Prophet Potential
Ezekiel 2:1-5
David, Harris, Pat, and I, thanks to the generosity of the Hough’s, got away this week for a few hours to be together as a staff! The cabin is precious and quaint. It’s a warm, inviting place to pray, talk about expectations, and plan. One of things we spent some time talking about is leadership. What does it mean to be a good leader and how do we cultivate the skills necessary to be an effective leader? As we talked about these things my mind was also pondering Ezekiel’s call narrative and what it means to be a prophet. My mind was also reaching way back into the leadership lessons I’ve learned from none other than Brené Brown.
She’s the leading expert on the emotion of shame and vulnerability, both of which are key concepts to grasp for effective leaders.
In the introduction to her podcast, Dare to Lead, which is also the title of one of her wonderful books, she talks about courage being a collection of four skill sets that those who are effective leaders will embrace.
Being able to rumble with vulnerability, living into our values, being able to talk about and build trust, and how do we reset after setbacks and failures. I wonder how Ezekiel would respond to each of these skill sets. I believe there is some overlap between leadership and the prophet potential each of you in this room carry.
Ezekiel’s call narrative has reminded me of the fact that I wish instead of two Old Testament classes, I had three in seminary. Or maybe even four! You just can’t get through enough of the major and minor prophets in a day. When I was in North Carolina last week there were 8 of us who had been through seminary, and we all agreed, we need more on the prophets. It’s been my experience that the church at large doesn’t do much with the prophets, at least in a healthy respect, but we have so much to learn from them! Given the fact that we don’t know much about Ezekiel except for what’s in this book, there’s truth to be gleaned from his experience and relationship to God and God’s people.
It is my belief that we all have what I would call prophet potential and let me tell you why. It is my desire to walk through Ezekiel’s call narrative to help us see that we all have prophet potential, particularly in the age of such widespread news coverage.
If we all have prophet potential, what then is a prophet and what can we learn from leadership to help us in our roles?
God called Ezekiel oh mortal, oh human one… and that’s our first clue. Hello fellow mortals! We each have been carefully crafted as unique humans with the Imago Dei, the Divine Image imprinted on us. Human, and though divinely stamped, we are not gods. God refers to Ezekiel as mortal, or human, 90 times in this book. God’s sovereignty is set far above and against what a mere mortal can do on his or her own and reminds us of our need to rely on God and not our strength. If left to our own devices and relying simply on ourselves, chances are when we enter a spiral of failures we won’t be able to see a way out.
Brené Brown had Abby Wambach as her first guest on the Dare to Lead podcast. Abby talked about some things she learned along her journey, which included being the top goal scorer in the world during her soccer career. One of Abby’s new rules for leadership in her book Wolfpack is failure means you’re finally in the game. The reality is we’ll all fail at something, but how we respond to that failure is what fuels us to keep going.
The Jews in exile have forgotten the history of what God has already done for them. They have a misplaced focus on the temple and its eventual destruction that Ezekiel preaches than they do on the One who resides within and beyond the temple. These Judeans have not remembered their history and are living into a false narrative of who God is and Ezekiel is here to say God has not forgotten you. Even though you are strangers in a strange land God has not forgotten you. They needed a prophet to remind them of this. We need prophets, God’s messengers, to be reminded that God has not forgotten us, and someone needs us to be that messenger.
When hardship comes, how will we respond?
God tells Ezekiel early on that this will not be an easy task. He tells him that these people are stubborn and impudent. Lacking respect. The success of Ezekiel will not be on how the people respond to his proclamation, but on his faithfulness to deliver the Word that God has sent through him. Ezekiel is a messenger sent by God to do a specific task, namely, to be a truth-teller.
As I mentioned in the children’s lesson, people often think of prophets as future tellers, those who are predicting what will happen. Though there may be hints of that, more directly prophets bring truth to light. They speak truth to power. God uses prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah and Ezekiel to remind God’s chosen people of the ultimate Truth. God is always there to redeem those who stray. Through the prophet Micah we hear but what does God require of us? To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
True prophets will always speak up for those on the fringes. The oppressed. The downcast. They never condemned the marginalized. The prophets had a hard job, but they did it not because they were seeking self-gain, but because it’s what brought honor to God. They remained faithful to the task God had called them to, no matter what people thought of them or the message they were bringing.
One of Abby Wambach’s inspiring points is this: We need people in leadership who lead from a place of honor, and not gain. We can’t lead if our purpose is to be self-serving and we sure don’t have prophet potential when we try to protect our own ego’s rather than speak the truth.
The more I consider these prophets and the great leaders of our day I can’t get away from this idea of vulnerability. It’s hard to accept failure. It’s hard to be self-reflective and look at not only our strengths but our weaknesses too. It takes courage & vulnerability to speak from this place but that’s what prophets and effective leaders do. They’re able to make conscious decisions and know why they do what they do 70% of the time instead of the projected 30-40% of the time that most people make conscious decisions. God promises Hope and Healing when we take responsibility for our own actions and that’s what Ezekiel is trying to tell his audience.
Are we going to be brave enough to take responsibility for our own actions and continue to speak truth to power even when it’s difficult? Vulnerability happens when we don’t assume we’re always right and we have ears to hear the perspectives of someone else, willing to learn what they have to say, and then still stand by our convictions while leaning into God’s truth.
Martin Luther King Jr. was both a leader of a movement and prophet. He didn’t say he had a plan. He said he had a dream. He spent his life working towards his dream of equality for all of God’s children. We’re never told that prophets, or leaders for that matter, are infallible or perfect.
Some of the Old Testament prophets’ predictions didn’t come true in the ways that were expected of them. But God uses prophets in ways far greater than even the prophet themselves can imagine. We don’t have to have our ducks in a row for God to use us to speak truth to power. We only must remain faithful to the task before us, be willing to lean into vulnerability, and follow the dream God has gifted each of us.
As we look at the call narrative of Ezekiel, it wouldn’t be complete without the acknowledgement of Jesus Christ. The prophet, along with priest and king, that we find in the personhood of Jesus Christ dwells within us. Jesus said he would send the Spirit to be with us and it’s because He dwelled among us and left us with the Spirit that each of us has prophetic potential. We are all messengers of the Good News of the Gospel. Paul says in Colossians chapter 1 that God wanted to make the glorious riches of this secret plan known among the Gentiles, which is Christ living in you, the hope of glory. It’s this hope of glory, the realized Hope that lives among us that empowers us to speak truth. For some, this prophetic voice is loud and strong. God has gifted certain people with the stamina to fight front and center for the injustices that still face us today; in America, within the American church, and across the world. For some, God has gifted them with generous hearts. Time to devote to charities who are on the ground doing the work, or providing financial resources and aide. For others, it’s having a willing heart to not become abrasive around hard conversations but to be a listener and diligent in reiterating truth over lies, over and over again if need be. All of these take conscious effort and leadership skills. We rely on God’s strength, and not our own, and we rely on the comfort in knowing our task is to remain faithful to seeking out Truth and being truthtellers no matter the outcome. We may not live to see the results, but that’s not our job. We put that in the hands of God, and we stay faithful, just as Ezekiel stayed faithful when he wasn’t sure he could stand on his own two feet. He stayed faithful when he had to eat the scroll, which ended up tasting sweet because of God’s words. He stayed faithful when the people rebelled.
He stayed faithful when God told him not to mourn the loss of his own wife. He stayed faithful, he stayed faithful, he stayed faithful.
My encouragement to you this morning is to stay faithful. Lean into vulnerability. Find the courage that God has instilled in you to be the best you can be and speak truth to power wherever God has called you. It doesn’t have to look the same as your neighbor, in fact, it shouldn’t. We each have a role to play in being truthtellers and peacekeepers, and sometimes that looks like creating good trouble. Just make sure you’re remaining faithful to God and the good news of Jesus Christ, which is never self-fulfillment, but always looking out for those who need it most, loving God, and loving your neighbors.
Let us pray:
Holy and Gracious God.
Thank you for the examples of the prophets and the opportunity to remember your redeeming work which has unfolded over the course of history. For the opportunity to be truthtellers in Your story, may we be faithful to that task. May we not worry about what others say of us, or what others may think success looks like, but what you desire of us, which is to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with you. Be our source of strength and courage as we seek to do Your will. We love you so, Amen.
