Wanted: Prophets
Speaker: The Rev'd Emily Griffin
It’s not easy being a prophet. We have this way of squeezing our prophets into a single frame – of narrowing their relevance to a sound byte or two – whether it’s Samuel from our first reading saying “Speak, for your servant is listening” or Martin Luther King, Jr. saying “I have a dream.” We use them when they suit our arguments and ignore them when they don’t. When we don’t kill our prophets, we turn them into spiritual superheroes – and tell ourselves that it’s our humility that keeps us from following their lead. Or - we use what we know of their flaws to reduce their legitimate claims on us and so shrink them down to a more manageable size. So, how do we know who is worth listening to – who is worth following?
I suspect that most of the folks we call prophets didn’t start out seeing themselves that way. Calling yourself a prophet is kind of like giving yourself a nickname; it’s not a do-it-yourself kind of thing. Take Samuel, for instance. Despite growing up in the temple, Samuel didn’t know at first that it was the LORD calling him. Knowing about God and knowing God for ourselves are two different things. He needed Eli to tell him what a word from the LORD sounded like. And even after encountering the LORD for himself, Samuel didn’t have the courage at first to share what he’d been told; again, he needed Eli to encourage him.
Samuel’s fear is easy enough to understand. It’s a hard thing to pronounce a word of judgment on people we love. It should be hard. Eli was a good man after all. He was a kind mentor and a faithful priest. But that didn’t exempt him from judgment. You see, in God’s economy, we don’t ultimately get to keep power that we’ve obtained unjustly. Eli was born into a corrupt system that unjustly privileged some, in this case – him and his sons – while systematically denying those privileges to others. The priesthood was passed down from father to son. Heredity and gender dictated who could represent God to the people. Of course, Eli rebuked his sons for their greed and abuses of power; he wasn’t blind to their faults. He simply couldn’t stop them. When evil is embedded like that – beyond the good intentions of individuals within it – there’s something wrong with the whole system. It can’t and shouldn’t last.
In pronouncing this word to Eli, Samuel had to realize that his own future was in jeopardy. God was dismantling the only power structure Samuel had ever known. He couldn’t have known it at the time, but he was called to be a prophet in a time of unprecedented transition.
Over the course of his life, the whole political makeup of his country would change – and he’d play a seminal, unrepeatable role. Both his successes and his shortcomings would be magnified and judged through the lens of self-righteous descendants like us. I don’t envy him. Who really wants that kind of scrutiny, to be held to such high standards?
I’d love to ask Dr. King that question. He embodies what we now think of as a prophet – with all its glories and limitations. I suspect he’d resist the singular superhero we’ve turned him into; he’d want us to remember his mentors like Howard Thurman and Benjamin Mays, his colleagues and fellow organizers, women like Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer who shared his courage but were denied his platform. It couldn’t have been easy for him either – to speak hard truths to people he loved, to a church and a country he loved. In confronting our racism, militarism and apathy over poverty head on, he – like Samuel - pronounced God’s word of judgment on unjust power structures that cannot ultimately last. We who follow him do damage to his dream when we refuse to acknowledge what it will cost us to get there – or the roles we can and must play in making it happen.
Who are we to follow in the footsteps of prophets like Samuel, like Dr. King? Who are we not to? Today’s psalm reminds us what we’re made of. We are each and every one of us marvelously made by a God who knows us completely and who loves us entirely, and we can’t stop in the work of justice and peace until we all can live fully into that reality – no matter our ethnicity or income or skin color.
But before we anoint ourselves as prophets, before we claim divine sanction for what we say and do, a few words of caution: First, knowing about God and knowing God for ourselves are not the same thing. We can know the stories, use the words, wave a Jesus flag and still get it horribly wrong. Anyone who uses violence and whiteness to shore up their power is antithetical to the person and work of Jesus. We need mentors like Eli, like Howard Thurman, to help us discern what we’re hearing – to help us face our fears honestly and tell the whole truth, no matter how much it might shake the structures we stand on.
Second, it’s probably best to start small. If we don’t have the courage to speak the truth in love to the people we love, then it might not be the right time to grab the bullhorn. Integrity begins at home. It was in part because Samuel was willing to speak a hard truth to his mentor Eli that he became known and respected as a prophet. And it was, in part, because Dr. King never stopped loving those whom he critiqued that his voice has carried so far and for so long.
Finally, we dare not forget the communities that have formed us – as fallible and bound up in privilege as they might be. We see what we see and hear what we hear because we stand on their shoulders. We are who we are, in part, because of them – and we’re just as fallible as they were and are. But by the grace of God, we’re also capable of equal greatness. We might not be the seminal, unrepeatable leaders of our time like Samuel and Dr. King were in theirs – but that does not disqualify us from playing our part. In the Name of the One who knows us too well and loves us too much to exempt us – Amen.