Richard's Sermon on 5th November 2017: False Prophets and Fake News

4 Before Advent 5^th November 2017

‘False Prophets and Fake News’

Holy Trinity and Christchurch

Has anyone else been watching that excellent series on BBC4 about The Vietnam War. In a recent episode we were shown the leaking in 1970 of secret papers stretching back 9 years which showed that successive presidential administrations knew that no good would come out of the American venture in South East Asia, knew that they could never win the war and yet continued to pursue just that policy, telling the people all the while that things were going well, that victory was possible. When the papers were published, you can imagine the reaction. One former marine interviewed all these years later said “That changed our whole attitude to government. Up until then – ‘the president wouldn’t lie’. After that – ‘they always lie’.”

You will be pleased to know that this isn’t a sermon about politicians and particularly not about Donald Trump. But it is a sermon about false prophets and fake news. For there are many of the former and there is a great deal of the latter out there. And who should we look to for guidance and leadership? Who should we trust?

In two of our bible readings we hear warnings about false prophets and the fake news which they peddle. Micah lambasts those whose directions are based on bribes, the prophets who lead God’s people astray, who say nice things to those who are good to them and promise damnation to those who aren’t. And as the disciples marvel at the solidity of Herod’s great temple and Jesus contemplates its eventual but certain destruction he warns them about those who would lead them astray.

There are many waiting to lead us astray also.

Fake news feeds us what we want to hear, like the false prophets who say ‘Surely the Lord is with us! No harm shall come upon us.’ Because that’s what people want to hear.

There are two classic means by which false prophets lead people astray.

a) Wittertainment – Everything is going to be all right. Usually forget the second half ‘…in the end and if things aren’t all right this is not the end.’

We want to hear that everything is going to be all right so, of course, we listen when someone tells us that.

b) ‘Come with me if you want to live’ – this is the siren call of the cult which peddles their way as the only way. Things are going to hell in a handcart so ‘some with me if you want to live.’

 It was important then for the disciples to discern between false and true prophets and it is perhaps double important for us in our age of instant social networks in which many gain their news and their understanding of the world from media platforms that link them only with like minded people, the echo chambers of Facebook, Twitter, online news providers and so on. We hear only what we want to hear and so it is doubly important to listen to, read about and understand different opinions, different ways, and different callings. For then we will be in less danger of falling prey to fake news and false prophets.

SO who can we look to for guidance and leadership? Who can we trust?

Jesus tells his disciples of how hard it will be to keep to his way and how easy it will be to be led astray, refuses to tell them that everything is always going to be all right. ‘Everything will be all right – but in the end; and this is not the end.’ He encourages them to endure and stick to the Jesus way. He is to be ‘the ever fixed mark’, the one they can trust, the one who is ‘filled with power, with the spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might’ as the prophet Micah might have said.

Jesus tells us as he told his first disciples to keep to the Jesus way, to hold out, to endure even as numbers appear to dwindle and costs to increase, as many appear apathetic to his claims or baulk at the cost.

And we know that he is the true prophet because he does not ask of us anything he has not been prepared to give of himself, and we know that his news is good news and not false news because he has taken on even death itself and emerged triumphant.

Yesterday was one of my most favourite days of the year…the diocesan confirmation in Wells cathedral. Sixty five people, young and old, male and female, able bodied and those who struggled to stand all pledged themselves to the Jesus way and it was very moving. One of them is with us in church today. David knows the difference between fake news and good news, between false and true prophets. I am sure that we do also.