A Sermon Preached on the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany,
January 29, 2012
Deuteronomy 18:15-20 (Year B)

By Reed Carlson

1.· My first great demotion in life was the transition from high school senior to college freshmen.

· It was as if someone took everything that I thought was cool and flipped it upside down.

· In high school you were cool if you drove a car. But in college, the cool guys had cars, but they rode bikes.

· In high school, it was cool to not care about anything. But in college, cool guys cared about stuff, like their career and organic vegetables, and something called Darfur.

· I remember being invited to some upper classmen’s apartment. Their apartment was really nice. None of their furniture was made from cinderblocks.

· They had made lasagna for everyone. And I remember thinking to myself, how does lasagna make you cool? This is what my mom does.

· My freshmen and sophomore years of college, I was so obsessed with being cool, that I would try to adopt all of these things that I saw other people doing.

· I remember, a guy who sat out in the park under a tree with a guitar. And people—particularly girls—would crowd around him and listen.

· So for my birthday, I asked my parents to buy me a guitar. They were wise and bought me the cheapest one they could find.

· I have literally played that guitar three times. And my fingertips still hurt.

2.

· This is a very human approach to success. We watch each other and look for what works. Then we try it ourselves.

· Whether it’s playing guitar, working hard or investing in high risk mortgages in hopes of flipping property and making a big profit. We try things. And the successful—powerful things—can often justify our methods.

· Along these lines, the text we read tonight from Deuteronomy 18 deals with this question of power. Specifically, whose power?

· You see, this chapter is primarily about other gods. It was a text written from a polytheistic worldview, so it talks about fortune telling and sorcerers and sacrificing your children and basically how that stuff is bad.

· This is a theme that’s all over the Bible, and unfortunately, we often ignore it because we assume that we don’t live in a culture that does that kind of stuff anymore.

· You see the Enlightenment took this idea of monotheism and turned it into, kind of a level of intellectual achievement.

· So rather than false gods being a threat or a temptation—something to be aware of and careful about—they just became a matter of education and societal progress. False gods became only a problem for the ignorant

· Now, I think this is unfortunate because we live in a culture that too often worships false gods—gods of money, gods of social status, gods of self-satisfaction. And meanwhile we ignore the Scriptures that talk about this problem, because we think we’re too smart to fall for that anymore.

3.

· You see, when our text talks about other gods, it doesn’t say, “Don’t waste your time with those gods. They’re not real.” Moses doesn’t say, “Don’t bother using those other powers. They don’t work.”

· It’s just the opposite.

· He says, “You can go to sorcerers and learn about the future.” Don’t do it.

· “You can sacrifice your children to the gods to gain their favor.” Don’t do it.

· In other words, there are other powers in this world that are very effective but that doesn’t make them right. There are ways to get what you want in life that are not of God. Don’t do it.

4.

· This is a radically counter cultural statement in a society like ours that values practicality over morality, that cares more about results than methods, that looks at the profit margin before the human cost.

· Our ancestors knew that the risk of other gods—of other powers—was a constant threat. It’s littered across the Bible, because they knew it was dangerous.

· It’s especially dangerous, when you’re in a tough spot. Right? We’re most tempted to resort to other powers, when we see that they will work.

· It’s when our companies are struggling financially that we’re tempted to treat our employees unfairly. It’s when we’re insecure in our own relationships that we cut out people who are alone or difficult to love. It’s when we’re really busy that we’re tempted to cut in to quality time with people we love. It’s when our marriages are difficult and frustrating that we feel justified in responding to the flattering attention of a co-worker.

5.

· All of these powers will work in some way. Don’t do it.

· Moses says to watch for a prophet like him who will speak in the name of the true God. Don’t fall for these other prophets who promise us success and happiness.

· They want to try to convince us that results only come from resorting to the powers of this world.

· Centuries later, the first Christians would read this text and recognize Jesus in these words.

· Jesus was someone who came with power, but not the power of this world.

· Jesus’ power came from God, a self-giving, a self-forgetting power that did not look like the military power of Rome or the economic power of the merchants or the manipulative power of the religious elite.

6.

· In a moment, we’re going to take a few minutes of silence. And I want to challenge you to just be honest with yourself and with God for a moment. Is there a situation in your life or the life of someone you love, where you are tempted to use a power that is not really of God?

· It could be something very serious, something illegal even, but more likely it’s something that seems kind of innocuous.

· To be honest, during my first two years of college, I really wish I would’ve spent less time trying to be cool.

· I had some fun and made some friends but in the end, I sacrificed too much.

· The modest success that I had then didn’t make up for the difficult years of learning and reevaluating that would follow.

· And today I really wish I would’ve listened when people said to me stuff like, it might look like this is kind of working for you, Reed, but it’s not really what God has for you.

· And so if that’s you here tonight, whatever it is you’re wondering about, I just want to tell you, it’s not what God has for you. There’s a greater power than that and it’s hear right now, ready to speak to us.

· Let’s just take a moment and pray.