“Prophets, Prophets Everywhere!”

Livestreamed service

Ephesians 3:1-6 (Gafney, Year W)

Prayer

What makes someone a prophet?
What does it take to be considered a prophet?

I remember learning in seminary that a prophet — at least a prophet like the ones we encounter in the Hebrew Scriptures — was someone who found themselves called and anointed to a unique role as an intermediary between God and God’s people.

More than a messenger, the prophet was something of a translator and interpreter of God’s will, while also acting as a mediator: both warning the people of God’s simmering wrath while simultaneously negotiating with God in an attempt to deescalate the divine rage and tamp down all the smiting.

Moving from the Hebrew prophets that might come to mind, we can think of a prophet more broadly as someone who can perceive and articulate the undercurrent, who can take notice of the threads running through the tapestry of the cosmos. Someone who can speak to realities and truths that are often obscured by debris and noise.

A prophet is someone who can encounter and embrace mystery and discern some meaning from it — understanding that it’s not like a mystery to be solved, but more like wonderment to behold.

In our scripture today, we hear of such a wondrous mystery to behold. Much like the First Letter to Timothy we considered last week, the Letter to the Ephesians is presented as if it was written by the Apostle Paul. The writer borrows from Paul ’s life and his unique mission as an Apostle to the Gentiles — people who are not Jewish — people who were not previously part of a covenant with God; people to whom God’s love was not thought to extend.

But now because of Jesus Christ, Paul tells this nascent community of Gentile converts that they are part of a divine mystery. Hidden from previous generations of their ancestors, but now revealed to them through women and men who had become holy apostles and prophets through the Spirit.

This specific revealed mystery — this revelation — was the truth that God desired to create a new society, one that encompassed all of creation. God sought to do this in and through Christ — and this time it included Gentiles.

Here’s the thing:
This whole scenario was so unlikely.
The fact that Gentiles were now included in the covenant, were worthy of God’s love was indeed a confounding mystery.
The reason why the mystery was not revealed to previous generations of Gentiles is because that would’ve been unheard of!
Everyone knows that Gentiles are not part of the covenant.

Yet here we are: Gentiles are co-inheritors of God’s promised love, they are equal party to the covenant with God. And it was all being formed and proclaimed by unlikely prophets among them — women and men, people of all genders who had been empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Among these, perhaps it was Paul who was the most unlikely messenger of such Good News.

Remember: Paul, by his own admission, was a staunch enemy of Christ’s followers in his former days. As he wrote to the Galatians: “You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life… I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it.” Boasting of his credentials, he reminded the Philippians that he was zealous persecutor of the church. The Book of Acts tells of Saul — prior to taking on the name Paul after his conversion — approved of the stoning death of the disciple Stephen, and on “[t]hat day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem,” with Saul “ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women,”committing them to prison.

So, no: Paul is not the most likely candidate to be spreading the message, revealing the wondrous mystery that Gentiles were included in the covenant and worthy of God’s expansive — and often unlikely — love.

All of this unlikeliness is another divine mystery.
Not a puzzle to be solved, but a wonderment to behold.

I am drawn to this mystery of God choosing and using ordinary people to do extraordinary things — empowering unlikely people with the Holy Spirit, turning them into prophets who reveal truths both wondrous and troubling.

Throughout scripture, we witness God doing this again and again.
Perhaps you’re familiar with this rundown:

Noah was a drunk.
Abraham was too old.
Sarah was barren.
Jacob was a liar and a cheat.
Joseph was abandoned by his family.
Ezekiel had hallucinations and delusions.
Moses was a murderer and poor speaker.
Jeremiah was a child.
Ruth was a Moabite — an enemy.
Queen Esther was a teenager and a foreigner.
King David was a greedy, murderous philanderer.
Hagar was an enslaved person who saw God face-to-face.
Mary was a teenage mother.
Jesus was poor country boy born out of wedlock.
Mary Magdalene was scandalized.
Peter denied Jesus.
Paul was contemptible and boastful.

I could add a dozen more, but I think you get it —

In every case, so unlikely in so many ways.
And yet — and yet — each one of them revealed some part of the mystery of the Divine. Each one of them, in their own way, perceived and proclaimed God’s abundant, expansive love.

Friends: I believe that prophecy did not end when the final scripture was canonized. I believe that there have been ordinary and extraordinary prophets since that time, and there are prophets in our time here and now.

My favorites, of course, are the unlikely prophets. Those who by all accounts were discounted and dismissed. Those without royal blood or a boast-worthy lineage.

But I want to know what you think.
Who do you see as a prophet?
Who do you think of as someone who can encounter and embrace mystery?
Who is it that is empowered and emboldened by the Spirit, or who can perceive and articulate hidden truths, detect undercurrents, illuminate threads in the tapestry of the cosmos?

And I’m actually asking! I want to hear from you.
If you’re here in the sanctuary, you can call them out and I’ll write them down.
If you’re joining us online, you can drop it in the chat.

Names Lifted In-Person & Online:

1. Desmond Tutu
2. John Lewis
3. MLK
4. Reinhold Niebuhr
5. Bryan Stevenson
6. Amanda Gorman
7. William Barber
8. Dr. Wil Gafney
9. Stacey Abrams
10. Frances Crowe
11. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
12. Emily Dickinson
13. Father Greg Boyle
14. Greta Thunberg
15. Frederick Douglass
16. Holly Near
17. Fred Rogers
18. Bishop Yvette Flunder
19. Thayer Greene

There is a name you left off.
Perhaps you think it is way too unlikely of name — way too unlikely to be a prophet.
But call back that list of unlikely people:
Noah, Moses, Hagar, Sarah, Ruth, Mary, Esther, Mary Magdalene.

Friends, if God worked through all of those unlikely people, what makes you think that God would not also work through you?

The mystery that was revealed to the Ephesians includes you as well.
Through Jesus, you are a co-inheritor of God’s expansive love, a party to the covenant.
Through the Holy Spirit, you are enabled and empowered to be God’s holy apostles and prophets.

No matter how unlikely you think it may be, there are prophets everywhere.
And this includes you.

Amen.