Richard reflects on what it means to respond to God’s call of love and justice for the common good:

What, then, does it mean to follow Jesus?

History is continually graced with people who somehow learned to act beyond and outside their self-interest and for the good of the world, people who clearly operated by a power larger than their own. Consider Gandhi, Oskar Schindler, Martin Luther King Jr. Add to them Rosa Parks, Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, Óscar Romero, César Chávez, and many unsung leaders. Their inspiring witness offers us strong evidence that the mind of Christ still inhabits the world. Most of us are fortunate to have crossed paths with many lesser-known persons who exhibit the same presence. I can’t say how one becomes such a person. All I can presume is that they were all called. They all had their Christ moments, in which they stopped denying their own shadows, stopped projecting those shadows elsewhere, and agreed to own their deepest identity in solidarity with the world. 

But it is not an enviable position, this Christian thing. 

Following Jesus is a vocation to share the fate of God for the life of the world. 

To allow what God for some reason allows—and uses. 

And to suffer ever so slightly what God suffers eternally. 

Often, this has little to do with believing the right things about God—beyond the fact that God is love itself. 

Those who respond to the call and agree to carry and love what God loves—which is both the good and the bad—and to pay the price for its reconciliation within themselves, these are the followers of Jesus Christ. They are the leaven, the salt, the remnant, the mustard seed that God uses to transform the world. The cross, then, is a very dramatic image of what it takes to be usable for God. It does not mean they are going to heaven and others are not; rather, it means they have entered into heaven much earlier and thus can see things in a transcendent, whole, and healing way now. 

Saints are those who wake up while in this world, instead of waiting for the next one. Francis of Assisi, William Wilberforce, Thérèse of Lisieux, and Harriet Tubman didn’t feel superior to anyone else; they just knew they had been let in on a big divine secret, and they wanted to do their part in revealing it. 

God is calling every one and every thing, not just a few chosen ones, to God’s self (Genesis 8:15–17; Ephesians 1:9–10; Colossians 1:15–20). To get every one and every thing there, God first needs models and images who are willing to be “conformed to the body of his death” and transformed into the body of his resurrection (Philippians 3:10). These are the “new creation” (Galatians 6:15), and their transformed state is still seeping into history and ever so slowly transforming it into “life and life more abundantly” (John 10:10).

________________________________________

Sarah Young

Let Me prepare you for your day. not try to anticipate your day or the issues of your day. You can best prepare by spending time with Me. My abiding presence is the best road map available to you. Surrender your day, moments and plans to Me. It is the best roadmap available.

Exodus 33:14 “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 

John 15:4-7 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine

Initial Conversion

Father Richard Rohr describes the confidence that characterizes the voice of the prophets: 

What characterizes the prophets, and it’s still a bit of a shock to the rest of us, is an immense self-confidence that they speak for God. Where does this come from? How can they be so sure? “Thus says the Lord,” they begin with, and “Hear the word of the Lord.” They describe their call, and if we look at the conversion of Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or even Moses who was called the first of the prophets, we can see that it’s their initial transformative experience that names the rest of their insight. We see the same in Paul, where Paul’s conversion experience (Acts 9:1–19) takes place after hearing Jesus say, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (9:4). At first Paul defends himself, as if to say: “I wasn’t persecuting you Jesus, but these people.” Ultimately, Paul comes up with this marvelous doctrine of the mystical body of Christ: there’s an inherent communion or union between Jesus and his people. What you do to one, you do to the other. Until we understand that, we don’t understand Paul at the ground level. Everything proceeds from that.

Richard affirms that a prophetic call comes to each of us in our own unique way: 

It’s the prophets’ initial theophany, their initial parting of the veil that seems to become the nature of how they henceforth see reality. I want you to see that because I’d like you to look at your own spiritual autobiography and see how you were formed, how and where you were led when God showed God’s face to you. It’s at that level that you know—and you know that you know. Your prophetic charism comes from your own conversion, a transformation into the mystery of God.

Paul knew that the only way this realignment would take place was through an ego-stripping experience that tears away our false and fabricated self and leads us to a new self (Ephesians 2:15; Galatians 6:15), where all contradictions can be absorbed and overcome. It had happened in him and now he saw his life as “handing on this reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18), which was always through the coincidence of opposites called the cross.

The cross, even geometrically, is a collision of two opposing lines. Paul knew by his unwarranted election that God had not eliminated or expelled his former self, but instead had “incorporated” it into the Christ Self. He knew that he was still a mass of contradictions and inconsistencies, which is exactly what is written all over the pages of his letters. Yet his absolute confidence was not in his personal wholeness, but in Jesus, the one who had grafted him onto the Wholeness of God. This is the total basis of Paul’s joy, his love, his daring self-confidence, and his impassioned desire to have everyone else experience the same transformation and ecstasy.

Guided toward Excellence

Presbyterian author and theologian Eugene Peterson reflects upon God’s challenging questions to the prophet Jeremiah at a pivotal point in his ministry:

Every one of us needs to be stretched to live at our best, awakened out of dull moral habits, shaken out of petty and trivial busy-work. Jeremiah does that for me. And not only for me. Millions upon millions of Christians and Jews have been goaded and guided toward excellence as they have attended to God’s word spoken to and by Jeremiah.…

There is a memorable passage concerning Jeremiah’s life when, worn down by the opposition and absorbed in self-pity, he was about to capitulate to … a premature death. He was ready to abandon his unique calling in God and settle for being a Jerusalem statistic. At that critical moment he heard the reprimand: “If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you fall down, how will you do in the jungle of the Jordan?” (Jeremiah 12:5).… Biochemist Erwin Chargaff [1905–2022] updates the questions: “What do you want to achieve? Greater riches? Cheaper chicken? A happier life, a longer life? Is it power over your neighbors that you are after? Are you only running away from your death? Or are you seeking greater wisdom, deeper piety?” [1]

Peterson imagines the conversation between God and prophet: 

Life is difficult, Jeremiah. Are you going to quit at the first wave of opposition? .… Are you going to live cautiously or courageously? I called you to live at your best, to pursue righteousness, to sustain a drive toward excellence. It is easier, I know, to be neurotic. It is easier to be parasitic. It is easier to relax in the embracing arms of The Average. Easier, but not better. Easier, but not more significant. Easier, but not more fulfilling. I called you to a life of purpose far beyond what you think yourself capable of living and promised you adequate strength to fulfill your destiny. Now at the first sign of difficulty you are ready to quit. If you are fatigued by this run-of-the-mill crowd of apathetic mediocrities, what will you do when the real race starts, the race with the swift and determined horses of excellence? What is it you really want, Jeremiah, do you want to shuffle along with this crowd, or run with the horses?.…

It is unlikely, I think, that Jeremiah was spontaneous or quick in his reply to God’s question. The ecstatic ideals for a new life had been splattered with the world’s cynicism. The euphoric impetus of youthful enthusiasm no longer carried him. He weighed the options. He counted the cost. He tossed and turned in hesitation. The response when it came was not verbal but biographical. His life became his answer, “I’ll run with the horses.” 

In this sermon, noted pastor, theologian, and mystic Howard Thurman (1900–1981) describes the faith of the Hebrew prophets:

The prophets of Israel were intimately tied up with the movements of the periods in which they lived. They were involved in the social process, which is very important to remember. They interpreted Israel and its relationship to God … as a primary and personal covenantal relationship. And it is very important to hold that in mind that, for reasons that we cannot quite understand even to this day, in some strange and fascinating and yet miraculous manner this group of people regarded themselves as being [in] some initially unique relationship with the Creator of their own lives and their little world and their little state….

Now fundamental to this concept … is a philosophy which to read it says that God is inside the historic process: that [God] is not outside of it manipulating it or unmindful of it.

Prophets view God as actively involved in our lives, and Thurman challenges us to respond to this dynamic intimacy:

How do you interpret the events of your life? How do you measure them? Do you live your life on the basis that all that there is to you and what you do is wrapped up in the movement, the isolated, circumscribed movement, pulse beat of your little life? Now, if you do, then you know, you see, that the very nature of life is of such that it is fixed … it is finished, it is complete, and you know you can’t do anything about anything anyway so you don’t try….

Now there is another point of view, and this is the point of view of the prophet. And that is that human life, as well as the lives of nations, takes place within a context that is dynamic. That always when I am in the presence of any event, I am caught in an encounter with a series of potentials that spread out in the widest possible directions and with the most amazing variety of variation. So that if I am alert in the presence of the event, I seek to deal with the event in terms not merely of what it says, what it looks like, but in terms of what seems to me to be the dynamics of the event, the potentials of the event.

Do you deal with events of your life in that way? Do you believe that life is really dynamic? That it isn’t quite finished yet? That not only are you involved always in a circling series of potentials, but that you are potential. You, potential. And no time band, no time interval is able quite to contain you and the dynamics of your life and your situation. Do you believe that?

__________________________

Sarah Young

You can achieve the victorious life by living dependent on Me. Successful people tend to depend on themselves or their resources. But those with constant failures and problems tend to rely on Me.

Your continual failures create dependence. Surrender, connect and live out of that.

Psalm 34:17-18 The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. 

2 Corinthians 5:7 NKJV For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

Prophets Belong in Community

CAC teacher Dr. Barbara Holmes describes our natural resistance to prophets in our midst: 

Prophets are difficult to have around. No one wants to claim the title or do the work because of it. In this postmodern age, everybody is uncomfortable with prophets. They yell when you don’t want them to. They ask for trouble when you could avoid it. They don’t have a politically correct bone in their bodies….

Prophets are leaders, but not leaders of their own choosing. Inevitably, they have some sort of divine encounter. A burning bush, a ram in the bush, a call in the night, visions, dreams. They’re quirky and more than a little weird. Take Jeremiah as an example, crying all the time. And Isaiah fasting and lying in the dirt, and John the Baptist eating locusts, and Huldah prophesying doom. Finally, one of the most important characteristics of prophets is that they are dangerous to the system….

In bringing messages from God—and God doesn’t mince words—God speaks directly through them. They have a relationship and intimacy with the Divine. They communicate with God through prayer, direct speech; God walks and talks with them. Maybe not literally but in other ways. They have gifts, and they offer signs and wonders associated with the verification of the presence of God. They have communal connections. They act on behalf of community, not for their own gain, and are dependent on the community for help when they need it.

Holmes emphasizes the communal nature of the prophetic role:

This is a neglected but important aspect of the prophetic call. In Numbers 11:24–29, Moses is exhausted with the people. Basically, God says “Okay, okay, assemble the elders. Look to the community. You were never supposed to do this alone. I told you to do it; I didn’t tell you to do it alone.” How many of us are carrying burdens that are not ours, and we’re feeling pretty righteous about it? The work of living and dying and raising children, leading congregations, was never meant to be solitary work. So after the elders assemble, Joshua tells Moses that the elders are prophesying, and he says, “Moses, make this stop!” And Moses’ reply in Numbers 11:29 is, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that God would put God’s Spirit on them!”

Let’s just sit with that for a minute. Have you ever felt as if God’s Spirit was on you? Although many of the prophets in the Bible are presented as single carriers of God’s word, often there was a community of other prophets that they came from or were associated with. And so, who is your community? … If you’re called to the prophetic task, and I think in some aspects all of us are—where is your prophetic community that will feed you and support you and guide you and help you?

THE DIVINE HOURS

A form of prayer at specified times to be used by individuals or groups. The Divine Hours includes morning, midday, vespers (evening) and compline (before retiring) offices, having roots in the biblical tradition. By default the Divine Hours below is displayed based on Eastern Standard Time, U.S. You can use these links to view in another U.S. timezone:  CST  |  MST  |  PST

Other time zones will be added as requested.

You may find it helpful to read the introduction by the author, Phyllis Tickle.

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The Morning Office

To Be Observed on the Hour or Half Hour Between 6 and 9 a.m.

The Call to Prayer

Love the LORD, all you who worship him;* the LORD protects the faithful, but repays to the full those who act haughtily.

Psalm 31:23

The Request for Presence

Early in the morning I cry out to you,* for in your word is my trust.

Psalm 119:147

The Greeting

â??You are my God, and I will thank you;* you are my God, and I will exalt you.â??

Psalm 118:28

The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

Our help is in the Name of the LORD,* the maker of heaven and earth.

Psalm 124:8

A Reading

Of John the Baptizer it is written: â??When the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, â??Who are you?â?? He declared, he did not deny but declared, â??I am not the Christ . . . I am, as Isaiah prophesied: A voice of one that cries out in the desert: Prepare a way for the Lord. Make his paths straight.â?? Now those who had been sent were Pharisees, and they put this question to him, â??Why are you baptizing if you are not the Christ, and not Elijah, and not the Prophet?â?? John answered them, â??I baptize with water, but standing among youâ??unknown to youâ??is the one who is coming after me; and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandal.â?? This happened at Bethany, on the far side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.â??

John 1:19â??20, 23â??28

The Refrain

Our help is in the Name of the LORD,* the maker of heaven and earth.

The Morning Psalm

Tremble, O Earth, at the Presence of the LORD

Hallelujah! When Israel came out of Egypt,* the house of Jacob from a people of strange speech, Judah became Godâ??s sanctuary* and Israel his dominion. The sea beheld it and fled;* Jordan turned and went back. The mountains skipped like rams,* and the little hills like young sheep. What ailed you, O sea, that you fled?* O Jordan, that you turned back? You mountains, that you skipped like rams?* you little hills like young sheep? Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord,* at the presence of the God of Jacob, Who turned the hard rock into a pool of water* and flint-stone into a flowing spring.

Psalm 114

The Refrain

Our help is in the Name of the LORD,* the maker of heaven and earth.

The Cry of the Church

Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be your Name. May your kingdom come, and your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; for yours are the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

The Prayer Appointed for the Week

O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Concluding Prayer of the Church

Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought me in safety to this new day: Preserve me with your mighty power, that I may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all I do direct me to the fulfilling of your pur- pose; through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.â? 

The Divine Hours are reprinted here with permission of Doubleday and Phyllis Tickle. Not for distribution without permission from the author.
Buy The Divine Hours from Amazon.com

The Divine Hours © Copyright 2003 Phyllis Tickle www.phyllistickle.com

Choosing the Prophetic Path

On this New Year’s Day, we invite you to explore the theme for this year’s Daily Meditations: The Prophetic Path. We begin with Father Richard’s understanding of the theme and what it means to him: 

Our Daily Meditation theme this year is called The Prophetic Path, and I don’t think it’s an accidental phrase. I offer it in contrast to what most of us were trained to think of as Christianity in general—not as a prophetic path, but as a contest, which immediately frames reality in terms of win-lose, winners and losers. The prophetic path says there’s a way of moving toward winning that includes losing. It doesn’t exclude it. Can we see the genius of that? It’s what you’ve often heard me call perfection as the inclusion of imperfection. Sin is part of the journey towards salvation. Once you hear it, I hope you can say, “Of course, that’s obvious!”

Most of us prefer the language of courtroom and judgment and contest, where there are a few winners and lots of losers. This has not served history well. The prophetic path talks about a journey of two steps forward that necessarily continues to include one step backward. That falling, that failing, that suffering—use whatever word—becomes the energy for the next two steps forward. This is wisdom literature as opposed to contest literature. We’re going to use the meditations this year to try to illustrate that the Christian way is a prophetic path. [1]

Father Richard has long described the prophets as those who offer a “third way” beyond competitive, us-and-them thinking: 

There is a third way beyond fight or flight, conservative or liberal, and it probably is a way of “kneeling.” Most people would just call it “wisdom,” which is always distinguished from mere intelligence. It demands a transformation of consciousness and a move beyond the dualistic win/lose mind. 

We come to this “third way” of the prophetic path only over time. In the words of W. H. Auden, “For the garden is the only place there is, but you will not find it / Until you have looked for it everywhere and found nowhere that is not a desert.” [2] The gospel accepts this essentially tragic nature of human existence; it is willing to bear the contradictions that are imprinted on all of reality. It will always be a road less traveled. Let’s call it “unstable stability”! But for some reason, it is only the real stability, because it is a truthful map of reality, and it is always the truth that sets us free. It is contact with Reality that finally heals us. And contemplation, quite simply, is meeting reality in its most simple, immediate, and contradictory form. It is the resolving of those immense contradictions that characterizes the mystics, the saints, the prophets, and all those who pray. The result is always a “third something.” [3]

A Journey to the Heart of God

For Father Richard, the power of the prophetic path lies in the tradition and example of the Hebrew prophets. In this excerpt from a series recorded in 1980, Richard describes how a prophetic imagination keeps the church and our faith alive: 

In many ways, I think part of the explanation for perhaps the powerlessness of much of modern Christianity has been that it has lost touch with the Hebrew Scriptures. In particular, we have lost touch with the prophets. When we lose the sense of the prophets and their vision, we enter into a very overly spiritualized interpretation of Christianity. The prophets kept the word of God earthy. They kept it whole. They kept it real. They would not let us divide earth from heaven. They put heaven and earth together and they said, “It’s all one.”

The prophets speak out of a deep experience of God. It seems, somehow, that they’ve entered into the heart of God. They’re bold enough and brazen enough to almost dare to say, “I’ve seen God. I know what God thinks. I’m going to tell you what God thinks.” It takes a strange kind of self-confidence, and even inspiration, to be able to speak with the self-assurance of the Jewish prophets. I think what they give us are, among other things, new images. They give us new images by which we can capture and grasp reality. It seems that a failure of the modern church, maybe of the church in every age, has been a failure of imagination. The prophets explode our imaginations if we can learn how to listen to them and learn to understand the images and metaphors with which they speak.

Imagination is largely a matter of being able to re-image life in new ways. It is not to be caught or trapped in old images of hopelessness. When we’re trapped in old images, we keep living out of them, fighting against them, resisting them, and even saying they don’t work. But it seems we are incapable oftentimes of creating or even accepting new images and living out of those new images.

The prophets give us a sense of the possible. They give us a sense of the impossible, too. That’s why, frankly, they are so hard to listen to—because they explode our minds and push back the limits of our imagination. They increase our capacity to feel. They intensify our capacity for suffering. That’s why people don’t want to listen to them, because prophets increase our ability to feel what God is feeling. To feel God’s pain, God’s desire, God’s longing, and even God’s anger, if you’ll allow.

The prophetic path is a journey into the heart of God.