The Prophet & The Evangelist

“The gifts He gave were that some would be…..prophets & some evangelists….to equip the saints for the work of ministry…..”  

-Paul of Tarsus (Ephesians 4:11-12)

“Billy Graham [and Norman Peale], the high priests of Middle America, the word of God came to Martin King in the wilderness of America.

-Gardner C. Taylor, “The Strange Ways of God

What does the interplay between the evangelist & the prophet look like? Is there a rhythm, a harmonic symphony, a divinely  choreographed dance they are called to perfect with each other? What happens when the evangelist steps on the toes of the prophet in this dance of redemption? Should the beautiful feet of those who carry the Good News be permitted to scar & bruise the feet of the ones who call us to “do right, seek justice, & defend the oppressed”? What does it mean to ask Jesus into your heart in a society that disciples you to not let “the other” into your home, your business, your economy, & your church, even? Can the evangelist tell us to walk down the aisle & receive salvation but be apathetic, indifferent, hesitant, or outright resistant to the prophet who marches & calls a nation to “let JUSTICE roll down like a river”? Is preaching the “pure Gospel message” a call to duck our heads in the sand & ignore socio-political corruption? Did not Jesus-the holy & pure One-in His life-acts clash with the power structures of 1st Century Palestine? Is not salvation from a hebraic perspective grounded in the anti-imperial narrative of the Exodus story? 

Can the evangelist seek the safe & status quo upholding middle ground  in situations of oppression & be worthy of the cross they preach? Who will settle the score when the evangelist—full of “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism”—tells the prophet that he is “too extreme” in his call that a nation’s structures must be born anew? Is the Great Reversal that Mary sung of subordinate to the so-called Great Commission? Is the prophet’s radical  dream of the last becoming first, the enslaved become free, the dehumanized being dignified, & hungry being filled with good things too lofty a vision for the evangelist to concern himself with? (1) Can the evangelist’s mission of “saving souls” be honored without dishonoring the prophet’s mission of “saving the soul of a nation”? What does it mean when the evangelist who preaches “that God is Love” willingly shares the platform with those who hate, dominate, & segregate? How can the evangelist co-sign pharaoh but malign Moses? What does it mean when the evangelist invites the prophet to the crusade to pray but does not give the prophet space to prophecy? Is the evangelist quenching the disruptive Spirit of Christ? The Spirit that turns over tables & drives out empire religion? Can the evangelist have his feet fitted with the readiness of the Gospel of Peace & coach the empire towards war & violence? Did he not hear the prophet say in the Name & Spirit of Jesus “we must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means“?

Yes, the evangelist & the prophet can love one another & speak kindly of each other. But public praise & niceties do not interrupt the atrocities of idol worship & injustice. Yes, the evangelist can pay for the prophet’s bail, but does that mean he can “bail” on the call to embody peace & justice? The evangelist can nobly desegregate his crusades but is that enough? Must he not join the holy crusade against social oppression? 

The evangelist can be pushed. The evangelist can repent. The evangelist can clumsily learn how to dance with the prophet.  The evangelist can years later lament his historic missteps; wishing he had marched, wishing he had raised his voice, regretting that he slept through a great revolution. Grace is vast enough for that. But don’t leave it there. We must learn from the evangelist’s mistakes. We must refuse to join him in the post-mortem domestication of the prophet. We must ask ourselves the question: What would have happened if the evangelist truly listened to the prophet? How might the evangelist’s proclamation have been shaped to give voice to a more WHOLE Gospel.  A gospel that confronts, challenges, & heals the sinfulness of souls & the sinfulness of systems. A gospel that frees us from both spiritual & physical poverty. 

A Gospel like Martin’s, like Fannie’s, & like Corretta’s. 

A Gospel like Jesus’s.

 

written by T. Hawkins

 

1.) Michael G Long, Billy Graham and the Beloved Community: America’s Evangelist and the Dream of Martin Luther King Jr. (Palgrave Macmillan; 2006 edition)

 

New Year, Same Me: Resisting Naive Optimism & Embracing Hope-Soaked Realism in 2019

You can take the people out of 2018, but you can’t take the 2018 out of the people.

Both individually & corporately we carry the good, the bad, & the ugly of 2018 with us into 2019. Minus the observance of  “Freedom’s Eve” for the descendants of enslaved Africans in the US, there is nothing particularly sacred on God’s timeline or “magical”  about the turn of the dial to a new year on the Gregorian calendar we have inherited. 

New year, same me.

New year, same you.

New year, same man in the White House.

New year, same ole unjust America.

Of course, we can repent & resolve to be better & do better in the new year. Yes, there are experiences in God’s presence that radically change our life’s trajectory in a moment!

Holding space for all the above, it seems to me that a hope-soaked realism about the possibilities of 2019 serves us better than a naive optimism. Let’s be honest—many of our grandiose declarations of new year change quickly devolve back to the mediocre status quo.

I wonder if somewhere hidden in all of our “new year, new me” announcements is a misplaced desire for value & significance. Are we seeking to cover our insecurities, shame, & guilt with the fig leaves of “sick-cess & achievement”? To be clear, there is nothing wrong with wanting to achieve goals.

My concern here is two fold:

First, most of our resolutions are not “radical”; meaning they do not “get at the root”. True personal & social transformation does not come via surface level “redecoration” it comes through a deep reorientation. To quote one philosopher:

“Moving a few rocks around on the surface, but not the riverbed itself isn’t change. The river still runs the same way.”

New endeavors in 2019 may appear to be taking us in a “new direction” but in many cases our souls & societies remain bent towards the same toxicity.

My second point of concern is how the cultural winds of the new year often carries with it an unhealthy pressure to pull off amazing feats. Even when its couched in “for the glory of God” language, the feverish demand to PRODUCE, PRODUCE, PRODUCE in the new year fosters a crippling anxiety in some of us & it further enslaves others into an identity centered on “what they do” versus “who they are”. Unfortunately, too many of our faith leaders exasperate this pressure with sermons animated by hyper individualistic “wish fulfillment” theology that re-images Jesus as a “life coach” who helps us accomplish our will, not His.

But what if we went at this thing another way? What if we took a LONG deep breath & said to ourselves:

It’s ok to be unimpressive.
It’s ok to be broken.
It’s ok to lament.
It’s ok to rest.
It’s ok.
Rest in the Grace of Jesus.

At the end of the day (and this new year), your worth is not be rooted in what you produce or achieve. Your worth comes from being made in God’s image. You are loved with an everlasting love by a God who through Christ & by The Spirit is already at work in our world, bending it towards healing justice.

May the “unforced rhythms of grace” propel us into every good work God has prepared  for us in 2019.

Happy New Year!

 

 

blog written by Terrance Hawkins