On the Artist and the Prophet:

I've been reading the book Jesus For President of late.
I found this excerpt, and thought of something a friend said recently- that they believe all artists to have gifts of the prophetic.

(It's important we define prophecy as "God speaking revelations through man", as opposed to man seeing the future-a big difference)

So I read this, and realised just how close to the modern conception of 'the artist' the prophets are. From the poetry of their prophecy, to what would be considered, today, as Avant-garde Performance Art:

"While we are taught history mostly through the lives of kings and presidents, God tells history through the lives of the prophets. The prophets can make and unmake kings. Sometimes they have enormous popular support, and sometimes they are voices in the wilderness. But they are the voice of God whether or not the people listen. They speak regardless. And they speak recklessly. They have a profound sensitivity to evil as well as to good. God's fire and love rage though the lips of the prophets. Rabbi Abraham Heschel puts it like this:
"To us a single act of injustice--cheating in business, exploitation of the poor--is slight; to the prophets, a disaster. To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence; to us, an episode to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world".³After all, a lot is at stake, and sometimes it takes just one voice to interrupt the pattern of injustice.
The prophets are weird. They set themselves apart from the normalcy of civilization and its pattern of destruction and war. Their vocation is to interrupt the status quo. They are set apart as a sign for all of Israel that they too are to be unlike the nations. The biblical prophets were always doing wild things--stunts, pranks, and miracles that exposed and unveiled truth. Moses turned a staff into a snake. Elijah hit a rock and fire came out if it, and he brought down fire on an alter. Jeremiah wore a yoke to symbolize imperial captivity. (He was eventually arrested.) John the Baptist ate locusts and made clothes out of camel skin. They stripped naked, ate scrolls, wore sackcloth, and lay on the ground outside of the city gates. Ezekiel bulled off a protest in the nude and staged a prophetic stunt that involved cooking with poop (and not to win money on a reality show). Yes, the prophets are weird. It can embarrass us to read of their antics, but what they do is not nearly as embarrassing as the things we do, which their actions expose so we can see that another future is possible. 

³ Abraham Herschel, The Prophets, 5th ed. (Peabody, MA: Prince Press. 2003). 4."

Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw, Jesus For President, (Zondervan, Grand Rapids. 2008). 40-41. 

 I could unpack and examine the comparison between Prophet and Artist... but I trust in your intelligence.

Godspeed,
Derick.