Wednesday: Abandoned Prophets or Prophets Abandoning?

I’ve been thinking a lot about abandonment lately, abandonment and prophets.

We live in a world that is unjust. We live in a world that has yet to realize the fullness that it was created for. What is standing in the way? Abandonment.

I’ve grown up quite comfortably. I have a wonderful and supportive family, am blessed with a significant number of mentors and surrogate parents and have developed a number of fulfilling and real friendships that I can still cling to.

I’ve never had to worry about food. I’ve never had to worry about a warm bed in which to sleep. No body has ever threatened to take my possessions, my family, my life away from me. You’d think that I’d be able to go on with my life thinking that everyone was as happy as I am.

But I can’t.

When I was seven or eight years old, my family was visiting my dad in France, where he was working at the time. I remember that we walked a lot, and consequently, I complained a lot. It was my first time visiting anywhere other than Washington State where my parents were from, the first time I ever remember taking public transportation and obviously the first time I was ever surrounded by a significant number of people who did not speak my language. In more ways the one I was in a foreign land.

I remember one day walking out of the Metro to some museum or other educational destination that my mother was dragging us to (which I am grateful for by the way). As we were walking, I noticed a significant number of people sitting along the corridor with vessels for money and change. The first thought I remember having, is that Paris Metro stations were very dirty, and smelled bad.

The second and more significant has to do with a scene that has stuck in my mind ever since. There was a woman, sitting on a blanket, leaning against the wall. She wasn’t saying much that I can remember, although it was very noisy. What I can’t get out of my mind are her feet. They were deformed. She may or may not have had a child with her and she was more than likely starving. The thought I had: there is something seriously wrong here

I am still not sure today whether I imagined this scene, pieced it together from other scenes that I witnessed as a child in a foreign country or if it is indeed what it is. What I do know in whatever case is that the world had and has abandoned this woman. There were thousands of Parisians and visitors walking by, not giving her a moments notice. What of her hunger? What of her pain? What of her opportunity for life? Love? Happiness?

How many abandoned people and places do we walk by each day? What is our responsibility as followers of Jesus to these places of abandonment?

The definition of a prophet I most identify with describes a person gifted with profound moral insight and exceptional powers of expression. A brief glance though history and one may think that there is some sort of prophet clause. It may go something like this:

“All those who in anyway seek to bring light to truth, injustice and the world’s abandoned places will not be liked, in fact they will be hunted, hated and beaten until they are silent.”

Rules of History, clause 578 “The Prophet Clause”. (yes I made this up.)

Ok, so maybe not in every instance is the situation this violent, but there is I would say a significant amount of evidence to support that some such clause exists.

Jesus was, among other things, a prophet. He was constantly found doing things that “he should be doing” but knew he had to anyway. He was rejected by the religious leaders of the time for this, and was subsequently rejected by the political leaders.

If we are followers of Christ, what does this mean for us?

Two weeks ago the Federal Government invaded a United Parcel Service facility here in Seattle and arrested over 50 undocumented workers. These people have families, bills to pay and were busy making sure that thousands of Valentines Day presents made it to their recipients safely. A group of local leaders met with Immigration to express their concern and their willingness to offer undocumented immigrants a sanctuary from the Government. One of these leaders was the Dean of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral where I work. Late last week we received an email from a woman who was angry, angry that the Dean could find the nerve to speak on behalf of people who were breaking the law and angry that he would call himself a Christian for doing so.

My question is, if it is not our place to speak on behalf of those who have no voice, to be willing to break laws that don’t make sense in a world created by God, what is our place? To sit quietly and watch people suffer? Are we not called to be today’s prophets, providing “profound moral insight” to the world around us?

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! Luke 13:34

I leave the desert renewed for love and I enter the city raw and open to the suffering that is around me, in the city I live in, in the city that I love. I am surrounded by people and places that have been abandoned and prophets, prophets who are as yet afraid to speak.