Some of us grew up with the understanding that prophecy meant foretelling the future. In some cultural corners it still means that. However, in the several thousand year old Judaeo-Christian tradition prophecy means interpreting the ways that God is involved in the life of human beings. God"s Pathos. The Divine Concern.
Hear the words of the prophet Jeremiah:
Thou art near in their mouth
And far from their heart.
(Jeremiah 12:2)
As Rabbi Heschel points out, the fundamental experience of the prophet is a fellowship with the feelings of God, a sympathy with the Divine Pathos, a communion with the Divine consciousness which comes about through the prophets reflection of, or participation in, the Divine pathos. They typical prophetic state is one of being taken up into the divine pathos. (The Prophets, p.24) He later calls this spiritual audacity.
So as we sit waiting in worship on the edge of the vast silence, what does the life and power of the prophets mean for us? Quakers have a special understanding of the Divine concern. It is a way of accessing what the wisdom of creation wants for us and for all that exists. Quakers have a theology of concern. When John Woolman powerfully and gently suggested that the purpose of his life was living fully in the universal love - he was describing the deep life spring of the Divine concern. There is therefore a concern for how we spend the precious gifts of being alive. How we work together and love, forgive and welcome each other as we raise the prophetic dream of the common good. And a concern for how we speak truth to power.
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justice, and to love kindness
And to walk humbly with your God?
(Micah 6:8)
Rabbi Heschel walked with Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama. He called King a prophet.
Early Friends had a spiritual vision that included living in the life and power of the prophets and the apostles.
As the challenge of climate change looms over us and our children; as the excesses of cowboy capitalism become clearer; as Darfur, Iraq, the Gaza strip and the incoherence of terrorism loom in our darkness; do we seek the prophetic guidance of God's concern and pathos?
Are each of us called to be instruments of the Divine concern? Is that what walking in the light really means? What canst thou say?