 |
| The prophet Ezekiel and the Valley of Dry Bones (Quentien Metsys, Ygr., c. 1589) |
“Prophets are not without honor, except in
their hometown, and among their own kin, and in their own house.” (Mark6:4)
As I think about the lessons in the Revised
Common Lectionary for Pentecost 7 this year, I guess the best place for me to start
is with the question: What is a prophet? In the Gospel (Mark 6:1-13), Jesus
refers to himself as a prophet, but just what the heck is that? The RCL marries
this Gospel reading with a Hebrew scripture reading from the prophet Ezekiel
(Ezekiel 2:1-5). We all know that Ezekiel is a prophet, right? So let’s start by figuring out what a prophet is.
I think we in modern America use the term
prophet to mean someone who can predict the future. You know, like someone with
a crystal ball or something. The dictionary definition is a little different.
My New World Dictionary says a
prophet is an interpreter of God’s will. The word comes from the Greek profhth
(pronounced
pro-FAY-tay. You don’t really need to know what it looks like in Greek, I just
dig the fact that I can make Greek letters with my computer. It makes me look
smarter). This is a compound of the Greek
pro (meaning “before” or “ahead of”) and phanai (meaning “to speak”). Therefore, a prophet is one who speaks
for someone in advance of their speaking for themselves. In this case, that
someone is God (I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling smarter already!).
Note that this does not necessarily mean
that the prophet is one who tells fortunes or predicts the future in some
mystic way. A prophet can be anyone who just takes an educated, adult look at
the circumstances and says, “I don’t think God would like the way this seems to
be going.”
Since the RCL gives us the call of God to
Ezekiel, I thought I might share a little background info on this prophet. Can
I just say that I really dig Ezekiel? He’s a pretty wild old dude. He’s called
to be God’s mouthpiece to a stubborn people, Judah, just as that nation is
about to fall to Babylon. Ezekiel gets deported into captivity in Babylon with
all the other elite of Judah. When his wife dies suddenly (Ezekiel 24:15-18),
he is forbidden by God to mourn in the traditional way. His stoicism in the
face of real tragedy is his way of telling the wayward people of God that the
calamity they face is their own darn fault, so they’d better stop their
whining, suck it up, and take their punishment like a mensch—instead of like
the big, self-involved crybabies they’ve become.
But Ezekiel doesn’t only speak words of
rebuke. He has some pretty freaky visions which might make you wonder
what he’s been smoking. My favorite—and yours too I’ll bet—is his vision of the
Valley of Dry Bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14). He sees the slaughtered army of Judah
rise up from the dust. Their parched bones come together, the flesh covers
them, and they breathe again as a great host, promising that God’s people will
one day enjoy the freedom and favor they had previously known. God tells
Ezekiel to “prophesy to the breath” (v. 9), which could also be translated as “speak
to the spirit.” That’s a prophet’s job—to speak to our spirits, to try and
touch the part of us which hungers for God and for reconciliation.
I’m taking two ideas away from the Gospel
lesson for this week. The first is simply the way these folks don’t want to
believe that little Jesus, the local kid they knew when he was in diapers,
could possibly be the one who could open up the Kingdom of God to them. Why is
it, I wonder, that we are so quick to reject the words of the ones closest to
us? You might want to start considering the good advice you’ve been given in
your life that you didn’t follow. Or,
who was it who finally steered you in the right direction? Who was your
prophet?
I’m going to suggest that our big
screw-ups rarely happen because we weren’t informed. They happen because we
didn’t listen or heed the information we were given. Even if that information
came from a queasy feeling in our bowels. That might’ve been God telling us we
were going the wrong way and we needed to sit and rethink our assumptions, our
priorities, our morals, and our wants. God does not protect us from the
consequences of our own stupid egos. In our Gospel lesson, even Jesus is
powerless to help those who simply refuse to listen. I’ll even suggest that the
loss of small, mainline churches in America might’ve happened because of a lack
of prophetic acceptance—an unwillingness to read the signs of the times—and a
lack of faith that God could bring about a resurrection.
My second take-away from this Gospel
reading is that Jesus commissioned his buddies—these ordinary working stiffs—to
be prophets and to proclaim the Kingdom on his behalf. Granted, he tells them
to shake the dust off their feet of any place that won’t listen to them. Maybe
that’s where the term “shake it off” meaning “get over it” comes from, you
think? It seems pretty clear to me that Jesus knows folks aren’t always going
to listen to what they should be listening to. Sin, pride, stubbornness, and
ego are going to get in the way. There’s not much you can do about that. Nevertheless,
you are commissioned to speak God’s word anyway—even if they don’t want to hear
it.
After 9/11, there was a public safety
campaign which exhorted people to vigilance. “If you see something, say
something” was the slogan. That could just as well be our call to prophecy.
When we encounter sin, intolerance, recklessness, disrespect, whatever, we are
called to speak up for the Kingdom of God. Our words may not be heeded, but we
are called to speak them just the same. The vocation of every Christian is to
be a prophet.
Be inspired, Prophets of God! Speak to the
spirits of those you encounter and be a blessing to them. Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment