Prophet wanted

As part of the first-year required class at Starr King, we are learning about the various roles that make up the ministerial vocation. In the last two weeks, we have explored the minister as teacher and as preacher. Today, we heard about the minister as prophet.

When the Dr. Rev. Dorsey Blake described the ministry of the prophet, he said it was a lonely existence. To be prophetic, he said, means you will potentially put your own livelihood into jeopardy. It’s one thing to create effective social justice programs within a church community, but it’s another to question the society that creates the need for them.

He suggested that simply being a good person, a productive member of the community, or a successful minister was not enough; one had to interfere with the machinations of society that stand in opposition to divine intention.

If you want to be prophetic.

At first when he began speaking, I wondered why anyone would object to someone interfering with the machinations of an unjust and unconscionable society, such as the one we are witnessing here in the United States. Are we not all waiting for someone in government to act as a moral conscience and hold our country to its lofty foundation and aspirations? In the absence of that prophet, are we not all hoping and praying that the very leaders who take our country down this dark and dangerous path will somehow wake up and see the error in their ways?

Why is there this void? Why is there this silence?

I quickly realized that we all have made some sort of compromise, sacrifice or great effort to get to the place where we are comfortable. There is reservation and resistance, from within or from without, when we look to shake the foundation that keeps us steady.

But I ask myself, in this time of extreme unrest, what have we really to lose?

Which leads, inevitably, to the next question. Are we willing to be the prophet? Are we willing to put forth an undeniable truth and follow it doggedly to some sort of conclusion? On what moral authority do we believe we stand?

In the handout from today’s class, Blake gives us the answer. “The interference is grounded in a vision of the eternal that stands in stark opposition to contemporary society. It is a vision of a just and sustainable community, society and global reality. The usurpation of a covenant, of justice and compassion and its attendant abuse of power and people, drives the prophet.”

With that in mind, could we embrace the role of the prophet?

Do we not know, deep in that place of knowing, that there is a different picture of a just and sustainable community than what we are experiencing as our daily life? Must there be litany after litany of unexplained violence breaking out in the most peaceful of communities for us to understand that we could articulate a different way?

Would it really be a lonely path?

I think not. What about you?