Author Mirabai Starr describes how the histories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have been shaped by people who were brave enough to listen to and obey God’s call:
Not all prophets do as they are told. Not at first, anyway. When the call comes, most of them turn left and then right: “Who, me?” they murmur. If the call is a true one, the voice of the Holy Spirit will roar: “Yes, you!”
Even then, the prophet will haggle with the Holy One. “There must be someone better suited to speak for the Divine.” But the God of Love is a patient God. The God of Love calls once, twice, three times. Only then does the prophet square her shoulders, gird her loins, open her hands, and say, “Hineni. Here I am.”
The history of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam abounds with accounts of great beings who trembled when they were confronted with the presence of the Divine and given a task of global dimensions. Traditionally, this reluctance is implied, rather than stated, yet when we read the scriptures with an open heart, we can feel the anguish behind the submission.
Responding to God’s call always comes at a cost:
It is said that the Divine does not choose the wealthy and powerful to be prophets. [God] picks farmers and illiterate caravan drivers, orphans and poor Jewish virgins. [God] favors the ones who stand up…, talk back…, the ones who challenge the divine directive. When the angel of the Lord told the matriarch Sarah that she was going to become the mother of many nations, Sarah laughed. She was long past the age of childbearing, and the patriarch Abraham was even older. When her son was born the following year, they named him Isaac, which means “laughter.”…
“The prophets of Israel,” Karen Armstrong writes in A History of God, “experienced their God as a physical pain that wrenched their every limb and filled them with pain and elation.” Adrienne von Speyr says that the prophets are “inconsolable.” It is easy to see why they might have been reluctant to answer the call.
It is not only the biblical prophets who paid this price for responding to the divine summons. Prominent modern activists, imbued with the teachings of the God of Love, risked their lives on behalf of the most vulnerable among us….
Countless women and men—known and unknown—stand up every day to give voice to the voiceless—not because it seems like the right thing to do, but because they have no choice: The call comes storming through the gates of their hearts like an invading army, and they stand aside. In the act of surrendering to the Divine, the prophet relinquishes comfort, control, and any hope of being understood.
Reference:
Mirabai Starr, God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Monkfish Book Publishing, 2012), 41, 44, 46.
Image credit and inspiration: Levi Ventura, untitled (detail), 2019, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like this small green plant, we are called to grow in our own unique soils, spaces, and places.
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