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BIBLE STUDY II

Living Prophetic Lifestyles

 

The word "prophet" in the religious tradition I come from has often meant a strange and solitary individual who proclaims doom and gloom. "Prophesy" is usually taken to mean foretelling the future. What is it really to be prophetic? Is it possible that Jesus is a prophet who calls us all to be prophets? That's the focus of this study.

 

Acts 2:14-21, see Joel 2:20-29 (also Isaiah 32:15) the last days have begun.

 

At Pentecost (Acts 2), what some people thought was drunkenness was in fact the coming of the Spirit - a spirit so holy that it would make all persons prophets! Not just the great ones like Jeremiah and Ezekiel but "all humankind". And Peter uses the prophet Joel to prove his point: "this is what the prophet spoke of". A further phrase from Joel is echoed in verse 39. In fact, the words of Joel have been altered slightly : Joel's "And it shall come to pass afterward" has been altered to "And in the last days it shall be ..." Peter claims that his hearers are now living in the last days - God's crucial act of salvation has taken place. Joel's prophecy refers to the Day of the Lord - the day of Judgement, when the poor would be vindicated. Here Peter speaks of a universal or pouring of the spirit accompanied by cosmic signs, and he links it back into the resurrection of Jesus (v.33).

This is clearly to be a whole new beginning for humanity - that ordinary people are called to a prophetic vocation. To realise that requires faith and trust - not trust in oneself, but in the grace of the Holy Spirit which at Pentecost was poured out on all humankind -on sons and daughters; the old, and the young; and the slaves - who were part of the social and economic system of the time. But this passage is also filled with the gracious outpouring of the Spirit.

To be prophetic, we must live in and speak of both the grace of God and the pain, inequality and injustice of the world we live in. Let us consider a prophetic lifestyle : prophetic speech involves both deep love and seering judgement, both words and actions, both hope and lament. Thus "both" is a key word here. True. God is good, life is good. God is all-knowing - but there must be a place for my rage (including at God), my protest, and for those who have been silenced to be heard. Prophetic lifestyle embraces both awe and rage. And that is about truth, which often requires both perspectives.

In my own country, the "both" aspects of prophetic lifestyle is demonstrated in the Treaty partnership. 150 years ago the colonising English and the indigenous people, the Maori, signed a Treaty of

 

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partnership and equality. Over the years it was broken many times as the colonisers, the "pakeha", took almost all the land. Only in recent years has there been any real attempt to make space for "both" peoples in my land. Not assimilation (swallowing up of one race by the other) nor apartheid (separation based on control), but a way of living that allows both the two peoples separate space while learning to relate equally. It's not easy, and within this the church has been prophetic, for example, our national ecumenical body has two equal partners: The Conference of Churches of Aotearoa-New Zealand and Te Runanga O Whakawhanaunga Aotearoa-New Zealand. So, we in Aotearoa-New Zealand struggle to understand how our "bicultural" system works! But some choices have been made in order to restore the injustice of decades.

I am beginning to understand that to be prophetic is to carry on the creative energy of God when it has been stifled by injustice, or laziness, or commitment to the status quo. The prophet in each of us says "NO! This is not the way the Creator wants it to be. We can - we must - do things differently".

There are many ideas around the idea of "prophetic life style". "Prophet in Hebrew is "Nabiy". Words that are related include : (1) "nabat" - to scan, to look intently at, to regard with pleasure, to behold; (2) "nabab" - to pierce, to be hollow to empty; (3) "ne-bayoth" - meaning fruitfulness; (4) "nebek" - to burst forth; and (5) "nabak" - to bark like a dog, perhaps a watchdog.

One definition of being prophetic is "to anticipate and summon realities that live beyond the conventions of our day-to-day, take-for-granted world". It therefore involves interference! In Jer. 1:9,10 "tearing up and knocking down" comes before "the building up and planting". It is the awareness that things need to break and be broken if what is just is to emerge. It involves opening up, disclosing where the tendency is to hide and cover up. When? That requires having a sense of timing. It also means trusting one's own anger and moral outrage - and moulding it into creative possibilities. Ghandhi said his work "struck the religious imagination of an angry people".

Sometimes it is important for us to reconsider and reclaim the place of anger: is it a sin? Suppressed, it festers. Creatively expressed it can transform.

However, we must understand "prophet" today not just in individual terms. Acts uses many plural words - "sons, daughters, all humankind". Today, to be a prophet is probably to be involved in prophetic movements, to struggle to hear the Spirit together, to work together. As Act 2 says, young and old, women and men, slaves and free. Perhaps a movement has more chance of being a circle and an individual easily takes a place on the ladder.

 

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In v.18 we read, "I will pour out my Spirit : and they (my menservants and my maidservants) shall prophesy" along with "your sons and your daughters". These things are about being prophetic: new possibilities are opened up and we are invited to imagine the future. Remember what Peter was doing: A prophetic lifestyle cracks open the word of God to expose new possibility. The listeners were called from their silence, power was released, newness was evoked, and people were empowered to begin again.

A prophetic lifestyle sees all days as last days, and seeks a transformed imagination to live in both this world as it is and the world as it can be. A transformed imagination makes it possible for you and me to walk the pathway of obedience, as we refuse to be overwhelmed by what is present, but in knowing ourselves to be prophetic we commit ourselves to calling forth and nurturing and nourishing an alternative to the dominant culture.

As Paulo Freire says : "The oppressed must realise that they are fighting, not merely for freedom from hunger, but for ... freedom to create and to construct, to wonder and to venture...."

 

Questions for Discussion

 

1)    Where do you see or hear the Spirit moving in your context?

2)    "A Gospel of both ..." Does this have relevance to your situation?

3)    Are there times when to be prophetic, we have to choose between both and take sides?

4)    How is your organisation being prophetic in calling forth and nurturing and nourishing an alternative to the dominant culture? What skills have you as a group learned in order to do this?