False and True Prophets

My rule of life has included some form of daily prayer, with scripture and psalms, for more than a decade.  I began with the Episcopal Daily Offices of morning and evening prayer in the mid 90s.  When Phyllis Tickle’s The Divine Hours began being published in 2000, I was drawn to its simplicity and ease of use for individuals.  When I started seminary in 2004, I returned to the prayer book offices, and stuck with them until last year, when I felt the need once again for the simplicity of Tickle’s reworking of those offices.

I appreciate having the Hours available online, here and here.  But sometimes, as on this day, I go back to the printed version.  Tickle always places major feats of the Church (that is, remembrances of saints from the New Testament) on a Monday.  So online today is the remembrance of St. Luke, whose feast day this year is on Friday.  So, I used the morning office from Friday of this week this morning.  And in God’s providence, I heard what I needed to hear.  It made me uncomfortable.

Jesus taught us saying, “Alas for you when everyone speaks well of you when everyone speaks well of you!  This is how their ancestors treated the false prophets” (Luke 6:26).  It seems that Jesus is saying that I’s when you encounter opposition to doing what you think right that you know you’re on the right track.  And yet all around us, we see the wreckage being left by those who are so convinced of their rightness, and the perceived consequences of they don’t “win,” that they must win by any means necessary.  I see the wreckage of disappointment, anger, disillusionment, even despair, in the politics of our country and our church.

Is opposition in itself the criteria of our being right?  Does being right give us the right to overcome our opponents by any means necessary?  I don’t think so, and I don’t think that’s what Jesus thought either.  He spoke out about what he knew to be right, and faced down his opponents.  But he did not choose to win by any means necessary.  He spoke out for the right, even to his death.  But even then, he chose mercy over recrimination.  

So perhaps, we should judge our own rightness, not by where we must prevail at all costs, but where we seek the truth, and trust our vindication to God.