In his forthcoming book, The Tears of Things, Father Richard Rohr challenges the stereotypical Christian understanding of a prophet:
When we picture a prophet of the Old Testament—and there are many of them, more than thirty, including seven women—most of us imagine an angry, wild-haired person ranting and raving at the people of Israel for their many sins or predicting future doom. Some of the prophets did just that, but my years of study, conversation, and contemplation have shown me that this prevailing image is not the truest or most important reality of their work, calling, or messages. [1]
Rohr explores the path that prophets revealed in Scripture:
Until we move on from that common stereotype, we won’t recognize the prophets as truth speakers who have walked a journey to where truth has led them. This journey leads the prophets to an immense sadness, shared with God, about the human situation. Unless we allow Scripture to reveal this developmental understanding, we can’t get there. We just look for isolated verses that fit our needs, and most of the isolated statements in the first half of every prophet’s life are angry.
The prophets rage against sin as if they were above or better than it—then move into solidarity with it. Please understand that sin is not as much malice as woundedness. Sin is suffering. Sin is sadness. Many of us have learned this truth from studying addictions, where it’s become more clear that sin deserves pity, not judgment.
Sin is also the personal experience of the tragic absurdity of reality. It leads us to compassion. We must have compassion for the self, for how incapable we are of love, of mercy, of forgiveness. Our love is not infinite like God’s love. It’s measured—and usually measured out according to deservedness. But that’s not how YHWH treats ancient Israel, which was always unfaithful to the covenant. God is forever faithful. That’s the only consistent pattern.
Eventually, the prophet stops standing above, apart from, or superior to reality and enters into solidarity with human suffering and human sinfulness. Jesus does this throughout his life by touching lepers and eating with sinners. He goes out of his way to bless those who are hurting. But we don’t know how to do that as long as we place ourselves higher than another, believing we’re not sinners or fellow sufferers. [2]
My favorite thing about the prophetic books of the Bible is that they show a whole series of people in evolution of their understanding of God. Like most of us, the prophets started not only with judgmentalism and anger but also with a superiority complex of placing themselves above others. Then, in various ways, that outlook falls apart over the course of their writings. They move from that anger and judgmentalism to a reordered awareness in which they become more like God: more patient like God, more forgiving like God, more loving like God. [3]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Tears of Things: Prophetic Wisdom for an Age of Outrage (Convergent, 2025), xiii.
[2] Adapted from Richard Rohr, “The Path of the Prophet,” ONEING 12, no. 2, The Path of the Prophet (2024): 7, 8. Available in print or PDF download.
[3] Rohr, Tears of Things, xviii.
Image credit and inspiration: Eddie Kopp, Untitled (detail), 2017, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Prophets break things down in order to make room to create something new.
Story from Our Community:
The Daily Meditations on being on the “edge of the inside” have offered me hope, joy, and encouragement. I realized that I don’t have to leave, criticize, or condemn the “inside” I was born into now that I yearn for “more.” I am forever grateful for the “more” that I receive in the meditations each day. Living on the edge gives me freedom to follow Jesus through his teachings—answering his prophetic call to kindness, truth, and endless compassion.
—Renee T.
