Brief synopsis of the readings: The prophet Ezekiel authors our first reading. God speaks to Ezekiel and commands him to go to the rebellious Israelites and proclaim God’s word. God warns him that these people are hard of face and obstinate of heart and tells him that whether or not they listen, they will know that a prophet is among them. Mark’s Gospel depicts Jesus returning to his “native place” and teaching in the synagogue. The listeners were astonished and remarked that they were surprised at this. After all, don’t we know his family? Don’t we know who he is? They were offended that Jesus would dare to try to teach them. Jesus stated: “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.”

The idea of becoming a prophet appeals to many people, and I’ve honestly never understood why. The prophet is someone called by God to deliver a specific message. I understand that being chosen by God is a good thing and, in a real sense, we are all called by God to something, but prophet is not one I relish.

You see, God doesn’t call someone to be a prophet to tell him (or her) that everything is fine. Sometimes God calls someone to prophecy a message of hope in the midst of suffering. But more often God calls someone to deliver a message of warning. God instructs the prophet to tell the people that they have wandered away from God and God’s path and are in danger of destruction.

There are several books in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) named for prophets. Many of them, Ezekiel included, focus on one specific part of history: when the Kingdom of Israel was defeated by and sent into exile by the Babylonians. The beginning of the reading here is clear: “I am sending you to the Israelites, rebels who have rebelled against me.”

Unfortunately his message wasn’t successful. Ezekiel was one of those exiled. You have to wonder what he was thinking as he and everyone else lost all they had because they didn’t listen to him. Why didn’t they? Perhaps they thought themselves invincible. Or perhaps they were comfortable where they were and didn’t want to change. Or maybe they looked at Ezekiel and didn’t think he had anything useful to say.

That’s certainly where Jesus finds himself. Technically Jesus isn’t a prophet: a prophet speaks for God and our faith tells us that Jesus is God. But his messages are prophetic. Whenever he is teaching, he is speaking for God. Oftentimes listeners don’t pay attention to Jesus because they don’t like his message, but here they don’t listen because of who he is.

“Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary?” In other words, “isn’t this the kid we saw grow up? Who does he think he is telling us what to do? How dare he?” I can only imagine how hurt and angry he must have felt. He was tasked to proclaim the salvation of God, and these were the people he most wanted to reach. His relatives, neighbors, those who made him who he was. And they don’t even reject his message: they discount him. No wonder he was amazed at their unbelief.

So what do we do with those called to prophecy today? In fairness, we have the same difficulties we’ve had in the sweep of history, determining between valid and false prophets. We recognize that false prophets in our own day have led good people to die in Jonestown and Waco.

But given that, I’m persuaded that we’ve learned nothing of prophecies of the past. Pope Francis’ encyclical on climate change gives us a case in point. Laudato Si warns of the dangers of ongoing climate change and how we need to change how we consume fossil fuels, and that if we don’t, the poor will suffer the most. Francis stands directly in the line of prophets who comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. And yet those (and only those) who have the power to change this argue that he has no right to do this. They claim his science is suspect (it isn’t) or that he has no voice in this debate (he does). And much like the exiles in Babylon, we ignore this at our own risk.

But if listening to prophecy is one of our responsibilities, can we also say that speaking it is also? I said at the beginning that I have no desire to be a prophet (and I don’t) but prophets aren’t only the big names of the Old Testament or acknowledged leaders like Pope Francis. There are times when we are all called to speak up.

My best example of this comes from the movie industry (bet you didn’t see that coming). In 1987 Tom Wolfe wrote Bonfire of the Vanities, an excellent book on wealth and poverty; I read it and thought it was well written and strongly recommend it. In 1990 it was made into a movie and everyone knew it would be a hit.

It wasn’t. There were problems from the first day of shooting and when the movie came out it bombed in the box office. Simply put, it wasn’t a well made movie. It was so bad that Julie Salamon wrote a book about it called The Devil’s Candy. In speaking with everyone from the actors to the technicians to the studio executives she learned something fascinating: nearly everyone had a bad feeling about the making of the movie. But they were afraid to say anything because they thought “everyone else was right.” Now it’s a Hollywood movie, not some horrific tragedy, but the point is well taken. Had someone shown the courage to say something, perhaps some changes could have been made. But nobody did.

I believe these events, on a smaller scale, happen all the time. We find ourselves in meetings at work where personnel decisions are being made and we feel it will unjustly affect a person or group who isn’t there. Do we say something? We belong to an apartment co-op that is going through applications for a vacancy and we notice that a couple is discounted because they are gay. Do we call it out? We are with a group of friends and someone tells an offensive joke. Do we challenge it? These are hard calls and it’s always easier to hide. But we can’t read these readings without recognizing that if we have a voice we have a responsibility.

At some point in our lives I think all of us have heard the phrase: “So you’re right and everyone else is wrong.” Perhaps sometimes the call of prophecy requires us to say: “Yes.”