Deuteronomy 18:15-22; Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Mark 1:21-28

In our reading from the Jewish Traditions today we hear of a prophet like Moses, coming to the people of God from among their own people. This is someone whom God directs the people that you shall heed because this is what you requested of The LORD your God. There’s a lot in that sentence; a lot that God has promised to do for God’s People in response to the lot that they have asked from God. In response, and in giving them what they want, God is also asking a lot of the people. “Okay,” says The LORD, “I’m hearing that you’re put off by the whole scary ‘don’t touch my mountain’ thing, with the clouds of fire and smoke and Moses’s glowing face. I’m hearing that you want someone more approachable to bring you God’s words: well here he comes. But, as he comes, you need to make sure you listen to him, and check that he is listening to me, because I am still the God of fire and smoke, I’m just choosing to act a bit more user-friendly and fatherly for you.” It is important for us today, even as a local church that meets in the same building every week, (and most of you even sit in the same seat); a community that is not pilgrimaging through the wilderness to a promised homeland flowing with milk and honey, that we continue to listen to and listen for the prophetic voice of God. This reading from Deuteronomy 18 is a great story and a great inspiration for us, but it’s supposed to be leveraging for us; we’re meant to do something with it, we’re meant to be looking and listening out for God’s spokesman in our community as well.

So, who amongst us has this call of God? Who do we recognise as carrying the authority of God to speak in ways that we will obey what we hear, as if it were The LORD Godself speaking and not this person, because in some ways it is The LORD Godself speaking when he or she speaks. Who?

In 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 we read Paul’s instructions to the Christians of Corinth about how they should act in public. In 1 Corinthians 8:1 we read “all of us possess knowledge”. Knowledge puffs up but love builds up. That is for me what the passage is about, and as we read further we find that that is the point that Paul is making, using our attitudes to food as a metaphor or perhaps a real-world example of his major point. That first statement, “all of us possess knowledge”, is in quotation marks in the Bible, as if it’s a quote of someone else or perhaps a commonly used phrase that Paul has picked up to answer back at. Yes, we all have our opinions: but as a more recent saying says, “opinions are like bottoms; everybody has one, but that doesn’t mean yours needs to be shared in public”. Knowledge puffs up but love builds up, says Paul, and this is important when we consider whom God has called to speak God’s message into the community, and whom God has called to other ministries. Those through whom God is speaking must speak in humility and with honour for God; those to whom God is speaking must listen with humility and with honour for God. And, since God will never speak only through one person in a community, but with two or three witnesses, (Deuteronomy 19:15) even those who are called to speak are also called to listen; even if not everyone who is called to listen will be called upon to speak.

So, where am I going with all of this? Well, as a community of leadership, the elders at Pomonal have started to address these sorts of messages. The Elders at Stawell are about to, we just haven’t met in community yet. We are a church which seeks to hear God, and to hear from God. Even as Christians with decades of experience of faith and ministry we do not presume to know it all, and we always want to ask God for wisdom as we live out our faith. As Paul says about food, but perhaps more fully about discernment and discretion, if food is a cause of their falling I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall. (1 Corinthians 8:13). Food offered to an idol will not harm you, since idols are false and there are no gods except for God: but if your extravagance in Christian freedom causes someone behind you on the path of discipleship to trip up because of your apparent hypocrisy, then do the mature thing and show restraint, even as a leader. Especially as a leader. Especially as a leader because you are acting like a hypocrite; not because you are eating meat but because you are demonstrating a lack of compassion and understanding toward your sisters and brothers in faith who are looking to you for spiritual example, even in the food-court.

Again I ask you who amongst us has the call of God to speak on God’s behalf? Who do we recognise as carrying the authority of God to speak in ways that we will obey what we hear, as if it were The LORD Godself speaking to us: who? It may not be the person of whom we would first think.

In Mark 1:22 we read how Jesus was observed by the Sabbath-day congregation as someone who taught them as one having authority. Jesus is in his local synagogue, and he is engaging in what we might think of as a group Bible study, or perhaps a Q&A after the sermon. When we are told that he taught…not as the scribes that doesn’t mean that he had some extremely polarising political agenda to his preaching, (or that he didn’t but the scribes did), but that he wasn’t arrogant about his ability to exegete and hermeneut with academic prowess. Jesus was erudite and intelligent, but he was humble and patient.

As we read on to Mark 1:23-26 we hear the story of Jesus’ first healing miracle; at least the first miracle told about by Mark. And, not only is it a healing, it’s an exorcism. So, in Mark 1:24 the unclean spirit calls Jesus by name, it correctly identifies Jesus’ home town, and it calls out Jesus on his hidden identity. In other words it shows off what a smarty-pants it is in the company of the none-the-wiser natives of Capernaum. Jesus answers the spirit directly in Mark 1:25 saying “shut up windbag, nick off”; (it probably sounds better in Aramaic, but that is what he says). Then, in Mark 1:26 the unclean spirit spits the dummy and goes, embarrassed and sooking, back to wherever it is that unclean spirits come from. The unclean spirit had tried to outmanoeuvre Jesus, trying to trick him into showing his hand and acting messianically before Jesus was ready to do so.  The spirit called Jesus by name, trying to show its power by demonstrating something supernatural: “Ooh look at me,” it says, “I have spiritual insight because I am a spirit; I know you’re actually The Messiah and these dopey, fish-stinky peasants do not. La-li-la-lala-pthth!” Notice how Jesus doesn’t get into the game: Jesus doesn’t name the spirit, and Jesus doesn’t try to out-power it with a declaration of divine will. Jesus doesn’t say “well, you’re just an unclean spirit, whereas I, I AM!”  No, Jesus just says “shut up and nick off”, and up the chastened spirit shuts, and off the humiliated spirit nicks.

So, again, what am I saying? I am saying that as a local congregation seeking God to point out to us who our local prophets are, we need to go further than thinking about who has the best knowledge of Bible-trivia, or who has been in church the longest. The unclean spirit was the cleverest thing in the room (apart from Jesus), but it was also the most arrogant. Jesus, on the other hand, taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. Jesus was not arrogant, Jesus was the true prophet and the one our congregation can trust to speak for God even if the unclean spirits say true stuff that Jesus had not said. Think about it, nothing the unclean spirit said was untrue, but all of it was inappropriate and none of it was what God intended for the people to hear that day. As with Jesus, a real prophet knows when to keep her mouth shut and keep her wisdom to herself; at least until such as time as God says to her “right, go now, say it now.” As Paul reminded the Corinthians, “all of us possess knowledge”; but where knowledge puffs up…love builds up. We need to remember that too.

So here’s a new question, who do you trust to build you up? I hope you’re thinking of me in answer to that question, because that should be given of your minister and preacher. That should have been a non-negotiable in issuing a call to me to come and serve you as your clergy. But I shouldn’t be doing it alone, as if I am the only one who hears from God and the only one who speaks for God. Who else should we be listening to? At the very least, who else should I be listening to, asking them to vet what I think I have heard from The LORD to then be passed on to you? I need names, in Stawell and Pomonal: and it’s not that I don’t know, but it is that even in this question I want supporting evidence and confirmation. When it comes to listening for God, whom do you trust, and whom would you trust.

Two Sundays ago I wore my multi-coloured knitted scarf up here, and I told you that the seasons were changing. Not only was Christmas-Epiphany over and Ordinary Time had begun, with a shift from gold to green; but that God was beginning to do a new thing in Stawell and Pomonal. Further conversations with spirit-listening people in the past fortnight has me curious about whether it might be the whole Grampians-Gariwerd where God is beginning to rumble the tectonic plates, and fire up a few dormant volcanoes. If that is the case, and I’m still listening to make up my mind yet, then we will need people to step up into leadership, and others to affirm them in that stepping up. There is a job for everyone here, some to stand up into influence and others to speak up with encouragement.

To which task is God calling you, in this place and moment?

Whom is God calling from among [our] own people, as God spoke of in the days of Moses?

Whom: you?

Amen.