Readings for the Day:
Sermon:
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Original Manuscript:
In the Tale of the Trojan Horse, after years of the Greeks fighting the Trojans, they decide instead to trick them. They decide to leave a wooden horse as a gift to the Trojans with their own soldiers inside. When the Trojans take the horse inside the city, the Greeks waited till everyone in the city was asleep before attacking them.
The tragedy of this story is that there was one person, Cassandra, who knew what was going to happen. She had the gift of prophesy, but the curse that nobody would ever listen to her. If only the Trojans had, they might have survived.
Fortunately for us, God is not so capricious as to curse us with the inability to hear. He wants His prophets to be heard. As we hear in Ezekiel, God is sending Ezekiel with the intention that Israel will know there is a prophet among them. In fact, God even gives Ezekiel the words to say to show he is speaking not for himself, but for God. Those words are "Thus says the Lord."
God goes in with the intention to be heard. He goes in with the intention that people will turn back to Him and follow in His paths. These paths aren't just arbitrary rules, but they are given to us specifically so we might live better, fuller lives with one another. After all, who other than our maker would know how we work physically, spiritually, and mentally?
The problem is that even though we are not cursed like the Trojans, we as people have a tendency not to listen to what God is saying. God expects this. He warns Ezekiel that he is going to a rebellious people. God says, in the form of His Son Jesus Christ, that "prophets are not without honor except in their hometown." God realizes that we are not always prone to listen.
And yet, God comes to us anyways. He so wants to be in relationship with us that He will put up with our refusal to listen. He wants to be in relationship with us to the point that He was willing to die for us.
Prophets don't just tell the future. They are meant to be spokespeople for God, His representatives in the world. Last week, we learned of John Newton's conversion and slow path away from sin and death to new life in Grace. Prophets are the ones to help us with that conversion to repentance. They are meant to show us God's path for us so that we might live more fully, loving God and our neighbor as the Two Great Commandments ask of us. They are meant to help us to make ourself into better people, like John Newton. That's what Paul is trying to show us in 2 Corinthians today, that the power of God is made perfect in weakness. God may have done all the work for us through His Grace, but if we love Him, don't we want to follow His ways? Don't we want to be better people? Don't we want to start loving our neighbor again?
Jesus grew up in a small town, not unlike this one. Yet, they wouldn't listen to Him, only because He grew up among Him. Nazareth couldn't open their hearts, minds, and ears to hear what it was God was working in the midst of them and really through them.
That's really where the problem with prophecy lies. If we don't listen to God and hear His word as its spoken around us, then we won't follow the path He has set for us. We won't turn and repent. We won't stop following our own path and start following His.
If we don't keep our hearts and minds open to God, then we won't hear Him when His representatives speak His words for us, telling us to love God and to love our neighbor. The question is will you listen, or are there prophets out there that you've turned a deaf ear to? If so, why? What's holding you back from hearing what God has to say?