BEING A PROPHET IS COUNTERINTUITIVE. It means unquestioning obedience to God by saying unpopular things that usually leads to persecution from powerful people. Consider Haggai. On September 1, 520 B.C., God told him to go and confront his fellow Jews with their sluggishness in rebuilding the temple after returning from captivity. He went to the prince, Zerubbabel, and the high priest, Joshua. His compatriot, Zechariah, perhaps inspired by Haggai’s courage, joined in the prophetic task two months later. Their basic message was: “You seem to have all the energy you need to build your own houses, but the temple, Yahweh’s house, still lies in blackened ruins. Let’s get busy.”
Intriguingly, these confrontational messages didn’t sow discord. They brought comfort. As Mark Boda shows us in his excellent commentary, the overall response of the leaders and the people to the prophets’ calls to get busy and get connected with God again was action and renewed relationships. That result was counterintuitive also. How and why can a message so untactful, so politically incorrect, so socially inappropriate (at least by the standards of so-called civil society) produce such positive results? The temple got built, and the people were restored—personally, communally, and spiritually.
If both being a prophet and the results of prophetic work are counterintuitive, perhaps the problem is with our intuition. Perhaps we are not reading the signs right. Perhaps we do not have ears to hear. Perhaps we are not speaking the word of the Lord but are spouting conventional wisdom. Perhaps.
It may just be possible, however, that prophetic work and the results of prophecy are supposed to be counterintuitive. After all, not everyone is called to be a prophet. If the sociology of the Old Testament is any indication, it appears that prophets are odd ducks, a rare breed of religious fanatics who appear in certain times in certain places, do their thing, and then disappear again. We are all called to be missionaries of the word, but how long has it been since you met someone who was sure his or her calling was to be a prophet?
One way to make the uniqueness of the prophetic task more clear is to look at the question in modern terms. That is, let’s consider this question: Who might be modern-day candidates for prophethood?
How about corporate whistleblowers? These are people who not only discover illegal behavior on the part of the corporations they work for (unfortunately, not too difficult a task these days) but decide to risk their careers by going public with their knowledge. Officially we endorse this behavior and try to protect such people through our laws. But do we succeed? Do we really like what they do? We sometimes are more sympathetic with the leaders who fall (there but for the grace of God go I) than the more moral whistleblowers. Can you name one of the whistleblowers of the last two or three years? So are whistleblowers prophets? It seems there is more to prophethood than merely the courage to act on moral indignation.
How about the leaders of various regulating agencies and groups? When Ralph Nadar fought for seatbelt laws, he wasn’t combating illegalities but human ignorance. People’s refusal to do what was good for them—or their persistence in continuing harmful behavior—was the problem he addressed. Is it a function of prophetic behavior to save us from our follies? Do we first need to ask about the relationship between our so-called follies and God’s will?
And what about activists such as those concerned with degrading our environment? These are people who chose to address patterns of long-term, failed policies. We are using up our natural resources at unacceptable rates. Yet because that rate of consumption is part of what makes our lives so materially comfortable, we are as a society reluctant to cut back. Activists call us to do just that. Does this make them prophets?
There is more to being a prophet than doing what a group of people thinks is good. Prophets must do what God thinks is good—and what God calls them to do. Prophets aren’t just doers of the Word—they must first be hearers of the Word. Like Haggai and Zechariah.
Terry C. Muck