PROPHETIC UTTERANCE
Dear Jesus,
What is a prophet?
That may sound like a silly question. You may read this and think that I ought to know the answer to that most basic of questions. Maybe I do, but my question is sincere and a result of struggling with what others claim are prophetic utterances. I can’t reconcile them with what I think I have heard you say.
I don’t know when I first concluded that a prophet is someone inspired by your Spirit to say things that God wants the people to hear and make a practical response, even a change of life – what we might call conversion. Doesn’t the prophet help us to recognize the message in our present and lived experience? If the prophet is genuine and Spirit inspired, shouldn’t the prophet’s message, challenging as it might be, rise out of your Good News and be compatible with it? I wonder if the prophet doesn’t live the message as much as proclaim it.
Ought prophetic utterances be divisive, segregating your people, making some feel unloved and beyond the pale of your mercy? There are not a few of those proclaiming to speak in your name, uttering what they say are Bible-based messages, damning segments of society, declaring these ones made in the image and likeness of God, or so we believe about every human being, declaring them to be hated by God and destined for eternal punishment in hell. The message seems to be that your dying and rising won’t benefit them. Apparently, God no longer wills the salvation of all people, and God’s love is no longer universal.
You were there when I sat with the man in tears who told me he was leaving our parish community because the message he was hearing from some Catholic voices was that the Church didn’t love him or his kind, thought he was depraved because of who and what he is. Tell me that that message cannot come from a Spirit-driven prophet.
How can a message be prophetic, that is having God as its source, and incite people to violence and war. I do not believe that anyone can kill another person in your name. Dare I be so bold as to think that there isn’t now, nor has there ever been, such a thing as a holy war. Not to be flippant, but wouldn’t that be an oxymoron? At least that is what I have always believed.
If the message of all the prophets were condensed into one, if your Word were announced nakedly, so to speak, wouldn’t it be a universal call to all people to know God’s love for them and, recognizing that love, to live lives of service, to do everything with love as the driving force? I believe that.
I envy the security some seem to have in their positions. To me they seem smug, try as I might not to be judgmental. They see things so clearly in non-graduated shades of black and white. They seem to say there is only one way that leads to heaven and to God. But isn’t that what got you into trouble in the synagogue at Nazareth when you told those among whom you had grown up that some outside the household were doing a better job of responding to God’s will and ways than they were?
I would probably be more secure if I thought prophecy would always come in the ways that I expect it and in turns of phrase that I find comfortable. Still, I accept that our God is a god of surprises and that God’s word unsettles the complacent in every age. I also believe that prophets ultimately proclaim God’s love, God’s desire to be our god, and God’s desire for us to let God be god in our lives. You were being prophetic when you welcomed sinners and others deemed untouchable by the Pharisees, the keepers of the Law. You welcomed sinners and broke bread with them and these attitudes and actions became the cause used to justify your execution.
I admire some protesters and demonstrators. Yesterday I saw a picture of someone carrying a banner that read: As long as there is one soul in prison, I am not free. That was a prophetic utterance that got me thinking about the fact that at the heart of our faith is the conviction that once we were slaves, but God acted to lead us to freedom. If I believe that, and in my solidarity in you with my sisters and brothers in the world, if, as I think I did, if I heard you say that you fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy about setting captives free, how can I be at peace in a nation that has more of its citizens in prisons and jails than any other Western world nation? Certainly there are those dangerous ones from whom the rest of society needs to be protected. But how many of those imprisoned ones made the criminal decisions they did in squalid circumstances and desperate situations. You have inspired prophetic voices to call for a rebuilding of impoverished neighborhoods and for better education of the children struggling for survival in them. They awaken in some the sense of responsibility we have for one another.
What strain on the idea of the human family comes from the fact that the vast majority of wealth is in the hands of 1.5% of our population while the numbers of impoverished continues to grow as does the chasm that separates the “haves” from the “have-nots.” Some prophetic voices call us to share the wealth. Are they rooting their prophesy in the Gospel and your challenge to your disciples to feed the hungry and clothe the naked? Aren’t those sheep on the right in Matthew’s judgment scene, the prophetic ones who recognized you in every dire situation and responded with acts of love?
I read of a man’s execution in another state. Reporters wrote that he cried out to God for mercy and protested his innocence. He pled for God’s intervention and deliverance. And his mother wept on the other side of the glass window in the execution chamber. Isn’t there a prophetic message about that situation that needs to be heard?
Some decry the emerging role of women in the Church and of the laity in worship. They are calling for a ridding of practices that grew out of the reforms of Vatican Council II. More and more is being heard of nostalgia for the good old days when the Church was more obviously hierarchical and the laity was more obviously subservient to the ordained. Never mind about the proclamation of the Priesthood of the Baptized and the call for the full, active, and conscious participation of the faithful in Liturgy. I can’t find the Spirit in these utterances and calls for reform. Is the faith experience of mourners really enriched by the return of black vestments worn by the priest-presider? What is the prophetic message all this proclaims? Don’t these messages and similar ones stifle your voice? You are probably not surprised that many of the faithful are fleeing and finding solace and the strengthening of their faith in other denominations, Christian and otherwise? I wonder if you do not weep at what you see.
I know I feel vulnerable when such prophecies wash over me. They are so contrary to everything I believed and that motivated my ministry and the empowering decisions I made. I want to put my hands over my ears and crouch and cringe because I cannot silence them. I cannot reconcile the message to your announcing of the Good News. It is one thing to bask in nostalgia for former times; it is another to try to regress to those times. The Church is a living organism that continues to evolve. I believe you want us to attain our full stature and to embrace the freedom that is ours as the children of God, loved by God with the same love God has for you. That has to govern how we celebrate when we gather with you for Eucharist.
I wonder what will be the prophetic call you will announce next. It is the nature of prophesies to unsettle and challenge us to grow in the implications of our Baptisms. There needs to be the graced power of discernment to help us separate the true from the false prophets.
Just when I think I’ve got it down, will the prophet always shake me up to realize how much further I have to go? If I dare to listen and find the courage to continue on The Way, you will be with me, won’t you? And with these people with whom I journey to our table?
One last thought occurs to me. What should I do if you ask me to take a prophetic stance? After all, that role could flow from Baptism. Will I be able to let you point the way?
Sincerely,
Didymus
