Prophecy vs the Prophetic: Revised and Expanded for Advent 2024

by Jesse Steven Wheeler

Advent is a time when the Church looks forward to and anticipates the future return and just reign of Christ. It is also a time for looking back to remember and commemorating Jesus’ first coming. As such, the fulfillment of prophecy looms large in the Christmas stories. Unfortunately, it is truism that so many of those who obsess over “prophecy” never truly wrestle with the words of the prophets. One might read the following text as a prediction of the future:

“Someday, O Israel, I will gather you; I will gather the remnant who are left.” 

—Micah 2:12 (NLT)

Yet, wholly ignore its context:

What sorrow awaits you who lie awake at night, thinking up evil plans. You rise at dawn and hurry to carry them out, simply because you have the power to do so. When you want a piece of land, you find a way to seize it. When you want someone’s house, you take it by fraud and violence. You cheat a man of his property, stealing his family’s inheritance. 

—Micah 2:1–2 (NLT) 

Though first proclaimed millennia ago, the above words of the prophet Micah present a stunningly accurate depiction of our contemporary realities. The passage presents us with an image of those in power conspiring to use that power to defraud others of their land, homes, and inheritance. It presents us with a social order built upon graft and exploitation in which the entire political-economic system is manipulated, “rigged,” to favor those who would use their power to expropriate the property of others. We might easily call these the vulture capitalists of their day and age. Yet, it can just as easily serve as a scathing rebuke of Israeli apartheid, of the settler movement and the entire institutional-legal apparatus constructed to support it. 

The prophet, meanwhile, goes on:

“Don’t say such things, their “prophets” prophecy. Don’t prophesy like that. Such disasters will never come our way!” Should you talk that way, O house of Jacob? Will the Lord’s Spirit have patience with such behavior? If you would do what is right, you would find my words comforting.

Yet to this very hour my people rise against me like an enemy! You steal the shirts right off the backs of those who trusted you, making them as ragged as men returning from battle. You have evicted women from their pleasant homes and forever stripped their children of all that God would give them. 

Up! Begone! This is no longer your land and home, for you have filled it with sin and ruined it completely. Suppose a prophet full of lies would say to you, “I’ll preach to you the joys of wine and alcohol!” That’s just the kind of prophet you would like! 

—Micah 2:6–11 (NLT) 

It is crucial to see how the passage highlights the existence of a false religio-prophetic establishment working to provide ideological cover for the corruption and exploitative practices of the powers that be. As Walter Brueggemann tells us,

It was, in that ancient context, difficult to construe reality outside the blueprints that had been constructed by the powerful. That construed reality, blessed by establishment religion, assured itself of an entitlement by God as God’s chosen people that could count on security and certainty with no serious threat or vulnerability. But these prophets knew that that claim was not a given grounded in God; it was a self-serving construction.

Far too often in the course of ecclesial history, our leaders and institutions have stood with the status quo and allied themselves with the power brokers of the day. Not only this, our own "court prophets" construct ideological justifications for the violence of the powerful and of the privileges accrued to them in return. Listening to the voice of the prophets, however, and recognizing how often Jesus draws from them in his life and ministry, will dispel us of any notion that God stands with the status quo.

This season, as we reflect upon the incarnation of King Jesus, “who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2: 6-8) we recognize that it is only by divesting ourselves of our complicity in the privilege that comes with power and its abuse that we can begin to understand the cruciform way of the messiah. 

For this reason, I cannot fathom the twisted logic of those religious settlers or their Christian Zionist financiers who believe that this entire enterprise, built from its origins upon colonial violence and theft, somehow represents the will of God. It is this logic which leads to what we saw in 2023 during the tragic pogrom in Huwara, when the settler mob paused its violent rampage to engage in evening prayers, as the village burned behind them. It leads folks, with the protection of armed guards, to forcibly enter and pray atop what was once upon a time a temple mount and roughing up local worshippers in the process. At this point, what is even the purpose of such prayers, beyond idolatrous displays of social domination and power? I am also reminded of the Christian village of al-Makhrour, near Bethlehem, and of Alice Kisya and Amira Musallam whose family was forcibly evicted from their land by radical Jewish settlers and the Israeli soldiers who protect them.

With Micah fresh on my mind, I can just imagine what the biblical prophets would say in response.

Even so, an entire theo-political edifice has been constructed to extract wealth from churches, synagogues, and faith-based charities across the country and channel it to this violent settler-colonial enterprise. (Two recent films, “‘Till Kingdom Come” and “Israelism,” dramatically highlight this reality.) Of course, I must also consider the twisted theological logic of "manifest destiny" with which my own nation set out to conquer, cleanse, and colonize North America by way of fraud and violence, defrauding its natives and those abducted to work its land of their rightful inheritance. And, I condemn in no uncertain terms the ongoing genocide in Palestine bankrolled by my own government; I condemn the soulless politicians catering to the highest bidder, the banal bureaucrats who casually oversee and underwrite the most profound evils, and far too many of my fellow citizens who refuse to acknowledge the humanity of the Palestinian people or who refuse to care.

As the horrors have only grown over this past year of genocide, I grieve for the children, women, and men of Gaza. I grieve, personally, for my dear friends, colleagues, and family in the West Bank and in Lebanon, my home away from home. I grieve, of course, for all Israeli and Palestinian hostages, for all who have known loss, displacement, or personal injury. I grieve, as well, for the soul of any who would seek, or even celebrate, the death of another, especially those who do so for reasons as asinine as real estate, resource extraction, or so-called strategic interest. To trade a life, an entire universe, for the sake of a new subdivision or development deal is such a profound net loss for humanity. The loss of an entire, millennia-spanning civilization and way of life, as witnessed in the destruction of Palestine, is unfathomable.

Ultimately, it is our responsibility as followers of Jesus, or as anyone seeking to stand in the tradition of the biblical prophets, to speak up and out against any and all forms of violence—most especially apartheid, dispossession, and genocide—as well as their ideological enablers. That so few have speaks volumes. It has been heartening to witness the moral consistency of groups like Rabbis 4 Ceasefire, Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now and other Jewish activists engaging in remarkable acts of protest and prophetic witness on behalf of the Palestinian people, often at great personal, familial, and professional risk. Likewise, Islamic organizations, student activists, and Palestinians, both Christian and Muslim, have consistently put themselves, their careers and often their lives, at risk in order to stand against genocide, even when they can be the victims of profound bigotry themselves as members of a consistently marginalized and scapegoated community.

Our mission at Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA), as a Christian voice for Palestine, is not only to stand firm against the violence and injustice of apartheid, dispossession, and genocide, but also actively work to deconstruct those ideological and theological justifications that prop up regimes of genocidal violence and dispossession. This, we do as we positively proclaim the authentic good news of Christ's liberating reign. This is al-Sabeel (the way).

I close therefore with the following plea, adapted from the Book of Common Prayer: 

Look with pity, O heavenly Father, upon the people of the land who live with injustice, terror, disease, and death as their constant companions. Have mercy upon us. Help us to eliminate our cruelty to these, our neighbors. Strengthen those who spend their lives establishing equal protection of the law and equal opportunities for all. And grant that every one of us may enjoy a fair portion of the riches of this world; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

*Adapted from: Wheeler, Jesse Steven. Serving a Crucified King: Meditations on Faith, Politics, and the Unyielding Pursuit of God’s Reign. Resource Publications, 2021.