The Curse of the Prophetic Role

If someone asks you, “Could you deliver a message for me?” you will ask, “What is the message, and to whom would you like it delivered?” Being wise, you will want to know what you are getting into.

So, look at the title of this piece. Did I say curse? I meant blessing. Oh, wait, it is both. To be taken up by God to prophesy to the people needing a divine message must be a blessing. It is God, after all, ordering the work. On the other hand, it is to people in serious need that the message is delivered, so what will that be like?

Ask the Hebrew prophet, Ezekiel of Jerusalem, carted off to Babylon once the holy city fell. Ask Jesus: criticized, caught, and crucified for delivering the message of God’s reign. Ask Saul of Tarsus, walloped by an ecstatic vision, his conversion. Called Paul after that, he was, struck temporarily blind and driven to travel and preach his way through one life-threatening encounter after another. At length, after a couple of decades of that, he was beheaded in Rome.

The prophet puts forth the word of God whether it is a favorable message in the ears of the people or not. Of course, in the list of Ezekiel, Jesus, and Paul, they all deliver God’s message, but Jesus stands out, being himself, the Word, God incarnate. Beyond prophet, he is the Redeemer. Still, he is treated, as were the prophets of antiquity.

The person taking on the prophetic task is caught between the glory of the reality of God and the dangerous brokenness of the human field of need. How wondrous are the things of God! How frightening are the desperados that need God! We will look into these things more carefully as the week goes on because there is a theme like this running through the scriptures assigned to this Sunday’s liturgy. We will want to feel with Jesus what it was like for him in his own town, being criticized and dismissed, because they knew him as just plain Jesus, a hometown boy. And look at the start Ezekiel gets at the beginning of the sixth century, BCE:

The Lord said to me: O mortal, stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you. And when he spoke to me, a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard him speaking to me. He said to me, Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I am sending you to them…”  (Ezekiel 2:1-4)

What a privilege! It is a great life if you don’t weaken. And let me paraphrase and slightly re-arrange a portion of what Paul writes in what we call his second letter to the Corinthians. It alludes to the mystical experience that is probably his own. It shows how awesome is the presence of God: awesome as in frightfully holy. It reminds us of what another New Testament author asserted  “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31) Here is the paraphrase from 2 Corinthians 12:2-5.

I know a person in Christ who was caught up to the third heaven—caught up, I tell you into Paradise—hearing things that are not to be told; no mortal has permission to repeat things so high. I have no idea whether this encounter with the holy caught him up within of his physical being or whether he was transported outside of himself. God would know this but I do not. You think I would reveal who saw this, or what was seen? That would make me a fool, and I don’t want that. Whoever it was, deserves to boast of the encounter, so exceptional was the character of the revelation, but wisdom keeps him from boasting. If I am going to boast, I best just stick to boasting about my weakness.

This is just a loose rendering of what we find in the letter and will hear this Sunday. Let’s just say for now that Paul found the nature of God and his religious experiences ominous and so powerful that he did not want to be reckless. You and I are not prophets, per se, but let me tell you: you too are a messenger for the matters of the Holy, the Giver of Life. God help you; it is a daunting job.