There was a deep need, then and
now, for someone who would call the people to return to God and
to justice. Someone who would warn them, critique them, and reveal God’s heart
to them. We call them prophets, and every religion needs them. For
hundreds of pivotal years—starting around 1300 BCE and continuing through the
eras of Israel’s kingdom, exile, and conquest—prophets like Jonah, Amos,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel performed this utterly important task. Besides
being truth tellers, they were radical change agents, messengers of divine
revelation, teachers of a moral alternative, and deconstructors of every
prevailing order. Both Isaiah 21 and Ezekiel 3 (also Habakkuk 2) describe a
prophet as a “sentry” or a “watcher,” whose job is to hold Israel
maddeningly honest, and to stop them from relying on arms, money, lies,
and power to keep themselves safe and in control. Richard Rohr
Rohr reminds us that the
prophets were deeply grounded in the present moment, to speak the truth in love
(because if you are going to criticize and be cynical, your voice will be lost
amid all the others with platforms, podcasts, and political pundits who do just
that right now!). Prophets call us back
not to an idealized past (that probably never existed) or into some future
utopia (that as humans we will always struggle to both create and sustain ~ see
Genesis 3, the garden!). Prophets seek
to root us in the soil of the sacred.
The prophets point out that the rulers, money-makers, priests, and the powerful
want to maintain the status quo. The
prophets say, God has always called us to another way, not just when it is
conducive to our calendars, the conditions are correct or when someone else is
elected, we are called to live God’s way every day. This is difficult in good times and can be
downright impossible in a time such as this.
Who is helping you imagine what
is possible to live as God’s beloved right now?
What gives you the strength to
listen for God, rather than all the other voices that clamor for attention and
allegiance?
Given that the prophets were not
just predicting the future, how does that open your sacred imagination to hear
their words as an invitation for this day of August?
I pray you will continue to pay
attention to God’s wisdom, not for some future day, but for right here and now
to guide our living. Amen.
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