Called to be a Prophet?

We heard from Amos and a plumb line at church last night. Elizabeth's homily focused on this prophet and God's metaphor of the plumb line as a measure of what is right and true. Prophets have always made me a bit uncomfortable. Elizabeth shared seeing a 'prophet' at the downtown Farmer's Market that morning, standing on his soap box between an organic vegetable stall and an artisan cheese display. Complete with a tee shirt emblazoned with "Repent," he was witnessing his faith..and making most of the Saturday morning shoppers uneasy. This has been my vision of what a prophet is...someone a bit whack-a-doodle, preaching on a street corner and making everyone squirm. When I read Marcus Borg's, Reading the Bible Again for the First Time, I encountered a different meaning for what a prophet is. Borg sees the prophets as lightening rods for social justice. God empowers them to speak out and indict those abusive forces in society, to threaten and name those abusers, and to give voice to oppressed peoples. They 'draw the line in the sand;' either take action to right this wrong or suffer the consequences. Their plumb line divides the upright and true from the wrongs of society. Prophets are not crazy men, predicting the end of the world; they are concerned citizens speaking up for what is right. Rich Mayfield references one such 'prophet.' See if you can guess who he's writing about before you get to the end of his essay. Does this mean we are all called to be prophets? That was Elizabeth's challenge to us.