Word to the Wise
Sunday, July 5, 2009 - Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
[Ezekiel 2:2-5; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10; Mark 6:1-6]"A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house." So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.
Prophets can make folks very uneasy and sometimes downright angry. One doesn't need to read very much of the Old Testament prophets to see why. They could be pretty scorching in their denunciations of the idolatry and other social practices of Israel. Yet the prophetic "office" was a necessary institution in the nation and people expected prophets to be around. Ezekiel provides a good example for our listening today. By the time of Jesus, however, prophets were somewhat rarer. John the Baptist was considered one, but Jesus seemed to have trouble getting people to think that he (Jesus) filled the role. Today's gospel scripture shows him being rejected by his own hometown! Their lack of faith made it very difficult for him to do anything for them. Many of the Old Testament prophets were martyred, and Jesus and John the Baptist would both suffer that fate. What is the point of having a prophet around if all he or she does is to tell us what we would prefer to hear instead of what we need to hear? It seems that the power of denial is stronger than prophecy and prophets have to yell loudly to cut through all that denial. Another point to remember is that in our own society, there is no "institutional" role for prophets, so we may not be attuned to the possibility that someone very unexpected might come along and say what we need to hear so that we can be converted. It is the prophetic role to touch raw nerves. If we find that someone is speaking to us in a way that touches a raw nerve, perhaps we might ask first why that nerve is raw instead of attacking the prophet! AMEN
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