Something happened to you some years back. You probably forgot it. In fact, it is very likely that you don’t remember it at all. Which is strange, because it fundamentally changed your life… It let you know what it is you were going to grow up to be. It answered the question of why you are here, and why you are who you are. Which makes it even more strange that you would forget it !
Would you like to know what it is? You were given a mission. You were commissioned. And you were anointed and consecrated to that mission. It was at your baptism, where the priest or deacon said God now anoints you with the chrism of salvation. As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life. And then anointed you with Sacred Chrism.
You were called, you were set aside, you were commissioned to be Priest, to be Prophet, to be King or Queen.
To be Priest means you were called to bring the love of God to all people.
What Love? That very love that was described by Paul in our second reading. Patient, Kind. Always seeking the best for others. Not quick to judge or condemn. THAT love.
To be King or Queen means to remember that your basic human dignity, that all basic human dignity, comes not because of our ethnic or national origin, our gender, our orientation, our faith community …. But because each and every human being is made in the image and likeness of God.
To be Prophet ….. Well, thats the tough role isn’t it. It’s an uncomfortable role as well.
Jeremiah knew that. It’s why God told Jeremiah that no matter what persecution he faced because of his message, that God was always with him. And Jeremiah knew that his message, God’s message, would upset a few people. Because it held a mirror up to their beliefs and behaviours.
Jesus knew that. He knew that the people in the synagogue that day needed to understand a richer, more inclusive view of God and God’s love for all. He held a mirror up to their self-restricted way of thinking. But they couldn’t see beyond their perspective that only the Jews would be saved by God. Not the Gentiles. Not the unclean. Not the sinners. Just them.
And they were prepared to kill anyone who didn’t believe in God the way they believed in God. They were even prepared to kill God. The irony is not lost on us.
Maybe the reason contemporary society finds itself muddled in confusion and mired with difficulties is because it has stopped listening to its prophets.
We have become a society, a people, who only listen to what we WANT to hear, and have stopped listening to what we NEED to hear.
And it’s not like we don’t have Prophets any more. God sends His prophets all the time:
When Pope Leo XIII delivered his encyclical entitled On the Condition of the Working Man and called upon Christians to attend to unjust labor laws and practices, his was the voice of a prophet.
Similarly, when Cardinal Leo-Josef Suenens of Belgium stood up at the end of the first session of Vatican II and urged the council to examine not only the mystery of the Church in itself but also the Church’s relationship to and responsibility for the world at large, his was the voice of a prophet.
In 1962, Rachel Carson through her book Silent Spring was a prophetic voice that it summoned the world to an awareness of the dangers of environmental pollution.
When Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu drew the world’s attention to the dangers and injustices of apartheid, his was the voice of a prophet
As were so many others in this past century alone, Dorothy Day, St. Teresa of Calcutta Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Teilhard de Chardin, Leonardo Boff, Jon Sobrino and the Latin American Bishops who raised their voices first at Medellin, Colombia (1968) and then at Puebla, Mexico (1979) to affirm the Church as “an instrument of liberation, an agent of social justice and a defender of the poor and the oppressed.”
These prophets tried to bring the reality of the sacred into every sphere of our lived human experience.
Yes …. God sends his prophets all the time.
And into this time, he sent you.
Into this tradition you were called, commissioned, anointed.
Into this community of fellow prophets, you are a member. You belong.
Here is the challenge. Too often you and I forget that we were anointed to be Prophets, and instead we become People Pleasers. We say what people WANT to hear, not what people NEED to hear.
We learned that behaviour early. And we continued practising it. At school, we said what the teacher wanted to hear. With our first circle of friends, we said what they wanted to hear. With our first love, we said what they wanted to hear. With our first bosses, we said what they wanted to hear. We didn’t get much practice saying what people needed to hear.
Before Jeremiah was formed in the Womb, God knew him. God Consecrated him. God anointed him as prophet to the nations.
Before YOU were formed in the Womb, God knew you. God Consecrated you. God anointed you as prophet to the nations. And this calling was affirmed in your anointing at your baptism.
So, will you accept the commission you were given? Will you be a prophetic voice in your communities. Will you say what people need to hear? Always with love, never in anger. Always with the understanding that you are speaking to the children of God, as a channel of God’s love to them.
Will you speak to the world, your world, the words they need to hear.
Are you the prophet you were called to be?
Or are you just a people-pleaser.