Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation

From the Center for Action and Contemplation

Week Four: Jesus as Prophet

Prophecy Is Love Manifested

In a teaching for the CAC’s Living School, Dr. Barbara Holmes invites the students to reflect on Jesus’ prophetic tasks:

What did Jesus the prophet do? As a prophet, Jesus performed miracles, exercised authority over nature and spiritual entities, walked on water, turned water into wine. As a prophet, Jesus healed. As a prophet, Jesus fed the hungry. As a prophet, Jesus taught prophetically.… He sat at the feet of elders, but he also taught with his heart: hearing the whispers of the Holy Spirit and allowing it to speak through him. You know teaching, if not anointed, is just the ego strutting and repeating information. Teaching prophetically goes beyond facts and material, and it reaches into the unutterable and allows silence and Spirit to do the teaching.

Jesus also exercised spiritual gifts.… Prophecy is a spiritual gift. Paul wrote about the gift of prophecy in his letter to the Romans. And he said, “We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us … prophecy in proportion to faith” (Romans 12:6). And although prophecy is mentioned more than any other gift in the Bible, it’s also stated that prophecy will pass away, and the only thing left will be love.…

Prophecy comes to life as love. Jesus the prophet is love manifested. We also can be love manifested in the world.…

As Christians, Jesus is the prophet who guides us. And this is what I want to share with you. You don’t have to eat locusts [John the Baptist] or lay on your side in rags [Ezekiel]. Perhaps all it requires is the willingness to offer your life “a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God” [Romans 12:1]. All we have to do is recognize that the time has come to make full use of our gifts, that we are the embodiment of a new order. We’re following the example set by the prophet Jesus. During his time, Jesus was the embodiment of a new order, he was a fulfillment of the prophecy of those who had gone before.…

Because Jesus has come and truly overturned and overcome the systems of the world, he beckons us to do likewise. You see, the system says, “It can’t be done. You cannot walk on water. Gravity wins.” The system says that “religion is of no use except to placate the people, and you’d better put your money in growth mutual funds.” Jesus says there’s another way, the prophetic way, and even now Jesus beckons, saying, “Step out on the water, come.” 

Now, you may be thinking, “How am I going to walk on water? I don’t even know how to swim.” Well, we offer our gifts to God and our neighbors, that’s how we walk on water. Your gift may be prayer or art or business or teaching, but the prophetic call will hone your gifts so that your very lives are a prophetic witness to the world.

Adapted from Barbara A. Holmes, “We Shall Also Be Prophets,” July 2022, CAC Living School curriculum. Unpublished material.

Image: A path from one week to the next—Benjamin Yazza, Untitled 8, 13, and 7. Used with permission. Click here to enlarge image. 

Jesus used the mystery and variety of the natural world to teach us.

Story From Our Community

As a fallen away Catholic, I read the Daily Meditations seeking the lost intimacy I once felt with God. This morning I understood, for the first time, the true value of the Incarnation. The miraculous idea that Jesus (and all of us) became fully human through Mary’s conception eluded me until today’s reading. I have been asking for God’s light to wake me and this morning, s/he truly did! —Roberta H.
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