Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B 2024

Title:

The Prophet Like Moses

Outline

There are a lot of false prophets out there

They are in the politico-religious world

They are in the religious world, purporting to portray the real Jesus or the real Paul

They are in various religions and spiritual traditions, claiming to have the answers to our problems

Today we do not stone such prophets - we are more likely to stone true prophets - we tend to idolize them.

I am sure that many of you have family members or friends who have been listening to the siren voices

There are few true prophets

Few are willing to pay the cost. Paul rightly points to the cost of ministry in the name of God, namely great stress in keeping two vocations properly and the cost of celibacy if devoted entirely to God’s service.

Many of the false prophets and true prophets who become false are seeking power, honor, money, and even sex. I see that every day.

The true prophets have an ascetic strain, as Pope St John Paul II (or Pope Benedict XVI or many others) did. They give up a lot for God.

The true prophet realizes that they are a friend of or reflections of The True Prophet, the prophet like Moses. They do not boast of hearing the voice of God or seeing the great fire except as they hear and see it in Jesus.

Jesus was not recognized by most Jews around him, not even by most leaders, but the demons with their infused knowledge knew: “I know who you are - the Holy One of God!” said the demon in Capernaum. They knew that in him the last days came, for he had come to destroy them, but through his death, not through a conquering army. And they knew that he had authority so that when he spoke they had to go, and go they did.

The people see his authority, “a new teaching with authority,” but they do not get that he is “the Holy One of God.” They were expecting a prophet, not the God who is reflected in his prophets.

The true prophet knows he has no authority except to repeat what he who has all authority has told him to see. He does not seek to expose Jesus as the demons did, but to draw people to Jesus as Jesus did.

So the mark of the true prophet is their prostration before Jesus and their awareness of the still small voice that changes their lives, not their signs and wonders (which they may work, but which they then ignore and do not make a big thing of).

Sisters, we are called to be among the true prophets

We are called to expose the false prophets, not so much by our words as by our reality, that we live and speak like Jesus, for we are his friends, hanging on his every word.

We have been called to pay the price, the price of total dedication to Jesus (and his mother, of course, but she was the mother of the prophet, not the prophet) - one sees that when we took our vows. True, I pay the price in the tension of two vocations and you in chaste celibacy, but either way it is the price that needs to be paid to draw close to God.

And we are therefore called to be misunderstood and rejected, as he was, so that those he is calling can be drawn to him, as Jesus disciples were. Indeed, while we may have some prophetic gifting in our respective ministries, the better name is a friend of the bridegroom, one who becomes like him, as Aelred of Rivaux says happens to friends. We are to “think and act alike in things human and divine.”

Then the world will not see the smoke and fire on Sinai; they will see Jesus, the true prophet himself who was more than Moses could have imagined, in his friends. And, as Moses said, it will be good.