4 Sunday after the

Epiphany B
th

4 Sunday after the

Epiphany B
th

The readings today are about : Who speaks for God? And, what is Gods message? And finally,
Is Gods message still meaningful to us today?
1. In the reading from Deuteronomy, the Israelites were getting ready to cross the Jordan and
conquer the promised land. But Moses was at the end of his life
Moses had been the intermediary with God up to this point, and had led the Israelites with a firm hand. What
would happen after Moses? Would the Israelites abandon their covenant with God and start worshiping idols
like everyone else? Would they revert to offering human sacrifices to the gods? Who would bring them the
word of God?
The answer in Deuteronomy is, dont worry, God will raise a prophet and put his words in the mouth of the
prophet. The word prophet, from the Greek profemi, means to speak on behalf of someone . So a prophet
is a messenger, or an ambassador from God. The people will have to obey the prophets or be held personally
accountable to God.
However, prophecy was not just a Jewish prerogative. Many other middle eastern religions had prophets too.
What if a charlatan should pretend to be a prophet and try to mislead the people? Deuteronomy states in no
uncertain terms that the penalty for pretending to be a prophet is death.
The Bible, however, often mentions false prophets. There were: 1) prophets of other religions. In particular
the prophets of Baal, the god of the Canaanites. In 1 st Kings we read that the prophet Elijah challenged them,
and when they could not perform the same miracle that Elijah had performed he had 400 of them executed.
2) the other kind of false prophets were those employed by the king. The true prophets were antiestablishment constantly challenging kings and high priests. Consequently, kings found it useful to employ
fake court prophets whose job was to oppose the anti-establishment message of the prophets by proclaiming
that God was in agreement with the king.
These court prophets muddied the waters and confused the people by contradicting the true prophets who
were inspired by God convey 2 principles: 1) do not worship of other gods, and 2) do not exploit the poor, but
practice social justice.
Prophecy existed in Israel for a little more than 3 centuries, and then faded away in part due to a loss of
credibility caused by the proliferation of all these false prophets. In the Bible we have 15 classical or literary
prophets (who left us books). Based on the length of their books, three are known as major prophets (Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel), and the other 12 as minor prophets.

4th Sunday after the

Epiphany B

2. Turning to the Gospel, during Jesus lifetime, the people saw him as a prophet, although
he was more than a mere prophet. In todays passage from Mark, Jesus speaks for God,
and unlike the rabbis he does it with authority
We are at the beginning of Jesus ministry. Like every good Jew, Jesus went to the synagogue on the
Sabbath to pray and study the Bible. [bulletin picture is 4th century synagogue at Capernaum]
But after he was baptized, he did not merely listen, but took to the podium and started teaching.
Usually, teaching in the synagogue was the prerogative of the rabbis, who showed off their knowledge
of the Bible by quoting the interpretations of other famous rabbis. So, rather than bringing Gods word
to people, as the prophets had done, they displayed their learning by appealing to the authority of
scholars
In the synagogue, one did not express his own opinion directly, but only by quoting the teachings of
famous rabbis who had written lengthy commentaries on the laws.
But Jesus did not do that. He spoke in the first person, and even dared to contradict the Torah, the
laws of Moses. You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.But I say
to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also
Jesus did not quote some famous rabbi, but spoke like one who had the authority not just to interpret
the law, but also to change the laws, and correct the misconceptions of the past. So, Jesus was not
just a prophet. The words of God were not merely placed in his mouth. He was God.
Of course anyone, even the false prophets, could claim that they speak for God. But Jesus, unlike the
false prophets, could back up his words by performing miracles.
Only God, the creator of nature, or someone empowered by God could change the natural order and
perform miracles. Jesus miracles were the proof to his audience that God stood behind him and
agreed with what Jesus was saying.
Let me make a comment about demonic possession in the Bible. In antiquity, there was no notion of
mental disorders or emotional disorders. Those who looked physically healthy, but behaved
abnormally were thought to be possessed by a devil. So when we find a mention of demonic
possessions in the Gospel, we need to understand that, in reality, those possessed were people
with mental or emotional diseases.

4th Sunday after the

Epiphany B

3. Finally, when Paul was writing his epistles, he was also a prophet speaking for God. Todays
passage, from the 1st letter to the Corinthians, deals with eating food sacrificed to idols.
All religions of antiquity sacrificed animals to their gods. A domestic animal was a high value gift offered
to the divinity. The animal was killed, then the meat was burned and people believed that the smoke rising
to heaven would be pleasing to their gods.
However, the animal was not totally burned. The edible parts were set aside. Some of it was given to the
priests as payment for their service, while most of it was cooked and shared among the people in
attendance. So the sacrifice during religious festivities, was the occasion for a town-wide barbeque:
everyone would go to the temple and get a free meal from the meat of the sacrificed animals.
Keep in mind that, in antiquity, common people could not afford to eat meat. So this was a real treat. The
question was posed to Paul: could Christians eat the meat of an animal sacrificed to other gods?
Pauls answer is very nuanced. He did not see it as a yes or no issue. On the one hand Paul wrote that,
since there are no other gods, as long as people are strong in their faith, it was just meat, and they might
as well get a free meal.
However, Paul knew that some members of the community were not that strong in their faith and was
concerned that if they saw other Christians eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols, they might be
confused, their faith might be shaken, and they might drift back into idolatry.
So Pauls advice was: be aware of the impact of your actions on others: if eating free meat from pagan
temples should cause shock and confusion to the weaker members of the community, then dont do it for
their sake.

4. Pauls message to the Corinthians and to us today is not about meat, but about the fact that we
are our brothers keepers, or our sisters keepers.
We are not merely individuals who have no responsibility to anyone else. But we are members of a
community, liked to each other, and must take responsibility for the welfare of all members of our
community, even be prepared to give up something we are entitled to, for their sake.
It is a bit hard to link together the 3 readings today: Moses told the Israelites that God would send them
prophets to speak on his behalf. Jesus spoke on behalf of God with authority. God also sent Paul and still
sends us prophets to reveal us his will. And the will of God in the letter to the Corinthians is that we have a
responsibility to take care of all the members of our community.