To be Prophetic
Second Part

If you want to be a prophet, you are subject to the historical realities of the times. You cannot say, “I'll be prophetic when things have cooled down, when there are no more NPA's, when the economic condition of the poor has been solved, when there is a “chicken in every pot,” when the elections have been cleansed of dagdag-bawas. The problem, my friends, is that prophets are made when the times try men's souls, when the times are at their grimmest and darkest.

So consider, secondly, that the prophetic calling is agonizing because of the insistence that God's Word be proclaimed in the face of historical realities. As Martin Luther put it, “We become captive to the Word of God.”

Indeed in God's call to Jeremiah, god said to him: “Do not say ‘I am only a youth;” for all to whom I send you, you shall go. And whatever I command you, you shall speak.” Gripped as he is by the Word of God, the prophet in one of his jeremiads, says:

“I don't say I don't mention God or speak any more in his name, there is in my heart, as it were, a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.”

You see, the concern of Jeremiah is thi: unless his people take God and his righteousness seriously, unless his people are concerned about truth and justice, a Godless power would come from the North (Assyria) to destroy Israel . So the youth of our Church are proclaiming the same Word of God for our time. For they see a clear parallel. The parallel lies in the fact that if we go on and on with our evil ways we shall self-destruct, we shall lose our sense of nationhood.

The agony of prophetic calling lies in the risk we take in the telling. The Word of God is a fire in the bones which, conceivably, we are driven by in our time and for which we will suffer. The words of another prophet are a real existential challenge:

The lion roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy? TO BE CONTINUED*

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