God’s Reluctant Prophets

Throughout our lives, most of us have talked about and been asked about and tested about what jobs or careers we would like to pursue or should pursue. We have been guided toward or away from many different career fields: professions such as doctor, lawyer, merchant, engineer, factory worker and farmer. One career I have never seen on the list is that of Prophet. This is likely due to the fact that we have seen prophets in our lives and throughout history and we have seen what people, even well meaning people, do to them. A look at some Biblical prophets will help us to understand this reluctance as well is the importance of the “prophetic profession.”

When the Eighth Century B.C. Prophet, Isaiah, finds himself in the presence of God and the Holy Angels, he proclaims, ‘Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!’ The seraph touched his mouth with a live coal from the altar and said: ‘Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.’  Isaiah continues, ‘I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ “And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’” (Isaiah 6:5-9)

Amos, a contemporary of Isaiah, and another reluctant Prophet, is minding his own business as a “herdsman and a tender of sycamore trees,” when God finds him by a wall and calls him and sends him to, Jeroboam, the King of Israel to inform him that God is not pleased with his treatment of those who live under his rule. For his trouble, Amos is run out of town by Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, the “King’s Priest.” (Amos 7:7-15)

Isaiah felt unworthy, Amos didn’t want to go, but our next prophet, John the Baptizer, suffers the ultimate fate that befalls so many of the most powerful prophets in every age. John was violently put to death by Herod, the King of Judah for proclaiming the Good News of God’s Kingdom amidst the Kingdoms of this world. John offended the King’s wife, who, by conspiring with her daughter convinced Herod to have John beheaded.

Jesus, who we Christians believe is our Lord and Savior picked up John’s mantle and moved it forward by proclaiming by word and action “The first commandment is this: Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.”(Mark 12:29-31) As Jesus continued his prophetic ministry, proclaiming God’s love to all and the coming of “God’s Kingdom on Earth as it is in Heaven,” the leaders of the Earthly Kingdoms, both secular and religious, found him to be a problem and conspired to put him to death.

No wonder so few people pursue a career as a prophet; but thanks be to God, there are those among us, who, led by the Holy Spirit, accept the call and the task. May God give us the courage to accept that call to proclaim not only a new heaven, but a new Earth.

“Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” and I said, 'here am I; send me!'" (Isaiah 6:8-9)