What's a prophet?

 Readings: Ezekiel 36.23–28 & Matthew 22.1–14

What do you think of when I say the word prophet?  Perhaps you imagine John the Baptiser, railing in the dessert at the viper’s brood of religious leaders – dressed in sack-cloth, sticky with wild honey, and munching on a locust?

Or perhaps you think of Nostradamus, the seer of the middle ages, whose obscure prognostications seem to fit any number of modern situations.  Perhaps you think of Old Testament prophets, like Daniel, Isaiah, or Ezekiel (from whom we heard just now).  If you did, then you are at one with Jesus, this morning.

In his great parable of Matthew 22, Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven can be likened to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son.  Jesus is using the metaphor of a wedding to describe the relationship which should exist between God, through Jesus, with the people of faith.  Throughout the New Testament, the church is often referred to as ‘the bride of Christ’…the symbolism is clear.  We are invited to be as united to God, in Christ, as a bride is united with her husband.  A close, loving, mutually-serving relationship.  But, says Jesus, the King of his story invited lots of wedding guests to this banquet.  These are all the people who believe themselves to be close to the wedding couple.  They are the ones who stand on the edge of faith – friendly towards it, but never quite committing fully.

To such people, the king sends his slaves, with an invitation.  For slaves, we should read ‘prophets’.  These are the people that God sends out with both an invitation and a warning to the people on the edge of faith.  Sadly, many such people will often find an excuse as to why they shouldn’t be fully committed to coming to the king’s banquet.  ‘Oh, I’ve got all these other duties to perform’, they say.  ‘I must tend to my farm, or my business.  Perhaps I’ll come along later’.

How many people do we know who are like that?  They are perhaps the kind of people for whom various leisure activities are the things they need to do on a Sunday morning, instead of taking a couple of hours to worship God and love his people together here?

Jesus tells us that such people cause the King to be enraged.  These people on the edge of the party, who never make it into the party, cause him to be furious.  I’m reminded of the prophet John, who in the book of Revelation writes to one the seven churches, saying, essentially, ‘I wish you would stop being so luke-warm!  Either be hot, or be cold – but this lukewarm religiosity of yours really irks me.  Choose!  Be either hot or cold.  But since you will not – I will spit you out of my mouth.’

The people on the edge of the banquet are not just lukewarm about the invitation – they actively attack the King’s slaves, even killing them.  These are the kind of people who attack prophets – the ones who sneer at wisdom, and tell holy people that they are idiots.  The Bible is full of such people, including those who attacked the greatest prophet of all, Jesus Christ, and nailed him to a cross.

So, what does the King do? Well, first of all, his mighty fury causes him to burn down the city of the lukewarm people on the edge of faith.  That’s a metaphor for the righteous anger that God has towards the lukewarm – just as in the book of Revelation.  It’s the kind of righteous anger displayed in the book of the prophet Micah, when God tells the people, effectively, ‘I hate all your festivals and religious observances - because they are hollow and meaningless – lukewarm faith. What I actually require of you is that you ‘do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.’

Next, he sends his prophets out to gather in the people who are not on the edge of faith – but far from it.  These are the rest of the world – the ones who never expected or even wanted to be invited to the life of faith.  These are the ones that we are called to reach too.  The ones for whom the dawning of faith will be a surprise, and a joy. 

But caution is required there too…says Jesus.  Wisdom is required to discern which of the new wedding guests are serious about coming to the banquet – and who therefore put on a wedding robe of righteousness, symbolised by the colour white.  But there’s always a risk of people coming to the feast who are not actually willing to commit – to put on the white wedding robe of true faith.  These are those people who, from time to time attach themselves to churches for their own purposes.  They might be child abusers, looking for an easy catch.  Or thieves, looking for the chance to steal a collection.  Or they might even be the senior lay person, who sits on a church committee, but who undermines every decision the church tries to make in the name of mission.  Or, the gossip, who uses the church as a place to get a thrill from sharing private information, because it gives them a sense of power.

Prophets, then, are not seers.  It is not the primary task of the prophet to look into the future – though some might attempt it, as a way of warning people of the consequences of their actions.  The prophet’s primary role is to call the lukewarm to repentence, and to true faith, and to call the outsider in.  Their role is to see the world as it is, and how it might be in the light of the Kingdom – and to look for ways to join those two ideas together.

And crucially, the prophet’s task is the task of the whole people of God.  You and I are the slaves in Jesus’ story.  We are also sent by the King to invite the lukewarm to become hot, and to draw the surprised outsider into faith.  May God grant us the strength and the vision to succeed in our task.  Amen