The Prophets He Sends

While every believer must place Jesus ahead of the strongest family ties. While every believer must take up his/her cross and follow Jesus. While every believer must “lose” his/her life for Jesus’ sake in order to find it. While all believers ought to turn their life around, shed the world’s way of thinking, leave the paved road, head for the narrow gate, climb the steep and rough road that is less traveled, priests ought to be the first ones to accept the challenges of the Gospel, to practice what they preach, to be consistent, to be dedicated.

All this is not something with which human nature feels comfortable, or disposed to do without struggle, willpower, soul-searching to cooperate with God’s grace. Hence, God has placed prophets in every age, including ours, to help everyone, also priests, to carry out his will. In the early Church, prophets figured so prominently that they were mentioned second only to the mission of the Apostles. (cf. Ephesians 4:11) Their role is crucial for disciples to become Christlike and embrace the challenges of the Gospel.

Throughout salvation history, God has never changed his way of speaking to his people. He speaks to the heart of everyone through events, signs and also through prophets who are his mouthpieces. By their very nature, prophets are peculiar and clearly unconventional.  They are like the point of God’s spear so that his grace can penetrate the natural resistance placed by human nature, wounded by original sin.

If we look at Jesus as The Prophet, we can easily deduct that prophets have a knack for making uncomfortable those who are self-absorbed and self-seeking, forcing them to stop and take stock of their life and their choices. And, lest lukewarm believers might ignore any perceived vagueness in his teachings, the Lord uses prophets as concrete, eloquent samples of a life inspired by the Gospel.  He makes it impossible to discount them. Careful then, rather than considering the message prophets utter, at times, we might dismiss them as radicals, as excessive!

The readings (2 Kgs 4:8-16; Rom 6:3-11; Mt 10:37-42) for the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time deal with the courage and the resolve to welcome a prophet into our life.

2 Kgs: An influential woman of Shunem dared to arrange a little room on the roof for Elisha.  Thus, she and her husband accepted the severe scrutiny of their private life by God’s prophet …but the reward for welcoming him was a baby boy to a barren woman.

Mt 10:41: “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet, will receive a prophet’s reward.”

If we compare the Old with New Testament, the obvious difference is that the New Testament deals with God’s intervention after The Prophet came, died on the cross and rose again, but the reward is not specified.

Why not? Paul, another outspoken prophet of the New Testament, has the answer in his Letter to the Romans (6:3-11). It is because the effect of Baptism is simply revolutionary. Our life is disassembled, overhauled and put back together in a radically different way so that our way of thinking, of acting and making decisions is perfectly aligned with the Gospel. And for the times in which we stray, God sends his prophets to lead us back to him.

Paul:“Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus!” Wow! 

How many of our daily choices, tendencies, feelings, desires, efforts, and dreams indicate that we are still far from being dead to sin, and living for God alone? The more seldom we question our choices, stands, and principles, the more we need to welcome a prophet to make us uncomfortable with our status quo and ready to live exclusively for God. Remember: by welcoming a prophet, we allow God “to reward us” as he sees fit.  He has already given us his Son…Now he will give us everything else that we truly need, including perhaps persecution, a heavier cross, a setback…whatever the Lord deems we need so that we may return to him.

Here is a little example of what happens if we welcome a prophet into our life. Chances are that we have comfortably settled for certain choices. In the process, we might have come to consider as necessities things that are luxuries for most people of our country. A prophet would point out that, out of love for us, God intends to remove from us anything/anyone that clutters our heart to make room for him and for the implementation of his new commandment! In other words, by their lifestyles, prophets would show us how to free ourselves so as to love people as ourselves, and to use the things we need to serve them. 

For this reason, we ask the Holy Spirit to point out to us the prophets he sends to overhaul our life.