Jeremiah 28:5-9; Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18; Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 10:40-42
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
My favorite childhood story book was The Tales of Winnie the Pooh. I love Pooh Bear and Tigger and Rabbit and all of those wonderful inhabitants of The Hundred Acre Wood. Hearing about their adventures, Pooh’s obsession with honey, Rabbit’s paranoia, Eeyore’s pessimism, and Tigger’s bounciness were great life lessons. There was an incredible joy and a deep sense of peace attached to hearing those stories. And though he did not seem to be a main character, the benevolent Christopher Robin had a lot to do with that joy and peace.
I don’t think you can have Winnie-the-Pooh without Christopher Robin. Christopher Robin is the leaven in the stories. Whenever Pooh misconstrued the world around him and found himself in a place of fear or despair, Christopher Robin was always quick to help his “silly ole bear” see the world in a different way—a comforting way that afforded Pooh the opportunity to release his fears and share in a sense of wonder and delight.
Christopher Robin wasn’t patronizing or even trying to exercise dominion over Pooh or any of the other animals in the wood. Though not always physically in the story, his presence was always palpable. He was one of those figures that seemed to be around in spirit and rarely was he unavailable. His role was not simply to swoop in and save the day. Instead, he offered a perspective that helped the others to regain their balance in the world and he stayed by their side through their suffering.
One of my favorite stories in The Hundred Acre Wood is Pooh Goes Visiting and Gets Into a Tight Place. Basically, Pooh went to Rabbit’s house and ate all of Rabbit’s honey. So much so that when he tried to leave, he got stuck in Rabbit’s front door. After much fretting, Rabbit goes to get Christopher Robin. Christopher Robin greets Pooh, lovingly, with his signature line, “Silly old bear”. After Christopher Robin has examined the situation and determined there is no way to get Pooh out, he tells Pooh he must wait for a time. He sits and reads a comforting book to Pooh for an entire week until the bear has gotten thin enough to be pulled from the door. Christopher Robin never sugar-coated Pooh’s situation. He spoke the truth about the jam Pooh was in, and he did so in love. Then he waited it out with Pooh—experiencing Pooh’s suffering right along with the bear. In a way Christopher Robin was a prophet.
We often think of prophets as seers with magic crystal balls. We think they have some special ability to know the future and make correct predictions about it. That might be true for some, but for the most part, the purpose of the prophet is to draw us back into relationship with God. They tell the truth in a situation and that truth is often painful and difficult for us to hear. Consider the prophet Jeremiah.
Jeremiah was given an impossible task by God. His world was spinning out of control. Babylon was on their borders and breathing down their necks. The time was one of despair and confusion and fear. Most of the people of the Southern Kingdom—Jerusalem and Judah—believed they were in a time of prosperity, hope, and joy. They weren’t attuned to the threat of the Babylonian Kingdom and did not want to hear the words of doom and gloom that the prophet Jeremiah constantly spouted, especially regarding their vulnerability and the exile and loss of the Jerusalem Temple.
When Jeremiah’s prophetic words came true, and the people of Jerusalem and Judah are taken into captivity. Conflict arises as to whether it was possible to break free of the Babylonian yoke of oppression. The Jerusalem temple had been looted and the sacred vessels with which they used in their worship of God had been removed. Their religious and [political leaders were taken by the Babylonians and dispersed throughout the Babylonian Empire. They were a defeated people. And in this moment of despair, Jeremiah continued to try and intercede for them—speaking truth to their situation. His prophetic voice was not one in which he offered false comfort or hope. Instead, he was the messenger of God who told the people to bow their necks under the yoke of Babylon and they would live. He went so far as to wear a wooden yoke around his neck to symbolize the metaphorical yoke that Babylon had placed upon the Israelites. His message was not popular and there were those who would rise against him to speak false prophesy.
Enter the prophet Hananiah. He sees the devastation the Babylonian Empire has wrought upon his country and begins to proclaim a message of hope that God would shatter the power of Babylon and the Temple vessels would be returned along with their leaders. Instead of bowing to the yoke, Hananiah breaks the yoke that Jeremiah wears and offers a counter prophecy—a denial of all that Jeremiah had proclaimed.
Two prophets—one preaching what the people want to hear and the other preaching an ugly truth. Though history will judge Jeremiah’s word to be the more prophetic, we cannot judge the false optimism and hope of Hananiah. Were we to lose our church, our chalices and patens and altar hangings stolen from us, Montgomery overthrown by our enemies; we would resist a message of acquiescence. We would want to fight against our oppressors and we would want to believe in a word that proclaimed, “God will save us.” Hananiah’s desire to give a word of encouragement to the people is a false desire but an understandable one.
Even Jeremiah seems to wish that Hananiah ‘s prophecy would come to light. In the midst of the Temple, amongst the priests and all the people, he says “Amen! may the Lord do so, may the Lord fulfill the words that you have prophesized, and bring back to this place from Babylon the vessels of the house of the Lord, and all the exiles.” But Jeremiah knows that this is a false hope. He points out the difference between prophets who tell of war versus the ones who speak empty words of peace. He knows that those who speak those words of peace are not motivated by their knowledge and love of God but a quintessence of nationalism and ideology.
In response to this false prophecy, Jeremiah predicts Hananiah’s death within the year. Hananiah dies within two months. History tells us which of these prophets was true and which was false. But the lesson is not simply that the prophet is all doom and gloom. Nor is the lesson that words of hope and encouragement necessarily define a prophet as false. The greater lesson is within the litmus test of what the prophet is prophesying. In times of great distress, the prophetic word is not a Pollyanna-ish word of salvation. It is an intercessory word for the people to their God. It is a call to prayer on behalf of those who find themselves in a place of woe—helpless and hopeless in their distress.
The prophet is the one who sees the truth and acknowledges it. They point out the possibilities of the situation. They are not concerned with changing the details of the circumstances but of finding the path in which we might navigate those circumstances. They are not of the raving mad ilk that we associate with living in the desert and eating bugs. They are the Christopher Robins who understand that Pooh Bear is stuck in the door to Rabbit’s house because he ate too much honey and now he has to wait until he’s lost a little weight and can fit out again.
The truth can be painful, suffering often is. The prophet calls for us to know peace not because a bad situation doesn’t exist, but because in the midst of every situation—good or bad—God exists. And God’s presence is more powerful than any king of Babylon or any situation we might find ourselves stuck in. The prophet’s job is to remind us of that. To bring us back into right relationship with God and the world around us.