WLSU: A Nation of Prophets

But even a cursory dive into the words and writings of the prophets makes clear that their concerns are not confined to what will be. The prophet is deeply attuned to what is. The prophet has been overcome by the blessing and curse of seeing the world as it actually is. They see the world through God’s eyes and are compelled to describe it. They are not mere God-sanctioned soothsayers.

Do you know what the difference was between a real prophet and a false prophet? Because there were plenty of both in Ancient Israel. The real prophet was not the one who most accurately predicted the future – false prophets could accurately predict the future too. No, the true prophets of God were the ones whose words actually pointed to who God is and what God is doing in the world. Those who spoke not only their own opinion but an honest and authentic description of what it means for people to be in a healthy relationship with the God who made them – they were the real prophets.

The real prophet was not merely correct: The real prophet was rooted and grounded in the powerful truth of God’s presence and activity in the world. The real prophet spoke and sang and wrote and acted out from that place.

Moses – the first prophet of Israel – likely wrote the most succinct description of what God was looking for. According to him, God’s people were meant to be a nation of priests. He didn’t mean that everyone was supposed to become clergy. How depressing that would be. No, but on a symbolic level, the role of the priest in the community was to represent God to the people and the people to God. To be a nation of priests then was to be a whole people whose shared life is a testimony of God’s presence, love, and power in the world today.

And this kind of living was not just about praying enough or worshiping the right way: No, if you wanted to be a nation of priests, a country that showed the world about God’s presence and love, you had to structure a society founded in the utter belonging of every single person.

That’s who we are meant to be. We are meant to live our lives and structure our society in such a way that nobody is left out. When we have billionaires in the same cities as people living on the streets, or families crushed by medical debt, or people systematically disenfranchised like we have here in Ohio, we are not a nation of priests.

This is where the prophet comes in.

The prophet, you see, is like a voice in the wilderness of complacency, greed, and vanity who tells us what God sees when looking at the world we’re building.

Put in those terms, maybe we’re not a nation of priests these days. Maybe we’re a nation of prophets: A culture of people who feel as if God is compelling each and every one of us to speak our minds at all costs. The advent of social media has created not just the opportunity, but the pressure to make sure we have opinions and that we share them widely. At least in this country, there is far more emphasis on stating your values than on embodying them.

I don’t say this to demonize social media: It can be such a powerful connector and community builder, and the relationships we build there are not fake. They are real and they matter. But it is a radical change in the way we communicate and we are just at the beginning of understanding how it is changing us. The same platform that allows us to share photos and memories with distant loved ones also supplies us with false conspiracy theories and helps us to organize insurrections. That’s a lot for us to digest.

Likewise, I don’t mean to denigrate the prophetic voice. We need people in our lives who will speak hard truths, who will point both to our failings and to the hope of our shared future. But the prophet’s lone responsibility is to tell the truth. The prophet does not have stick around and make the change happen. A nation of prophets may write trenchant and forceful words.Sometimes we may even predict the future. But if we’re not intentional, we may find our focus shifting to people knowing what we believe, where we stand, what we think or know about any given issue.

I am not immune to this. I have a blog that is also a podcast, and I preach regularly. I feel the need constantly to have an opinion on things, and to share that opinion with the world. Oftentimes when reading the news, while digesting the information, I’m simultaneously thinking, “Is this a thing about which I should be having (and sharing) an opinion?”

I would very much like to think that I am speaking on God’s behalf, but I often wonder where God’s words stop and my own begin. It’s a tidy coincidence that God seems to believe all the same things as I do.

God would have me embody the love for which I am made. But I am often more interested in sharing my opinion, on being right, on making sure the world knows what I think God thinks, and predicting how it will all turn out. I feel comfortable telling you this because I know I’m not alone. I’m just another prophet in a nation of prophets – all of us ready to make sure people know.

And maybe that’s ok. The role of prophet and priest don’t need to be mutually exclusive. We can both speak the truth and embody it.

But if we’re going to be a bunch of prophets, maybe we try to keep at the front of our minds the actual role of the prophet: To root and ground ourselves in unconditional love so fully that when we speak of God we speak authentically and from experience.

You understand, that to see the world through God’s eyes is not just to see our frailty and injustice? To see the world through God’s eyes is to see that people are loved beyond measure or understanding. The Christian believes that Jesus is not only messiah, but God. Which means when God sees this world, God sees something worth engaging in, something worth loving and saving and sharing life with.

The false prophet isn’t always incorrect, but their words are not rooted in the understanding of God’s powerful presence and saving solidarity. The real prophet makes their home in the truth of our belonging. If we’re all going to be prophetic, we’d better be loving the world God gave us.