Last night, I did something new. I watched the new television series “Of Kings and Prophets” while following the buzz on Twitter. It was interesting to see people’s reactions in real time as they protested the Biblical inaccuracies, the artistic license to spice up the story line, but most of all, I was intrigued by the reactions to Samuel. To be sure the rather enigmatic and ever so slightly spooky prophet who rips the arms off of hired assassins is not completely in line with the perceptions that most modern audience have of prophets. We like to think of them as leaders, and our ideas of leaders tend to be ones of men and women who exemplify the best, the most noble, and desirable of our society.
However, our ideas about prophets and the reality as presented within the Bible do not always line up. The prophet of the Bible was not a pretty character. He was bold, raw, and often offensive. His language was not soft or genteel, but rather what most of us would consider straight up vulgar. He lived on the outskirts of society. Yes, he was often present in the courts of kings, but not as one of the fawning masses. Instead, he stood apart as someone to be feared, and sometimes that fear was not out of respect. Many times that fear was based in disdain and expressed in ridicule. These men had the power to depose kings, elevate the poorest to position of authority, and generally upend the status quo at any given moment. They dangerous not only to those in leadership but to all who desired to that standards and mores of their culture be maintained by propriety and proper observance of established convention. Thus his presence was not always welcome or celebrated.
Of all the descriptions written of the Biblical prophet, Abraham Joshua Heschel’s is by far my favorite:
“A strange, one sided, unbearable extremist…His words are shocking and often offensive to the more genteel of society. Dignity is cast aside in favor of emotion and he does not flinch from offending his audience…He lacks refinement and the passion with which he reveals God’s message seems wildly out of control to the masses but to the one inspired the means barely capture the intensity of passion.” From his book The Prophets.
J. Lindblom describes being a prophet as a “condition”, and he supports this view by noting the taunting note in 1 Samuel 10:11:
“Is Saul among the prophets?”
Lindblom explains that question demonstrates that role and office of prophet was considered to be beneath one from a good family. No one of status would desire to become of these wild eyed individuals whose inexplicable behavior did not conform to society’s expectations. This was not position of honor as the cost was too great, causing those chosen to walk in this role to move away from societal standards and moved deeper into the truth revealed to them by God.
The level of conflict in their lives was epic. Jeremiah describes himself as “a man of strife and contention to the whole land.” (Jeremiah 15:10). Not only did he confront the king, he stood in direct conflict with the false prophets of his day – the prophets whom the people affirmed for the smooth words and happy predictions for the future of their land. He denounced the religious elite and the condemned the masses for offering God only empty forms of worship without engaging him with their hearts. His message was warning that not only would Israel as nation be subjugated to foreign powers for their disobedience, but that the symbols and means through they worshipped God would be stripped away because institutionalized observances of faith were a lie that God would no longer tolerate.
And Jeremiah was not the only one who quite literally danced with death almost every time God commanded him to speak. Nathan calls David out for committing adultery and murder, Samuel condemns Saul and declares that he will lose his throne, Moses demands that Pharaoh release his labor force, and Jesus damns the religious elites for their hypocrisy. How else would you classify such people, other than mad?
Nor were the extreme elements of their nature limited to their prophet announcements. Isaiah was commanded to preach naked for three years, Hosea was told to marry a prostitute, Ezekiel shaved his head with sword and then did various symbolic acts with the hair, and John the Baptist ate locusts and honey exemplifying the voice of one from a wilderness. It is to read these accounts and accept them as part of the Biblical narrative to which we have become accustom, but if we stop and think of what it would be like to witness these events, to actually be in the presence of the prophets as they fulfilled God’s command to live out their message, would we still be able to blithely accept them as part of God’s plan?
I do not think so. In fact, I think most of us would be even more shocked and offended than their original audiences. I think we would see their bizarre behavior as vindication of our right to deny them the authority and wisdom that God bestowed upon them. There God had command protection for those he placed in this office. God knew that everything in us would resist paying heed to one so far removed from societal and cultural norms, and we should not make the mistake of believing that the Biblical prophets were normal for their day and the only reason they seem so strange to us is due to the years that stand between us.
Nor should we be shocked that one who walks so closely with a Holy God who defies our definitions and boundaries would also be radically different than his contemporaries. For how does encounter a God whose ways are not our ways and thoughts are not our thoughts without being radically changed? We often forget that the prophet was not simply a telephone, or some other mechanical devise, to be used as tool. The prophet was flesh and blood, sensitive and response to their environment, and when environment has been infused by the very presence of God – you are never going to be normal again.
So maybe it is time we acknowledge a difficult and distasteful truth, prophets were not meant to be normal. They don’t often popularity contests, and they don’t usually don’t experience what this world defines as success except perhaps through the lens of history. They set people on edge with messages divinely designed and ordained to upset the status quo. The comfort they offer only follows obedience and repentance. They are hard individuals demanding hard things from their audience, rejecting pretty lies in favor of ugly truth so that we may find the beauty in a God who redeems. For how else could they find the strength and courage to live a life so far removed from the expected, unless they had fallen so deeply in love with the Lord that all of their being was at odds with a fallen creation? What else could cause them to give up their lives, their hopes for a future, except for a God inspired desire to see their Creator design manifest in the lives of a people they learned to love as he loved them?
And maybe, just maybe, it is time we held the self-appointed prophets of this day to the Biblical standard. Truth before comfort, radical boldness before conformity, and terrifying obedience before self-indulgent justification. For the prophets who spoke peace and prosperity were exposed as frauds as their soothing words did nothing to move the people closer to the God they claimed to serve and plunged them deeper into forms of religion without heart, conscience, or moral obligation to God or their community. Maybe it is time we stopped buying the hype, stopped worshipping at the alter of nice or proper, and recognize that God’s message to the world is greater than anything we hold dear including our dignity and worthless prestige.
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