by Harry T. Cook

[May 2008] Episcopalians, and, indeed, most Christians, have great respect and affection for tradition. Just let a new rector move in and make a strategic change in the liturgy, and there is trouble. Who can forget when now a dozen years ago this parish went to standing communion, primarily for the sake of making the experience barrier-free for parishioners who had trouble negotiating three steps up to the altar rail and who found it difficult to kneel? Oh, my: What a kerfuffle it was!

Truth to tell, we try to preserve as much of our Anglican tradition as is practicable. And probably some that isn't quite practicable, but it makes people happy.

So let me tell you about a religious tradition that goes back to the Bible, and, in fact, back more than 2,500 years ago and well before the time of Jesus. It is called the "prophetic" tradition, and it was made by persons we know today as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Hosea and Micah - and other lesser knowns.

To be a "prophet" in that tradition was not to be able to divine the future. The prophet did not gaze into a crystal-ball and foretell events. The Hebrew word for "prophet" is nabi, and it means "one who announces," as in one who says what's happening now. The prophet isn't saying what's going to happen or what has been happening, but what is happening now.

You wonder why prophets have had such a hard time down the sweep of the centuries from antiquity to the present. All they do is call people's attention to the facts on the ground.

For example, Amos, an 8th Century B.C.E. shepherd and vineyard worker from Judea, left both his jobs to travel up to Israel's royal court then sitting at Bethel. Amos felt compelled to describe to the king of Israel and his minions what they apparently could not see in front of their noses about what an economic disaster their policies were making for the common people of the land.

Uninvited, Amos called upon them to let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness as an ever-flowing stream. You know the text. A lot of people think the late Martin Luther King Jr. coined the saying. He didn't, but he quoted it to terrific effect in our time.

Amos was sent packing by the high priest Amaziah: Go away from here forever, you swine. Never again speak here, for this is the king's house, the king being in any event unequipped to hear the truth Amos brought.

Dr. King was pretty much told the same thing by a good many people and finally by someone who let a bullet from a high-powered rifle speak for him.

Both Amos and Martin were prophets, that is: persons who were announcing what was happening, and in both cases people didn't want to hear it. They didn't want to acknowledge what was happening right in front of them. They wanted something else to happen, or nothing to happen, anything but what was happening.

For 36 years, a United Church of Christ minister in Chicago, Ill., by the name of Jeremiah Wright has been announcing what was happening, speaking (as the saying goes) "truth to power."

Over that time, a church that had about 60 members when he started there now has 6,000, and money-where-the-mouth-is ministries serving every conceivable human need. From the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ, Dr. Wright, a serious scholar of the Bible and of ancient history has consistently applied an enlightened interpretation of the Bible to life as his people have lived it.

He is a keen observer of events, both past and present. Does he speak sharply and with minimal nuance? Yes. Does he rub some people the wrong way? Absolutely. Does his rhetoric swell to crescendo? It does. Does he occasionally exaggerate? Yes, no doubt for effect. Does he make some people angry? He does, indeed.

What makes them angry is that, prophet-like, he announces what is happening. He holds up the mirror to the faces of those who wish they could see something different in it.

Why is the Rev. Dr. Wright getting so much attention now? He didn't ask for it. He was effectively retired and on a well-earned vacation when he was YouTubed and quoted repeatedly out of context. He was ready to buckle down to the scholarly task of writing a book when in quick succession he was importuned first to be Bill Moyers' guest, then to give that speech to the Detroit NAACP a week ago tonight - a speech in which he did not mock former Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, in which he did not promote divisiveness. I was there. I saw him and heard him in person, though not up-close in that there were nearly 12,000 people in the hall. Finally, a day after that speech, Dr. Wright was asked to address the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., so, as it turns out, its members could skewer him on the spot, which they did with apparent relish.

Dr. Wright is getting so much attention now not because he used to be Barack and Michelle Obama's pastor - no, no. He is getting all this attention because he speaks truth to power in a way that power is not used to being spoken to. Dr. Wright is announcing what is happening now, and a lot of people don't want to hear about it.

Dr. Wright is a prophet in the tradition - TRADITION! - of Amos and Micah and Hosea and Martin King. Jesus said it himself: Prophets are not without honor, except in their own country. (Matthew 13:57)

Tradition is not only glorious vestments and stained-glass windows and solemn processions and metric hymns and harmonious cantatas and thee's and thou's and thy's. Tradition from the days of Amos almost 2,800 years ago down to this day of Jeremiah Wright is also prophecy: the announcement of what is happening now.

If you don't like what the prophet says, you can banish him: Amos. You can kill him: John the Baptist, Jesus, King. Or you can take his announcement to heart and change what is happening for the better. And, really: Isn't it always better to let justice roll down like waters and righteousness as an ever-flowing stream?

[Harry T. Cook is the rector at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, Clawson, Mich.]

© Copyright 2008, Harry T. Cook. All rights reserved. This article may not be used or reproduced without proper credit.

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