On Being Prophetic

I was recently criticized for being too critical in my preaching (the irony has not escaped me). In response I have been doing some thinking about what it means to be prophetic (and what it doesn't). i am pasting an excerpt from the book I am finishing. Just a bit of my thinking on the subject. Being here among the poor has only further illuminated the questions and not really the answers.

...Prophesy does not have to be negative. I once asked a group of my staff a simple yet profound question. Is God happy with the human race or not? What about the church? I mean, in a general sense, when God looks at his people is he pleased with them? Or is he disappointed? It is a question about which I have vacillated in the 10 years since I first asked it. There are days when I feel connected to the heart of God for the poor, the violated, the abused and forgotten and I rage. I do not know how to describe it other than to say that it is not the kind of rage that comes from ego or self interest. It is deeply spiritual and deeply honest. On these days, spent among the poor of the earth or remembering them in my heart are days when I know that God is not pleased. That the cries of the afflicted that rise to the throne of God day and night are indeed heard, and the promise of vengeance is the clear reply from the compassionate and powerful heart of God. On these days, I sense that God’s anger burns against the child killers, the slave holders, the frustrated megalomaniacs who make the weakest parts of humanity their theatre of power. Yet, on other days I sense the affection of God for me in such a way that I know it applies to a great sinner. I see in Scripture a God who loves outcast, who sees epic failure and responds with mercy and tenderness. I find this reaction harder to understand but I know it also represents the truth about God that no human being no matter how despised or despicable is beyond the love of God. On the contrary, that love seeks and saves those very people.

So which is more true than the other? Are they both true equally? How can that be? I still do not know the answer. I am not entirely sure which one outweighs the other or how they intermingle in the mind and heart of God. But I know that both are true at some level. Scripture makes that clear. So prophesy has to embody both of these realities.

Being prophetic means representing the truth about God, as best we can within the limitations of our own personality. And it is not simply a matter of saying two positive things before you say one negative. It is about knowing what pleases God and saying that with as much conviction and passion as what does not please God...

Trying to Think

I honestly thought i would be able to slow down here. I mean i brought so little of my work with me. the days here are long and hard. maybe not as long as some of the work days i am used to putting in but different. Time here is heavy. Driving to a meeting for instance takes a toll on me. Driving 5km can take an hour. Since i know the roads the best and have the international drivers license i have been doing all of the driving for us, which has meant hours in the card every day. And driving in this traffic in a major world city like this is crazy. 2-3 inches is really safe distance from the car next to you. It is an aggressive style of driving that really leaves little room for error. I am fine with aggressive driving but it is so intense that at the end of an hour or two in the car i am whipped out. What am i learning? I don’t know. It is hard to say, it is hard to know. It is hard to think, and thinking in part is what i came to do. My dissertation awaits me, the final edit on my book awaits me, papers on all kinds of subjects for the underground all await me; but my brain feels like mush. I am even having trouble writing this. The mornings are early and the evening short here. There has been little time to just rest, and when there is the rest is so hard I don’t even want to read. Ever been that tired? Partly it is the heat. Even though this is a nice time of year the lack of air conditioning and the strong sun really takes its toll. But in spite of it all, I am really loving being here. It is a new kind of hard, a new kind of challenge. And in the midst of it a new kind of appreciation for just being alive. This lifestyle is unsophisticated, i have become unsophisticated. Outside the community i am really just a driver. A American novice in manila. A cold shower at night is one of the nicest parts of my day. Just laying in bed with a fan on is really amazing. Waking up with the sun, and being surrounded by friends—i am thankful in a way I have not been before. But when i walk into a building with air, i am thankful for that too. In a way I have never been. I am living on food i am not used to and i am glad for it. but if you give me a dr. pepper i would love every drop. Clean water, a soft bed, good friends, these are all things that have always been a grace from God but i guess i am only just now realizing it. God is good in ways we never give him credit because we focus on what is wrong in our lives. we have the luxury of nit picking because so much has already been given to us. the poor are teaching me, that friends make a man rich and that rice is a gift from God. The poor are also helping me to understand contentment. If we are rich and do not remember the poor then we are fools because we shut our hearts to the heart of God himself for them. If we are rich and we take what we have for granted, then we forget the grace of God itself. If we have plenty while we are with the poor then we share it with them and both we and the poor are glad. Contentment is not the same as gratitude. Contentment is seeing what you have and saying that is enough. You money, your work, your family, your accomplishments, your car, your house, you knowledge, your charisma, can you look at what you have and be so grateful for it that you say: That is enough for me? We are still middle class, though we live among the poor. We can not change that. we could hide it but we can not change it. we still have bank accounts and budgets and degrees. We are who we are. Living with our near the poor does not change that. but it does make you pause to think about what those things mean. How they are a privilege that we did not earn. That they bring with them responsibility. The poor do not want us to renounce our education or burn our money. They simply want us to share. They want us to learn from them that what you have is always enough for another. One of the sad ironies of the west is that we who have so much are the least generous, the least likely to share, and these who have so little can not think of another way to live. Sharing, generosity and hospitality are what makes someone whole.

i will keep trying the think strait. but i am not going to define myself by it. i am who i am, and God knows me. that is enough for me.