[9] Concerning the prophets:
My heart is broken within me,
all my bones shake;
I am like a drunken man,
like a man overcome by wine,
because of the LORD
and because of his holy words.
[Jer. 23:9]
And, finally, the Old Testament reminds us that to speak prophetically involves more than just articulating abstract principles which are relatively easy to proclaim. For example, these inspiring words from Micah are quoted often: [8] He has showed you, O man, what is good;and what does the LORD require of youbut to do justice, and to love kindness,and to walk humbly with your God? [Mic. 6:8] That is an eloquent way to summarize our core obligations, but at that level of generality it is one that virtually all would endorse. Cite that verse and everyone will nod approvingly. But remember that Micah also was calling out the injustice around him, often in harsh terms:
[12] Your rich men are full of violence;
your inhabitants speak lies,
and their tongue is deceitful in their mouth.
[13] Therefore I have begun to smite you,
making you desolate because of your sins.
[14] You shall eat, but not be satisfied,
and there shall be hunger in your inward parts;
you shall put away, but not save,
and what you save I will give to the sword.
[15] You shall sow, but not reap;
you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil;
you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine. [Mic. 6:12-15]
And:
[2] The godly man has perished from the earth,and there is none upright among men;they all lie in wait for blood,and each hunts his brother with a net.[3] Their hands are upon what is evil, to do it diligently;the prince and the judge ask for a bribe,and the great man utters the evil desire of his soul;thus they weave it together.[4] The best of them is like a brier,the most upright of them a thorn hedge.The day of their watchmen, of their punishment, has come;now their confusion is at hand. [Mic. 7:2-4]
To speak with such passion requires a clarity in our own hearts, minds, and souls. To speak with that clarity to others requires that we have first examined our own lives. When we call out others, they typically ask us -- and rightfully so -- whether we have asked the same questions of ourselves. When we have asked and answered for ourselves, then we can find the courage to speak in that prophetic voice, knowing that we have confronted those questions and are willing to struggle with our own failures. Our task is not to shine the light on others, but to shine the light through ourselves onto that which is unjust in the world. When we have been honest with ourselves, that light gains intensity and focus as it passes through us. If we have turned away from a ruthless criticism of ourselves, that light will never reach the world and will illuminate nothing but our own limitations and fears.
Risk assessment
That process is not easy, especially in a culture that offers those of us who are privileged a steady stream of rewards for suppressing these thoughts and not facing these struggles. It is easy to turn away from injustice and turn to supermarkets with endless shelves of food, to glasses overflowing with wine, to television’s stories that lull us to sleep on those nights when food and drink have not erased completely our troubling thoughts of the world. It’s also not easy to speak prophetically because in unjust systems the people who carry out the system’s orders usually don’t seem to be bad people. The corporate CEO who throws workers out of their jobs to increase profits also is a great softball coach on the weekends. The colonel who orders cluster bombs dropped in civilian areas, ensuring that children will die for years to come, also is a caring parent. The real estate developer who destroys habitat to put up McMansions also keeps a lovely garden at home. And all of them, no doubt, contribute generously to their churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples. Many of us, in fact, do jobs that we know contribute to the unjust distribution of resources and the steady erosion of the planet’s ability to sustain life. I don’t exempt myself from this; I work at the University of Texas at Austin, where -- no matter how much critical material I teach in my courses -- I help legitimate an ideological factory system that certifies students to go off in the world and fire those workers, drop those bombs, and destroy that habitat.
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