Sermon transcript:
Have you heard about the eerie and uncanny prophetic record of The Simpsons TV show? In 2000 it referenced a Trump presidency, in 1995 characters used smart watches, in a 1993 episode a Japanese flu virus outbreak has unsettling similarities to the COVID-19 pandemic, a 1998 episode features Homer scribbling on a chalkboard, the bottom of which shows a math equation. More than a decade later, scientists discovered the Higgs-Boson particle (also known as the “God particle”), startled to find its mass was similar to Homer’s calculation.1 It’s strange, isn’t it? I call The Simpsons prophetic with tongue in cheek only because that’s what we’ve been conditioned to think of as the role of the prophet: someone who can see into the future. That’s only a small aspect of prophecy in the Bible, though. Prophets are people who see the world as the arena of God’s activity and have the vision to spot where God’s work is being thwarted.2 It’s not always that easy, though, sorting out the true from the false prophets.
The story of Jeremiah’s call gives us some clues. It begins with the phrase, “Now the word of the Lord came to me…” Here is the first clue that a prophet is legitimate: the call to become a prophet is always disruptive to the life of the one being called. True prophets never arrive there as a result of a clear, meticulously planned career path. The opposite is true: the call to speak prophetically is an interruption to the neatly planned life. Gandhi was on his way to becoming a lawyer, Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior had a comfortable life as a Baptist Pastor at a prominent Atlanta church, Malala Yousufzai just wanted to go to school in her Pakistani village, Jeremiah was on his way to following in his family footsteps and becoming a temple priest.
The call is so disruptive that the true prophet almost always resists it. Think of Jesus’ words in Gethsemane asking God to take the cup away from him. Think of the Prophet Jonah running away from God, getting on a ship to the ends of the earth. The true prophet enters the work reluctantly. Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior describes himself as being “catapulted” into leadership.3 The true prophet does the work because it needs to be done. The true prophet chooses to cooperate because ultimately God’s call needs human cooperation but they also have a sense that there wasn’t much choice involved at all. In our faith story, God says to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” False prophets — cult leaders, those who use religion for power — would read into this a grandiose sense of pre-destination about themselves. True prophets read into these words a lack of choice, a sense of resignation that in order to live with integrity, to be true to who they are, they must do the prophetic work before them. False prophets have God as their mascot. True prophets have God as their Lord.
What is common to just about all call stories in the Bible is some expression by the one being called of their own inadequacy in the face of the task before them. Jeremiah is no different: “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” The true prophet enters into and performs the work with a sense of humility, so they constantly work at setting their ego aside, listening, and watching for the leading of the Spirit. True prophets tend to build communities, movements, and coalitions that draw on the gifts and energies of others. I think of the Rev. William Barber from North Carolina and his Poor People’s Campaign and Moral Mondays movement. The true prophet is humble; they are aware of their limitations and know that others have a part to play as well.
There is an inner strength to true prophets, a spiritual strength. In verse eight, God continues the assurance to Jeremiah: “Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you…” True prophets rely on a reservoir of deep faith to sustain them, a faith that they are but one expression of God’s work and it will continue even if they are destroyed. True prophets have a long view of history, of their place in the universe, of both their significance and insignificance. Dorothy Day, the late Roman Catholic champion of the poor and social activist put it this way: “Our Faith is stronger than death…and the spread of the Kingdom of God upon the earth is more inspiring and more compelling.”4 Of course King’s speech the night before he was assassinated: “…We’ve got some difficult days ahead…Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will…And I’ve seen the Promised Land! I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land! So I’m happy tonight, I’m not worried about anything! I’m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!”5 That’s spiritual strength.
Now we get to a tough one — verse ten says that the prophet’s job is to “pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” Like you, I am aware of the plucking up and tearing down, of the destroying and overthrowing that has been done by those believing themselves to be prophets or acting prophetically. Think of the damage done by cult leaders in breaking down follower’s psyches, by American Christian Evangelicals in aligning themselves with the destruction of democracy. Think of the damage done to our First Nations peoples by the Church. But on the other hand, true prophets of God’s ways aren’t always nice either; they are disruptive, they upset people, they expose the divisions that lie beneath the veneer of calm, they seek to destroy unjust institutions and overthrow oppressive powers. Think of the words attributed to Jesus: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.”6 How about Rabbi Arik Ascherman, who founded a human rights organization that defends Palestinians from Israelis in illegal settlements. He recently wrote this after his recent arrest: “‘You are a provocateur.’ It was not an isolated comment. We hear this all the time…A former commander of the station once told me that everything would be quiet if we weren’t there…In other words, if nobody gave Palestinians uppity ideas that they have rights and nobody stood beside them, things would be totally quiet.”7 A true prophet values order as well, but not at the cost of justice.8 A true prophet knows that order can be deceiving, a way of hiding from reality. A true prophet breaks the calm surface to allow suppressed tensions to be named and seen, so that they can be dealt with constructively. A false prophet incites chaos to create and exploit division and fear to gain power.
This business of sorting the true and the false prophets is not an easy one; it requires discernment on our part. And the stakes are high. As that prophet Homer Simpson says, “If you pray to the wrong god, you might just make the right one madder and madder.” Seriously though, being taken in by false prophets is not about making God mad but about distracting us from and leading us further away from what God intends us to be. True prophets lead us into right relationship with the world — relationships of justice, mutuality, and reciprocity. True prophets place us in the arena of God’s activity in the world. Where else should we be? May God bless our discernment.
Rev. Joe Gaspar
1 Mike Bloom, Kimberly Nordyke, ‘The Simpsons’: 34 Times the Fox Comedy Successfully Predicted the Future, The Hollywood Reporter, August 25, 2024, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/simpsons-future-predictions-accurate-1140775/
2 Walter Brueggemann, Reverberations of Faith: A Theological Handbook of Old Testament Themes, pp. 158 & 161.
3 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Junior, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963. http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
4 Dorothy Day, http://www.quoteland.com/author/Dorothy-Day-Quotes/1766/
5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27ve_Been_to_the_Mountaintop
6 Matthew 10: 34, NRSV.
7 Rabbi Arik Ascherman, ‘They’re The Enemy’ and ‘You Are A Provocateur’ to Settlers Attacking Soldiers, The Times of Israel, July 6, 2025, https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/theyre-the-enemy-and-you-are-a-provocateur-to-settlers-attacking-soldiers/
8 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Junior, Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963. http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html