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And, finding there was greater happiness and peace and rest for me, I sought for the blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same (Abraham, vs 2)

Monday, July 8, 2019

Role of Prophets: Priestly Class Hedging the Way

A great post by Richard Rohr on the role of Prophets. I have read that many of the apocryphal writings that were removed from the Bible included any writings that taught a similar message. That God's people only need God . True ministers point to God and allow the people to "Govern themselves" making them independent where they no longer need these ministers because they have learned to follow the spirit. False ministers want the people to remain dependent upon them so they can remain relevant. They tell people to follow them, so that they may know the lord through them.

We face the same test as all others have ever faced, from the days of Adam down to the present. Things never change. From the time of Adam, the roles have been filled by different persons in different ages, but the conflict is perpetual, and the same battle continues from age to age. You can even lift the arguments that are made from one epoch and put them into the next—and they fit. It doesn’t change. 

The quote is below speaks it much better than I ever could.

"A prophet is one who keeps God free for people and who keeps people free for God. Both of these are much needed and vital tasks. Without the educated gift of prophecy, God almost always becomes imprisoned and made inaccessible, and far too many people have been shamed and taught guilt to keep us clergy in business. We saw our job as “sin management.”  That is not just being clever. I believe we religious leaders actually thought that. Sadly, the laity fully bought into this negative story line. That is what happens when priests are not informed by prophets.
The priestly class invariably makes God less accessible instead of more so, “neither entering yourselves nor letting others enter in,” as Jesus says (Matthew 23:13). For the sake of our own job security, the priestly message is often: “You can only come to God through us, by doing the right rituals, obeying the rules, and believing the right doctrines.” This is like telling God who God is allowed to love! The clergy and religious leaders, unintentionally perhaps, teach their disciples “learned helplessness.”

The prophets spend much of their time destroying and dismissing these barriers and trying to create “a straight highway to God” (Matthew 3:3). Both John the Baptist and Jesus tried to free God for the people, and it got them killed. The other half of the prophet’s job is to keep people free for God. We get trapped in chains of guilt and legalism, focusing on our imperfect church attendance and inability to live up to the law’s standard; as if the goal of religion is “attendance” at an occasional ritual instead of constant participation in an Eternal Mystery! Prophets turn our ideas of success and belonging on their head, emphasizing God’s unconditional and unmerited love in response to our continual shortcomings. God is always breaking the approved “rules of God” by forgiving sinners, choosing the outsider or the weak, and showing up in secular places. Please check the Bible if you doubt me!
Our job is to love others the way God has loved us. In my life, I’ve experienced God’s unearned love again and again. God has persistently broken the rules to love me at the level I needed, could receive, and was able to understand throughout my life. The magnanimous nature of divine love keeps liberating me at deeper levels, and then I think that newly discovered level of love is the deepest. But it’s a journey that never stops giving. Why wouldn’t everybody want that? But many actually fight it."

Christ was opposed by Satan who demanded that He worship him. And then He was opposed by religious leaders of the people who also were concerned that" all people would believe on him " . The people He went to save conspired to kill Him and, ultimately, brought that about. All to protect their kingdoms of this world.