The Prophethood of All Believers
Good morning!
And welcome to the Sunday of Pentecost, as well as [almost] the first day of June. None of us could have predicted that we’d still be worshipping remotely on this date, but the return of warmth and growth is as welcome always.
Our lectionary gives a few options for what readings we’ll hear for today, and I chose these selections for two reasons: first, they’re not the typical choices and I think it’s nice to hear some- thing different on occasion, and second, the Hebrew Bible and Gospel readings provide a helpful contrast for what I want to talk about today.
In our Gospel selection, the author expands on the action and speech of Jesus as is his custom, and he writes “Now [Jesus] said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” Setting aside any deeper exploration of what either John or Jesus meant by this, notice the obvious layperson’s surface interpretation: the Spirit of God only existed, or at least was received in people, after Jesus’ glorification, that is, his ascension. What’s the problem here?
Well, it’s two-fold. First, this passage, and others similar to it in John and other parts of the New Testament, have been used by the Christian church to create the heresy of “supersessionism.” That is, the teaching that Christianity is entirely superior to, and meant to entirely replace, Judaism. This teaching is behind thousands of years of prejudice, forced conversions, and pogroms. It was only officially revoked by the major Catholic and Protestant churches after the Holocaust exposed its true horror, and ever since then we have been working to revise those traditional interpretations and uses of passages such as this. The second problem is the simple existence of stories throughout the Hebrew Scriptures which attest to the work of the Spirit, including the one from Numbers we heard today.
The book of Numbers is named for the “numbering” which happens at one point, which makes it sound as appetizing as an accounting textbook to most of us. But there’s quite a bit of story- telling that goes on around those numbers, and in the 11th chapter we find ourselves in the middle of some real drama.
The Israelites, who have been rescued from slavery in Egypt and miraculously provided with daily food in the middle of the desert, start complaining. Again, and not for the last time.
As it often is, the complaint is about food. They aren’t happy with the vegetarian diet, and they start wailing all throughout the camps for meat. They aren’t content with freedom and provision, they want variety and flavor! Don’t we all.
Just before this selection of verses, we get one of the classic Moses stories. He’s so fed up with the whining that he tells God:
“Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give birth to them, that you should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a sucking child, to the land that you promised on oath to their ancestors’? Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they come weeping to me and say, ‘Give us meat to eat!’ I am not able to carry all this people alone, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once—if I have found favor in your sight—and do not let me see my misery.”
How passive-aggressive and melodramatic is that?! And with God, for heaven’s sake. This guy is not shy about his feelings.
And God listens. God understands. And God delegates. Moses is told to gather around seventy elders from all over the community to share his burden and his gift, that of the spirit of God.
And word gets out—literally. Two of the elders don’t make it to the tent before the spirit rests on them, and folks around the camp hear them prophesy (1). A couple of younger men, loyal to Moses, are outraged on behalf of their leader, and report immediately, thinking that Moses will want to squash this rebellion against his authority. But to their surprise, Moses says:
“Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD's people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit on them!"
So, the first point here is to note that, in contrast to what John seems to be claiming (or at least how he’s often been read), the spirit was alive and active in God’s people 1,400 years before Jesus’ ascension! The second is the plea of Moses—that all God’s people would be prophets, something the prophet Joel writes about in the quote from the Acts of the Apostles reading and which Peter claims is fulfilled in during that first Christian Pentecost. And third...if God’s desire is for all to be prophets, and the Spirit is given to all to that purpose which is the pattern throughout the Hebrew Bible, then what does it mean to be a prophet?
Our modern understanding of prophesy often shares more with the ancient Greek tradition than the Hebrew one. When we think of prophecy as only “predicting the future” like a fortune-teller, we’re thinking more of a Greek Oracle than what many Hebrew Prophets said and did.
The Hebrew terms navi’ (men) and nevi’ah (women) describe people who engaged in a wide va- riety of acts. They “engaged in intercessory prayer, dancing, drumming, singing, teaching and interpreting religious law and custom, delivered oracles on behalf of God—sometimes in ecstasy or occasionally in demonstration—, resolved disputes, worked wonders, determined when to go to war, mustered troops and fought battles, archived their oracles in writing, and experienced visions.” (2)
Those who were exclusively seers and visionaries were named instead ro’eh or chozeh. Many others who practiced professions of dreaming or divination were given other labels and largely (although not exclusively) condemned as against God’s instruction in much of the Bible. The navi’ were a more complicated and practical bunch.
Yes, some Hebrew prophets had ecstatic visions and made predictions of future events. But others function in ways that we today might call religious leadership, theology, social justice activism, or performance art. The prophet Ezekiel lies on his side for 390 days and then switches sides for another 40 more to depict the captivity of Israel and Judah. Jeremiah uses his own dirty underwear as an object lesson. Amos practically invents religious ethics, universal monotheism, and social justice single-handedly in his traveling sermons.
And here in Numbers, we see that to prophesy seems to indicate proclamations of authority and leadership in practical matters such as dealing with complaints over cuisine.
This reminds me of the reading that was left out of our lectionary selections in favor of Numbers today. That is, the listing of the various gifts of the body in Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (3). Paul says that there are many gifts and ministries in the church, but they all flow from the same Spirit and God “for the common good.” Speaking wisdom and knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, oracles, discernment, tongues, and more are all facets of this Spirit’s presence—of prophesying. And in certain Christian circles today we talk also of social activism, peace work, and the seeking of justice and equality in a world that too often is still mired in racism and bigotry as “prophetic” acts. After all, most Hebrew prophets were either leaders, or advisors of leaders, or condemners of leaders—unlike priests they were expected to be working in the pub- lic square.
In that way, I believe we are all called to what we might consider “the Prophethood of All Believers.” The term “Priesthood of All Believers” comes directly from the New Testament, and is tightly connected to Protestant theology in particular, but what about this other idea? After all, we follow the Jesus who was more often seen as and functioning in a role as prophet rather than priest. What might it mean for all of us Christians embrace this calling?
The way I primarily see the gift of prophecy these days is two-fold:
First, one must have their imagination so formed and structured by the vision of God for creation (4) that their thinking and acting is in alignment with God’s, to the point that one might be called “the son of god,” in the non-divine meaning, that is, one who images God as we were all originally created to be.
And second, that we are equipped, sent, and empowered to speak the word given to us, in effective means within our cultural context, to bring that vision of God into fullness in the world around us. To call out racism, sexism, discrimination and false judgment of all kinds, to tear down unjust structures and systems of oppression, to lead people toward that vision which Christ set out before us.
Might there be more Martin Luther Kings, more Dorothy Days, more Dietrich Bonhoeffers, more “little Christs” walking our neighborhoods, speaking up in our legislatures, protesting in the streets if we took this seriously?
So on this Pentecost Sunday of 2020, let us consider our joint calling to be deliverers of the word of God in the world outside the walls of the church.
AMEN.
Notes:
This story contains the first mention in the Hebrew Bible of the term translated “prophesied/prophesying,” but it occurs regularly thereafter.
Gafney, Wilda. Daughters of Miriam: Women Prophets in Ancient Israel, 2008.
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
The classic on this topic is Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination.
