Prophets and Honor

Gospel: Mark 6: 1-6

Jesus experiences in his hometown what all prophets encounter in their vocation: rejection, alienation, and eventually execution and death.  The prophet carries with them a message that is of its very nature countercultural and unpopular.  Prophets are not sent to foretell the future; the future is a natural outcome and consequence of present activities and events.  

Prophets have as their mission the calling back of people to right relationship with God and with others.  It is a call to be faithful to the original covenant we made with God, the call to love and justice.  By its very nature this calling back is also a call to repentance, for we have all sinned in our relationship with God and others.  It is also a call, in accepting God's mercy, to extend this mercy outward toward others through deeds of love and care for people of all types and places without distinction or discrimination.  

This call of the prophet rubs against our ego, self-interest, and biases.  We come to realize that if we accept this call of the prophet that it has implications for the way we live and how we order our societies.  We find it much easier to kill the prophet rather than to initiate the change needed within us and within society itself.  Can we break this cycle? Today God calls us once again to return - to accept his mercy and extend that mercy outward to others.