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.
