“And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house.
– Matthew 13:57
Like smoke from West Coast wildfires, the Prophets are the unwelcome cowboys of God who make their way into the city overnight. These ragamuffins come into the world as a most peculiar bunch. They don’t think, talk, or act like anyone else in town. They don’t fit in anywhere because what society calls good and acceptable – the prophets condemn as evil and grotesque. Maintaining the status quo is the furthest thing from their minds. Systems must be corrected, people must be called out, repentance must be practiced, and God’s will must be done by those who claim to know him.
The grit that naturally accompanies Prophets seems almost other-worldly. They are resolved to call a spade a spade no matter the what the consequences may be because their conscience is bound to God and not to human beings.
They have dirt under their fingernails because they’ve got their hands in the earth like Yahweh. Prophets are paying attention and they must say something. They’re not easily amused. Self-righteous religiosity offends them as much as a golden calf at the base of Mount Sinai.
Prophets snarl at kitschy Thomas Kinkade paintings because they know that he’s not painting the whole picture; he’s not telling the truth and they are more than content with saying the offensive truth.
The Prophets are given hard, lonesome, wearisome, and depressing work. Again and again they are tasked with showing up and telling the nation that there’s a gloomy forecast coming for their a 3 day weekend.
Prophets are storytelling folk artists - bending copper, wire, rebar, and sheet metal into roosters who crow at 4:00 AM – “WAKE. UP! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WAKE UP!”
They’re disinterested in playing it safe and keeping everyone comfortable in their own skin. Words of “woe”, “destruction”, “wrath”, “repentance”, and “judgment” are frequently on their lips. When they’re not spouting a fiery word from above, they’re off in the distance weeping over the people.
A prophet laments when everyone else is well into their cup at a party. A prophet is uncomfortable in a crowd. A prophet stays awake when everyone else is has gone to sleep. Outwardly unkempt, disheveled, and wild but that’s because inwardly, their souls are continually being purified and polished by the Spirit of God himself. The world laughs at and dismisses prophets the way you and I think of carnival workers turning tricks.
They say things that don’t make sense to everyone else until it’s too late.
They’re the truth-telling sort of men and women that make good, honest, church-going people quite nervous. Like the sledgehammer in the shed out back, they’re not much to look at, are easily forgotten, and are heavy, dull tools of weight. Prophets disrupt everything. Their diets are meager, their clothing is entirely out of fashion, and their language is so holy that it sounds crass to the soft ears, indifferent hearts, and hardened consciences of the city.
They are disregarded as unsophisticated, untimely, podunks from backwater towns and therefore the scoffers in elite cities make sport of their so-called “calling from God.”
John the Baptizer, the very forerunner to Jesus himself, ate insects and spoke truth to power and lost his head for it at strip party. When Jesus spoke of the prophets, he emphasized not their religion but their rejection.
They were sad men and women for every reason under the sun. Why? To have a call from God Almighty - why does that come with such a depressing tax? Because that is the nature of telling the truth in a society that loves lying.
Prophets are sad precisely because there is always a counter-argument, another excuse to delay repentance and walking in holiness. Their rejection often comes with scoffing, name-calling, and questions surrounding their own mental and emotional health.
Prophets not only believe that God’s ways are higher than their own, they embody what appears to be sheer foolishness in commitment to God.
What kind of wild man stands at the intersections of culture that rage over defunding the police, Planned Parenthood, and the possibility of delaying an election and continues to shout those two words that make everyone blush – Jesus saves?
The prophets love Johnny Cash, not only because of his wit or creativity with country music… It’s because he wears black. Cash and the Tennessee Two had something to say no matter if it were on the radio or playing for free food at the local honky-tonk. The prophets had a fire in their bones, truth on their minds, and vision for God’s people to be who they already were. They drive the people of God to stop pandering to the world around them because they know that when compared to Jesus, the very best this world has to offer is a Jack in the Box drive-thru and one night stay at Motel 6.
In a world that loves vague sentimentalities, the prophets are despised because they are too loud, too clear, and too straight forward on loving your neighbor and pursuing justice in the name of God.
Politicians can’t buy the prophets. These cowboys of God didn’t choose their occupation for their ego to be stroked by paparazzi, fanboys, and invitations to the local reindeer games. Prophets are content with being resented like a barking dog in the middle of the night. Prophets are men and women who count the cost and are willing to say the truth come hell or high water, and they damn well know it’s coming.
Ezekiel was lying on his side by the campfire in a fever-trance. Hosea was found at the auction block of Gomer. Jeremiah’s sadness was seen in his bloodshot eyes.
Prophets don’t get invited to parties, but when they do, they’re the butt of every joke. Among the self-righteous religious crowd, the prophets aren’t taken seriously; they’re donkeys, and all the crowd hears is “HEE HAW” when they pray.
These lightning bolts from heaven serve as the grace of God in a world set on fire by hell. We would do ourselves, the world around us, and most certainly, God himself a great service to listen to the cowboys and donkeys. More often than not, they’re the ones through whom God is speaking. We don’t want to listen to them in our culture that minimizes pain, grief, and death at any cost. When someone dies, we get through the funeral as fast as possible. When someone’s marriage is on the rocks we like to tell ourselves, “They’ll work it out. It’ll be ok.” When someone’s teenager is out ‘sewing his wild oats’ we say, “Oh. It’s just season.” But prophets don’t do that. They call us to weep when we see sad things. They call us to rejoice the harvest comes in! The tell us to look around the dining table every once in a while a let out a belly laugh and thank you to God for all of his provisions! And so, yes, while the prophets carry a word of heaviness and repentance, they can also be the ones who are the most clear on the loving tenderness of our gracious God.
Listen to the words of three prophets to the nation of Israel when they were at their lowest and most rebellious.
Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares the LORD.
– Jeremiah 31:20
“Can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.
Isaiah 49:15-16
When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.
The more they were called,
the more they went away;
they kept sacrificing to the Baals
and burning offerings to idols.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk;
I took them up by their arms,
but they did not know that I healed them.
I led them with cords of kindness, a
with the bands of love,
and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws,
and I bent down to them and fed them.
Hosea 11:1-4”