Playing the Prophet and Being the Priest

 The more you know the more you realize you don’t know, said Aristotle. 

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld complicated the issue by saying “there are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.”

I really don’t know what that means, but I do know this:  I used to be a great deal more certain about what I knew.  I am confident the seasoned adults who knew me early in my ministry smiled at how certain I was of so much.  I was comfortable playing the prophet in those days.

A prophet in the Hebrew Bible, according to Walter Brueggemann, is one who speaks to the moment to a concrete community (The Prophetic Imagination, p. 24).  The prophet tells the people what time it is and what God is now doing and what God expects of us at this moment (p. 53).  The prophet brings the word of God to the people with a sense of urgency and confidence.

There are appropriate times and places for playing the prophet.

Richard Mouw, long time President of Fuller Theological Seminary, adds a wrinkle to the conversation by contrasting a prophet with a priest.  A priest is one who takes the deepest concerns of the people and confessions of sin to God, writes Mouw.  He suggests that we will be more effective prophets if we have first been good priests.  “Transforming leadership requires that we genuinely listen to others, that we be emphatically open to their points of view on matters that concern them deeply.  Only by approaching them as priests can we hope to relate to them as prophets [Uncommon Decency—Christian Civility in an Uncivil World, p. 125].”  Mouw goes to write this listening cannot simply be a strategy by which we then get a chance to tell others what we think.  “Genuine listening involves a willingness to be changed by what we hear.  We cannot hope to transform others without a commitment to being transformed ourselves [p. 126].”

 Over the years I have learned that a prerequisite for possessing an effective prophetic voice is first acting as an attentive priest.  Letting the people touch my heart and change me is a key part of being a good priest.  In Matthew 9:35—36, we see in Jesus a compelling picture of both priest and prophet.

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness.  When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Jesus proclaimed the Good News to the crowds. He also healed their brokenness and demonstrated compassion.  He was both prophet and priest. 

Later in his ministry Jesus utters a heartbreaking prophesy as he arrives in Jerusalem.  

As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.  Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God. {Luke 19:41—44].”

As he says this, he is weeping.  The ground beneath Jesus is damp with tears of this priestly prophet. 

The Prophet Jeremiah brings some hard-to-hear things to his people.  Nonetheless, his unsettling pronouncements are bathed in his tears.

For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
    I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.

 Is there no balm in Gilead?
    Is there no physician there?
Why then has the health of my poor people
    not been restored?
O that my head were a spring of water,
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
so that I might weep day and night
    for the slain of my poor people! (8:21—9:1). 

Prophetic proclamation without priestly compassion is not the stuff of the Bible.

It is easier to play the prophet that it is to play the priest.  To play the prophet asks little of us; we can move on untouched by those around us and their lives.  We need to give no thought to how those around us came to be where and how they are. 

A priest does not have the luxury of distance and disconnection.  Maybe that is why the church spawns many more prophets than priests.

Jim Kelsey

Executive minister—American Baptist Churches of New York State