PROPER 10, YEAR B

July 11, 2021

St. Uriel’s, Sea Girt, N.J.

Amos 7:7-15

Psalm 85:8-13

Ephesians 1:3-14

Mark 6:14-29

Today’s readings highlight the scriptural phenomenon of prophecy. Throughout the Bible, God raises up prophets to speak his Word and reveal his will, calling his people to faith and repentance.

Our Old Testament reading is taken from Amos, who’s not the first prophet named as such in the Bible—that distinction arguably goes to Eldad and Medad in the Book of Numbers—but biblical scholars do believe the Book of Amos to be the oldest of the prophetic books in the Old Testament, dating to the eighth century B.C.

And our Gospel reading recounts the death of John the Baptist, whom the Christian tradition reckons as the last of the Old Testament prophets (even though he’s not explicitly mentioned in the Old Testament itself). So, between Amos and John the Baptist, we span the career of Old Testament prophecy.

The Catholic Christian tradition also teaches, however, that the age of prophecy did not end with the closing of the biblical canon. Down through the centuries, God has raised up prophetic voices in every generation to bear witness to the truth of his Word and to extrapolate the Gospel’s implications for each new era’s challenges.

Within the last hundred years, for example, four figures come to my mind as authentic modern-day prophets: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor and theologian who courageously opposed Hitler in Nazi Germany and was hanged in Sachsenhausen concentration camp just as the war was ending; the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who led the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, and worked to end racial discrimination and segregation, all the while condemning violence and advocating nonviolent means of protest and resistance; Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who spoke out on behalf of human rights for the poor and oppressed, and was shot dead while saying Mass in March 1980; and Desmond Tutu, the Anglican Archbishop of Capetown, whose activism helped end the apartheid regime in South Africa and pave the way for majority rule in 1994. 

So, there we have an ecumenical assortment: a Lutheran, a Baptist, a Roman Catholic, and an Anglican! We don’t have to agree with everything that they each said or did. None of them was infallible. (I certainly don’t agree with much of what Desmond Tutu has said about topics other than South Africa.) But we can still acknowledge all four of them as genuine prophetic voices raised up by God in our age. And there have been many others.

Now, at this point in the sermon, the great temptation would be for the preacher to exhort us to discern how God is calling us all to take our place in the Church’s prophetic ministry and find our own prophetic voices to denounce injustice and advocate for change in our own time and place. But I’m going to resist that temptation—because I think it’s a mistake. On the contrary, we’re probably not all called to be prophets. The Church, the Body of Christ, has room for many different callings, both lay and ordained, and prophetic witness on behalf of social justice is a ministry to which some but not all are called.

As Christians, however, we are all called to be alert, open, and attentive to the prophetic voices raised in our midst. Even if we don’t speak up ourselves, we need always to listen. Today’s Old Testament reading holds up the negative example of the priest Amaziah, who tries to silence Amos: “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah and eat bread there, and prophesy there, but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” When a genuine prophet comes into our midst, Amaziah shows us how not to respond!

More tragically ambiguous is King Herod in today’s Gospel. When John the Baptist rebukes him for marrying his brother’s wife—a clear violation of the Jewish Law—he has John arrested and put in prison. But he intends John’s imprisonment as a kind of protective custody because his wife Herodias wants John dead. And so, Mark writes, “Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and kept him safe. When he heard him, he as much perplexed; and yet he heard him gladly.” For all Herod’s faults, there’s something worthy of admiration there. When God sends a genuine prophet into our midst, we may find what that prophet says perplexing and even disturbing. But we do well to give the prophet an extended hearing, being quick to listen and slow to judge. (Unfortunately, however, Herod puts himself in a position where he can be manipulated into having John beheaded anyway.)

The further question is how to distinguish between true and false prophets. For in addition to the authentic prophetic voices I mentioned earlier, we can probably all call to mind deceivers who’ve led their followers astray with often catastrophic results. Think, for starters, of Jim Jones, who orchestrated the Jonestown mass suicide in Guyana in 1978, with the loss of over 900 lives.

Well, it so happens that down through the centuries, the Catholic tradition has developed guidelines for discerning the truth or falsity of claimed revelations, visions, and prophecies. 

One key test is whether the would-be prophet stands to gain anything personally from his words and actions. When the priest Amaziah tells Amos to go back to Judah and eat bread there, he’s insinuating that prophesying is Amos’s way of making a living and enriching himself. And Amos is quick to disavow being any kind of prophet-by-trade: “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees …” We get the sense that Amos would much rather be back at home working the farm. Nevertheless, this is something he’s constrained to do: “The Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go prophesy to my people Israel.’”

Another sign of authenticity is that the prophet doesn’t necessarily tell people what they want to hear. Neither Amos nor John the Baptist are seeking popularity by flattering their audiences. On the contrary, they know that their witness will be costly and will require great sacrifices. Genuine prophets willing to die fulfilling their mission, and indeed often do.

The decisive test, however, is that the prophet’s words and actions are consistent with God’s Word as already revealed in Scripture. This is certainly true of the prophets in the Bible itself, from Amos to John the Baptist, and it continues to be true down to the present day.

Scripture, as understood and interpreted by the Catholic tradition, supplies the standard by which we assess and evaluate messages delivered by those claimed to be prophets in our time. As Saint Paul writes in today’s reading from his Letter to the Ephesians, “God has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will.” So, in the end, we take our stand with the Psalmist, who declares with joy: “I will listen to what the Lord God is saying, for he is speaking peace to his faithful people, and to those who turn their hearts to him.”