Forthtelling, Not Foretelling
For Richard Rohr, prophets do not foretell the future, but they do seem to anticipate futures that are shocking to the rest of us:
Most of the prophets seem to be ordinary people who find themselves with a gift. Prophecy in the Bible is not a matter of foretelling, but—to play with the English language a bit—it’s forthtelling. Prophecy is speaking with such a forwardness of truth, direction, and passion that, after the fact, we say the prophet foretold it. It’s not that they’re really predicting something, it’s just that they have immense spiritual insight. The original Hebrew word for a prophet meant simply that: one who sees. A prophet is a seer who sees all the way through.
The reason prophets can speak so clearly and strongly in the now is because they judge the now from, of all places, the future. Prophets have seen the future. In other words, they have seen where God is leading humanity. They have seen and drawn close to the heart of God and they know God is leading us somewhere good. Since they know the conclusion and where it is that we’re heading, they become impatient and angry at the present state of things. If we know where history is going and what God is leading us toward; if we know what our lives could and should be, why are we wasting time with all this violence and all this stupidity?
The prophets judge the present by the perspective of the future. Perhaps that’s how we began to think that prophets foretold the future—because they forthtold the future. They were the original futurists. The fancy, theological word for this is eschatology. The prophets live out of this futuristic vision of God’s dream for the world, where God is leading history, and where it’s all headed. Prophets become so infatuated with that final ideal goal and vision that they become passionately sad and angry about what we’re doing now. Once we experience the universal being of God, the present becomes so dissatisfying and disappointing. We wonder how people can be satisfied with so little and content with such tawdry lives. [1]
Another way to say it is that the prophet gives us a direction and vision of the whole. For most people, history was circular; it wasn’t going any place in particular. But the prophet gives history a goal, aim, and direction and calls history forward. This is essential because if we don’t have a sense that history is going somewhere, we will go in circles and our lives will become meaningless. We enter a kind of existential absurdity with no direction in which many people become caught. Without an eschatological sense of time, we become trapped in the now. Without the word of the prophet, religion becomes no more than a legitimation of the status quo. [2]
A Prophet Celebrates Freedom
Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, is the first female prophet named in the Hebrew Scriptures. Storyteller Kelley Nikondeha offers her imaginative interpretation of the scene near the Red Sea from Exodus 14–15:
What a mighty mystery! The waters rose up in translucent walls, fish dangled in upturned currents as Leviathan was effectively cut in two, and Miriam’s kin walked on dry land right through the middle as if they were cutting a new covenant with YHWH. She found herself chanting lines from her mother’s lullabies—The horse and rider will fall into the sea—and the people echoed her back in a voluminous unison: The horse and rider will fall into the sea! She twirled like her younger self: Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? The throngs in transit responded: No one is like our Lord among the gods! And when the last Hebrew heel lifted off the dried seabed, the towering barriers released like twin tsunamis, sending the Egyptian chariots crashing into the dark sea. Miriam stood by her brothers in shock, in unspoken awe….
Miriam, prophet, stood over the sea aching. A few widows came alongside her, sharing in her lament for the dead. “There will be empty places at their tables now,” she spoke in a plaintive tone. “We know what that does to a heart.” … “I will remember your son always,” Miriam whispered like a prayer and a promise. The prophet, heavy with jewelry and tears, swore she heard God weeping over her shoulder. She turned to the small band of women. “Let’s go down to the shore and mourn the dead, lest our own hearts calcify and become hard like Pharaoh’s.” And so while the Hebrews broke out their unleavened bread in the cool of that first free night, the women wept with God and the angels.
After honoring the compassion welling up within her, Miriam leads her people as they celebrate their liberation:
The night crackled with campfire alchemy, an intoxicating mix of gyrating flames, smoke snaking toward the sky, the pop and hiss of golden sparks. Then the drum line sounded across the camp. Miriam pounded out a cadence unlike any other, unfettered and free. Women reached for their own drums and joined the song. The prophet started singing, harmonies building and volume increasing as her women got into formation. The prophet, yoked with wisdom, composed liberation lyrics. Over the decades, her mother’s lullabies had matured into anthems of freedom inside her, now finding their fullest, truest expression. It was the longing of all the midwives and mothers together, past and present, crying out for shalom that saturated each stanza.
Miriam sang of the reversal—grown men tossed into the sea instead of infant sons. Of God’s mighty arm strong to save (if a bit slow for her liking). According to some scholars, Miriam composed the earliest Hebrew freedom songs, the ones that became the liberation litany her own brother, Moses, would sing.
