A Prophetic Voice pt. 1

There are times when we think we are joking around but in reality we get glimpses of deeper truths.  Perhaps this is just a way for us to become aware of ideas that are too much for us handle at the time.  Returning to that deeper truth later can be less daunting because of the non-threatening way in which we were introduced to it.

My third year of seminary education was a year-long internship at a congregation in Marin County, California. Working full time in parish ministry I hit my stride and knew that all the hoops and hurdles of seminary that I had to go through were going to be worth it.

It was the winter of that internship year that I received a phone call from a young woman representing the Alumni Relations department at my college alma mater. They were putting together an Alumni Directory that would, they claimed, help graduates of the university to stay connected. It was, of course, a thinly disguised effort to collect information that the university could use for promotional and fund-raising purposes.

Four months earlier I had filled out a questionnaire for the directory and this was a follow-up call to make sure they had all the right information. She verified my address, the year I graduated, and my major. But when it came to my occupation, instead of telling me what I had written on the form she simply asked, “And what is your occupation?”

I smiled, remembering what I written on the card. I didn’t want to say that I was a student. I wasn’t a pastor yet either. I was serving as a pastor but I wouldn’t be ordained for another year-and-a-half. So on the blank line behind the word Occupation: I had written, “Prophet.”

It was a smart-alecky answer that I knew wouldn’t fit into any of the categories the university would publish publicly. There were no pictures of prophets in the catalogs or brochures the university sent to prospective students. When people think of prophets they conjure up images of street corner nut-jobs dressed in dirty clothes, pointing fingers, waving a Bible and making dire predictions about end-times through a megaphone. I had also hoped that this would lead someone in the alumni relations department to put me on a list of people who were unlikely to be a source of charitable revenue.

The young woman hesitantly asked me to spell it, as if she wasn’t sure she heard right. More likely she was concerned that she was on the line with one of those nut-job, college campus doomsayers who somehow managed to squeak out a degree between his lunatic rants in front of the library. “P-R-O-P-H-E-T,” I obligingly spelled out for her and then listened to concerned silence from her end of the line a thousand miles away.

Have you ever said something in a completely innocent way, goofing around actually, and when you hear it spoken out loud you become aware of the truth buried in the words?  That moment on the phone felt like one of those transparent moments in a Stephen King novel or an episode of the Twilight Zone when the main character makes a remark that will be taken to drastic extremes sometime in the near future with chilling effect. I remember having this vague thought that I was playing with fire.

Writing “Prophet” on the card that I had sent in didn’t seem like such a big deal. Saying out loud and it over the phone to someone made it more real. It took on a certain weight and seemed to actually materialize there in the world. A little voice inside my head asked, “What if it’s true?” I stopped pacing through the kitchen and realized that it might be true and not true at the same time. The seed of truth was there but it was not yet fully grown.

Today I am wondering if it’s time to revisit that premonition.  What would it look like to be a prophet in this day and age? What message would such a prophet bring? Is it possible to be a pastor and a prophet at the same time? Twenty years ago I wasn’t ready to wrestle with these questions. But the idea has been germinating for a while now and it doesn’t seem as far-fetched as it once did.