Who Speaks for God?
A sermon by Brent J. Eelman
January 29, 2006
Abington Presbyterian Church

Deuteronomy 18: 15-20
The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet. ¹⁶ This is what you requested of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: “If I hear the voice of the Lord my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die.” ¹⁷ Then the Lord replied to me: “They are right in what they have said. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who shall speak to them everything that I command. ¹⁹ Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in my name, I myself will hold accountable. ²⁰ But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.”*  

I have been a pastor and preacher for almost thirty years. There were times early on when I thought that I would never make it to five years, and I suspect that my presence in the pulpit today is either a witness to the grace of God, the patience of God, or the fact that God has a genuine sense of humor. I remember the first Sunday that I stood in front of a congregation to preach. I was a newly minted seminary graduate, ordained for about one month. It was the summer of 1976 and I had just begun as an associate minister when the head of staff told me that he was taking a few weeks of vacation and that I would be preaching. The congregation also broadcast its services live over the radio and so my first homiletic effort would be heard, not only by the congregation in front of me, but also by untold thousands (realistically hundreds!) of people in central Missouri. I was excited, but also very nervous… extremely nervous. I wanted to do a good job. I wanted to tell the people of that congregation that I could preach with authority. All week I struggled with that sermon. I wrote it, rewrote a number of times. This was before computers and word processing. For me, it was before electric typewriters.. my typewriter was one that I rescued from a trash bin in Princeton N.J. I was going to preach God’s word to the people of Central Missouri. What a task. I was a nervous wreck. I worked on that manuscript all week: I preached from the 4^th chapter of Ephesians. I am not sure what my sermon was about, but I thought it went pretty smoothly. The next day, however, at the staff meeting it was pointed out that I had managed to preach my entire sermon in about 8 minutes and that for the last fifteen minutes of the broadcast people listening on the air heard the members of First Presbyterian church greeting one another while the organ played. 8 minutes! I was nervous and probably sounded like a machine gun when I spoke. But if the truth be known, I was just as nervous this morning as that first Sunday.

People who are around on Sunday morning will tell you that this calling of preaching gets me extremely nervous. I still spend a lot of time in preparation. I deliver the sermon at least five times before you hear it. I work and rework some of the phrasing…. And one would think that after all that preparation and thirty years of experience, I could just relax, stand up here and preach. It should come naturally. Except that preaching is not a natural activity…. Nor should it be. It is speaking God’s Word to God’s people and it is, by its very nature, the most presumptuous of activities. To think: I could speak for God???? The warning from Deuteronomy haunts me every time I sit down to write a sermon: “But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in my name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.” Preaching is serious business and everyone who dons these robes and mounts a pulpit should remember the words of the writer of Deuteronomy and tremble.

It is not my intention this morning to whine and complain about this calling of mine, but I do want to raise the question that is asked by the text of Deuteronomy: “Who speaks for God?” Deuteronomy has often been compared to Moses’ last will and testament. Moses, you will remember, was the one who spoke for God to the people of Israel. It was the end of his life and he was about to die. Who would take Moses’ place? How would the people of Israel know what God was saying to them? We might ask the same question today: Who speaks for God? Is it the pope? Is it the chief elder of the Mormons? Is it the televangelist? Is it the hymn writer? Is it Jerry Falwell? Pat Robertson? Jesse Jackson? Is it your pastor? Who speaks for God and how can we be sure? I know that I am nervous on this side of the pulpit, but you should be asking the question on that side: “Is this the message that God wants us to hear?” “How do we know this is true?” (and truth is what it is all about.) The two texts this morning suggest that those who speak for God will be prophetic and (2) they will speak with authority.

I

Those who speak for God will be prophets. When we think of prophets these days we usually are thinking of someone who can see into the future and tell what is going to happen. Biblical prophecy is something much different. The prophet was the one who spoke God’s word. From Moses to Elijah, from Isaiah to Jeremiah, from Amos to Joel, the prophet was one who was entrusted with God’s word. The prophet was an individual who literally was a mouthpiece for God. At times the message that the prophet spoke referred to the future. But more often than not it was a pronouncement about the present. When we read the words of the prophets we realize that God is concerned about justice. God is concerned about the people who no one is concerned about. God is concerned and speaks about how we treat people, particularly those people who are weak, those who can’t fend for themselves. This is the concern of justice. At the heart of the prophetic message is a message of justice and love: God loves his people, and he grieves when they are mistreated by others. The message of judgment that the prophet brings is always rooted in concern and love.

Those who speak for God, will be those who are concerned about the people in this world who hurt, the people who are oppressed, the people who are forgotten. Those who speak for God, will call upon us who have much to remember them. This is the pattern of the prophets, and it is certainly at the heart of Jesus teachings. Jesus didn’t have much to say about economic systems, about trade and about social class, but he did say that whenever these things caused people to hurt, whenever these things kept people down and oppressed them, they were evil. Jesus didn’t speak about “class struggle” or the redistribution of economic resources. He put it in the simplest of terms: “If you have 2 coats, give one to the person who has none.”

What might God have to say about healthcare today? I don’t think that God advocates for any type of healthcare system, be it universal coverage, or private pay, or HMO’s. There is no theologically correct system.. but… God is concerned and speaks a word of judgment when 10 million children do not have health care coverage. I don’t believe that there is one particular divinely endorsed plan for peace in the middle east, but God is concerned about the mistreatment and death that is inflicted in God’s name, be it to Jew or Palestinian. Those who speak for God.. speak a message of judgment that is rooted in love and calls us to change….

II

In the gospel of Mark we read that the people who heard Jesus were amazed, because he spoke with authority. The authority with which Jesus spoke was the authority of love. It was the authority that comes when one is willing to spend time with those who hurt.. those who hunger for hope. One of the great theologians of the last century was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. When World War II broke out, he had a comfortable job as a professor in New York City, but he chose to return to Germany to be with his people. There he took a stand against the brutal lies of the Nazis and spoke the truth to that regime, ultimately being martyred. He spoke with authority because there was no disconnect between his words and his actions. This is the authority with which Jesus spoke. The challenge for the church, for preachers and for those in the pews is to speak with authority to this world in which we live.

Who speaks for God today? Have the voices of the prophets been silenced? I don’t think so, but I fear that there are a lot of voices out there that are fakirs and pretenders who speak their own words and call it God's. The text from Deuteronomy contains a promise that God will raise a prophet who will speak God’s word clearly. We believe this is no other than the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. Those who speak for God today, will speak of Christ. Their words will point to Christ, not to themselves. One of the famous paintings of John the Baptist has him pointing his finger, pointing to someone beyond himself, pointing to Christ. You and I need to become more intimate with Christ, more intimate with his parables and teachings, more intimate with his life, so that we may discern clearly the words of those who speak in his name… so that we may discern if they are true prophets, or liars. This is no easy task, but it is an important one for preacher and pew sitter alike. It is a life and death matter. And for those who speak the truth in love, for those who hear God’s word, it is a matter of life: eternal life This is the good news. Amen.

*The New Revised Standard Version Bible, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers) 1989.

Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, Pennsylvania,  www.apcusa.org