You cannot gate keep the Spirit - you cannot decide who can and cannot prophesy…

Moses asks in our first reading, “Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!”

And would the world be a better place if all the people of God would be prophets? The word ‘prophet’ means a proclaimer of the word of God by Webster’s dictionary.

Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all just proclaimed thus said the Lord?

By our very baptism we are baptized as, “priest, prophet and king” so it is our baptismal rite/right to prophesy and proclaim the word of God.

Yet, we live in a world that proscribes who can prophesy and proclaim God’s word.

Are you a man? What race are you? What’s your sexuality? Depending on these answers is your acknowledgment of if you can prophesy - proclaim the word of God.

But I’m going to return to Moses’s question: Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets!  God is calling us all to proclaim his word and bring souls to him. Jesus tells us in the gospel today, Mark chapter 9, starting at verse 38: “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” ³⁹ “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, ⁴⁰ for whoever is not against us is for us. ⁴¹ Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.”

In other words, anyone who is working in the name of Jesus, you are ordained to prophesy and do his will. Church, we cannot gate keep the Spirit. We can’t dictate who can proclaim the word of the Lord as long as they are doing it in the name of Jesus the Christ.  

The days of questioning: are you ordained? What’s your “x,y,z,” are long gone. That has only gotten us so far. I see the church today in our second reading: we have gotten “rich” and fattened ourselves, made church about ourselves and now cry of why people are leaving. We have condemned and ostracized and wonder why pews are empty. People are leaving the traditional church in droves because they seek something real. Baptized but leaving, confirmed, but leaving. Why? Because we have defined who can and cannot prophesy and condemn those who don’t fit into our perfect boxes. And there’s a strong message against gate keeping the Spirit in our second reading. It gives us a warning that when we condemn, God offers no resistance.

Yet God is calling us all through the nature of our baptism to go and prophesy proclaim the word of the Lord. Therefore, I challenge anyone who listens to this: Don’t worry about if you’re ordained or deemed worthy; you were baptized “priest, king and prophet.” Therefore go out and tell the Good News of the Lord.

Would that all the people of God were prophets… oh what a time it would be! We gotta stop gate keeping and telling people who can and cannot proclaim the word of the Lord.

Go ye therefore and teach every nation. Amen.