Episcopal Church                  1 Thessalonians 2:9-13, 17-20
The Rev. Linda McCloud                                             Matthew 23:1-12 

Where have all the prophets gone? 

            Just when we thought that the world couldn’t take any more doom and disaster, the good ole US of A got hit with yet another hurricane.  With all the bad news we’ve had lately, we might be starting to wonder – where is the good news?  

            This same question might have been on the minds of those who listened to the Prophet Micah.  We don’t have to look very far into Micah’s writings to see where we would get an expression such as “prophet of doom.”  Micah roars onto the scene like a hurricane and even proclaims doom on the prophets:  “The sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be black over them.”  But, as we shall see, in God’s good grace, even this has a silver lining. 

            In today’s reading from Micah, it seems that God is angry.  This embarrasses us.  Why is that?  Maybe this is so because we are always proclaiming that God is love.  And it’s true.  God is love.  But, if we love God, and want to communicate with God, we might want to ask why God would feel anger towards us.  

            From my reading of scripture, here is my take on why God would be upset with God’s people.  God is perfect love.  At some point in time, humanity rejected God’s love and thought we could handle this life all by ourselves.  God still loves us and wants to draw us into his perfect life of love in the Holy and undivided Trinity.  When we worship God, we recognize that this is so, and we try to close the gap between us and God.   

On the other hand, when our hearts and minds are not set on pleasing God, our sins separate us from God.  God’s anger reflects this.  God seeks to make everything perfect again.  This upsets us.  We like the status quo.  God keeps trying to get our attention and bring us to a higher level of love.  It’s a tug of war.  Why is it that we don’t get along better with God?   

            God’s wrath is a part of God’s holy passion for us, and God has a right to righteous indignation.  As the scriptures are quick to point out, God is the only one who is truly qualified to properly handle anger.  In human hands, anger, like fire, can quickly get out of control.  God gets angry because God is passionate about us, and jealous for our affections.  How do we know this?  The prophets told us so.  They were born with an enzyme that allowed them to speak about God in simple, declarative sentences.   

The prophets, whose job it was to speak for God, told us how God really feels and why God feels that way.  Anger is only one of the emotions God feels in relation to us, and it is fleeting.  God’s anger is based on God’s righteousness.  It evokes both our worship and our trust, because in our earthly life, God’s anger always gives us a chance to repent.  The good news is that God’s wrath lasts only for “the twinkling of an eye,” [Psalm 30:5] but his favor towards us lasts for a lifetime.   

            The role of the prophets was always to call God’s people back into covenant relationship with God.  God had given the law to the prophet Moses.  The law, which did not make anything perfect, would hold God’s people and identify them as God’s own until the Word would become flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.  The prophets acted as shepherds until the Great Shepherd of the Sheep could appear on the scene in the fullness of God’s good time.   

            Hebrews 1:1-2 tells us who the real Prophet is:  “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.” (NRSV)  Yes, the sun did indeed go down upon the prophets, just as the Prophet Micah said it would.  But the good news is that the Sun of Righteousness has arisen with healing in his wings, just as the prophets said He would.   

            And now, back to Micah.  Where’s the good news in Micah’s writings?  Read further in Micah’s prophecy and you will note that Micah is the prophet who predicts the birthplace of the Messiah.  He predicted that Bethlehem would be the place out of which would come “the one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days . . . and he shall be the one of peace.”  (Micah 5:2-5)  What could be better news than that? 

Micah 6:8 gives us a snapshot of God’s fairness.  God tells us in advance what God expects of us:  “He has told you, O mortal, what is good:  and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”  Good news, indeed!   

            By the end of the Book, Micah’s prophetic fury has died down like the winds of a hurricane when it is spent, and we find ourselves in the clear light of the good news.  The good news in Micah is that God pardons our wrongdoings, God does not retain his anger forever, and God delights in showing clemency and compassion.               

The prophets preached the judgment of God.  Judgment is not all bad.  Judgment has a cleansing effect.  It gives us a chance to start over.  God’s true prophets were authentic.  They could be God’s bullhorns because they exhibited integrity.  Sometimes they lost their lives for it.  Jesus took big risks with his prophetic voice.  He was accused of blasphemy, or contemptuous behavior toward God.  Prophets were always tested, and the truth came out in the wash.  By his death and glorious resurrection, Jesus proved to be truly the Son of God.  Jesus, our glorious Lord and Savior, was Prophet, and Priest, and King. 

            The church is Christ’s body in the world, and the entire church collectively presents a prophetic witness to the world.  That is, the church represents God to the world and speaks for God, because we continue to offer to the world the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Eucharist.  Watch out for “lone rangers.”  In the Christian movement in the third century, there was an interesting attitude toward prophets.  The Church tested them, and here was the test:  If the “prophet” stayed more than three days, or if the “prophet” asked for money, then that person was a false prophet.  Such a person would be sent on his or her way.  That’s because those prophets were not working under the guidance and leadership of the bishops.  Such prophets came from outside the local communities of believers, and did not wish to subject themselves to church authorities.  And just as an aside, I want to say – beware of those “prophecies” for the New Year in the grocery store tabloids.  We’ll be seeing lots of those in the next few weeks.  At best, they sometimes serve the purpose of providing us with a good laugh.   

            Where then is the church’s prophetic voice, if the church represents God in the world.  How can we speak for God?  We admit that we live in a broken society and show God’s goodness dimly.  But the fact that the church is still vital two thousand years after Jesus lived on earth is one way we have of speaking for God.  Just the sheer fact that we preach and break bread every week gives us the right to declare that Jesus is Lord – to shine the light of God into the darkness.   

The existence of the church is a judgment on evil in the world around us.  The church’s collective righteous indignation against the evils of our society has led us to compassion.  This is how ministries get established.  This is how we work to eradicate social ills and evils.  Indifference to evil would be the greater sin.  As we all know, bad things happen when good people do nothing.    

            The prophets had a direct relationship with God.  We also have a direct relationship with God – through the blessed sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.  Pray for integrity in your daily Christian living, so that your voice may rise with that of two thousand years of Christianity to call others to the love of God.