Our prophetic voice?

Texts: Isaiah 49: 8-16; Psalm 131

It doesn’t matter the time or the place. It doesn’t matter how old or how young. It is a deeply challenging thing to be a prophet … to faithfully speak with a prophetic voice.

It’s the role of a prophet to confront … to expose injustice, to critique the unethical conduct of his or her own people … to call a spade a spade in an atmosphere where no one really wants to hear it … where people are resigned, even committed to another version of reality.

There is as well another side to the prophet’s role that is no less challenging, and that is to speak an audacious word of hope into the darkness of despair … to announce a glorious possibility where there is no hint in sight of anything of the like.

Either way, it is often the prophet’s lot to be out of sync with the rest of the community. It makes for a lonely life … to say nothing of the wrestling that goes on with God, on whose behalf the prophet is called to speak.

Isaiah, whose voice we heard this morning, is one of those prophets. The setting is Babylon where the Hebrew people are in exile … and have been for several generations … long enough that any thought of ever going back home is not even a dream. Not only have they given up hope of home, they’re pretty sure God has given up on them. How else would they explain what’s happened to them?

That’s the thing about the experience of exile … it has a way of re-writing your story … re-defining who and whose you are. Cut off from home, living in a strange land, for survival if nothing else, you adapt … you adopt other ways, other rhythms, other expectations … and at some level you may even begin to make your peace with where you are, how it is.

What Marg read to us this morning are words wild with hope, with promise, with mercy, care … though we may not have heard them that way. It’s often the way -- if you don’t know the degree of desolation, the word of hope can hardly be heard for what it is.
But before we just set this passage aside, deciding it’s not for us, (we’re too far removed) I want to bring in the voice of another prophet this morning, who may well help us to hear in this passage from Isaiah God’s Word of Life.

You may have already heard this prophetic voice yourself 2 weeks ago when Imam Hassan Guillet delivered this message at the funeral for 3 of the six men who were shot while at prayer in that Quebec City mosque.  I want to read to you the full text of what he said to the people who filled the Quebec City convention centre for the funeral.

Listen to this … Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church …

We are here to celebrate Khaled, Aboubaker, Abdelkrim, Azzedine, Mamadou, Ibrahima.
We are going to have a prayer for those who could not finish their prayers. We pray for them.
Those [who] didn't choose their place of birth.
I don't think anyone in this hall selected their place of birth. And no one on the face of this earth selected their place of birth.

But Khaled, Aboubaker, Abdelkrim, Azzedine, Mamadou and Ibrahima they selected the place they wanted to live in.
They selected the society they wanted to be their society.
They selected with whom they wanted their children to grow.
And it was Canada. It was Quebec. It was the city of Quebec in the same way they selected Quebec.
They chose Quebec to live in, and they chose the Canadian passport.
It is up to the society to choose them the same way they have chosen this society.

They had their dream to send their kids to school, to buy a house, to have a business and we have to continue their dreams. We have to continue their dreams the same way they extended their hands to the others. It is up to others to extend their hands toward them.
Now unfortunately, it is a little bit late. But not too late.
The society that could not protect them, the society that could not benefit from their generosity still has a chance. The hands that didn't shake the hands of Khaled or Aboubaker or Abdelkrim or Azzedine or Mamadou or Ibrahima, that society can shake the hands of their kids.
We have 17 orphans. We have six widows. We have five wounded.
We ask Allah for them to get them out of the hospital as soon as possible.

Did I go through the complete list of victims? No. There is one victim. None of us want talk about him. But given my age, I have the courage to say it. This victim, his name is Alexandre Bissonnette. Alexandre, before being a killer he was a victim himself.
Before planting his bullets in the heads of his victims, somebody planted ideas more dangerous than the bullets in his head.
This little kid didn't wake up in the morning and say 'Hey guys instead of going to have a picnic or watching the Canadiens, I will go kill some people in the mosque.' It doesn't happen that way.
Day after day, week after week, month after month, certain politicians unfortunately, and certain reporters unfortunately, and certain media were poisoning our atmosphere.
We did not want to see it. We didn't want to see it because we love this country, we love this society. We wanted our to society to be perfect. We were like parents, their kids [are] smoking or taking drugs and your neighbour says that your kid was taking drugs, I don't believe it, my son is perfect.
We don't want to see it. And we didn't see it, and it happened.

Actually here my friends in Quebec, you know a couple of months ago, a certain period of time ago, someone came and put a head of a pig in front of the mosque.
The [person] responsible for the mosque they said 'No, it was an isolated act.' Nobody is against us and we aren't against anybody. They acted very generously and I am proud of them and this is what it should be.
But there was a certain malaise. Let us face it. Alexandre Bissonnette didn't start from a vacuum. For political reasons, and what is happening the Middle East and unfortunately, for ignorance, a lot of things happened.
This guy was empoisoned. But we want Alexandre to be the last one to have a criminal act like that. We want to stop it. One of the definitions of madness is to do exactly the same thing and expect a different result.
If we do exactly the same thing, my friends, we will have exactly the same result. Are we happy with the result? Are we happy with six dead, five wounded, 17 orphans, six widows and a destroyed family which is the family of Alexandre Bissonnette and maybe his friends too?
We don't want that. So let us change. I am getting encouraged with what we have heard from our Prime Minister and Premier, from our mayor yesterday, from a lot of our leaders, I am very proud and I thank them, and I am not surprised.
But all I am saying, we should start changing words into actions. We should build on this tragedy.
God gave us a lemon, let's make lemonade out of that. Let's make lemonade. Let's build on this negative and have a positive.
Let's go from today to be a real society, united. The same way we are united today in our sorrow and in our pain, let us start today to be united in our dreams, our hopes and our plans for the future.
Let the future that our friends planned for their kids, let us build this future ourselves too. In this way we will respect their memory. Revenge will do nothing.

Like I said in Arabic, our prophet was persecuted, thrown out of his town. He was alone. Eight years after that he came back to this town with 10,000 people.
Less than two years after that, when he did the last pilgrimages in life, he was accompanied with 120,000 people. From where did these 120,000 people come from in a period of 10 years?
Not from the planet Mars. Not from another universe. It was the same people who were his enemies. The people who wanted to kill him. The people who were persecuting him and his friends and his sympathizers.

He transformed his enemies into his friends, into his followers. Now we don't have enemies. I repeat we don't have enemies. We have some people who don't know us. It should be easier to explain to these people who do not know us, it is easier to let them know who we are.
Mr. Trudeau let me address you, you have your immigration minister here. He is Muslim like me. Is he different than the others? I don't think so.
We are citizens like every other citizens. We have the same rights and we have the same obligations. We should build this country together.
In this way, we respect the memory of our dead. In this way, we take care of our orphans, in this way we will be good Muslims, we will be good Canadians, we will be good Quebecers.”
- Imam Hassan Guillet

You can hear it, in this case, can’t you?… words wild with hope, with promise, with mercy, care -- the expression of understanding for Alexandre … compassion for his family and friends … the vision of friendship arising out of hatred: “we don’t have enemies; we have some people who don’t know us; we should build this country together.”

When you know more closely the degree of devastation, such words can be heard for what they are … divine! And healing. Healing in such a way that calls us home … home to that place of well-being where all are cherished that we may have given up of ever hoping for or seeing again. I hear this Imam speak and I can’t help but realize we are among the exiled … being given to taste and see a way forward … a vision of home forged through connection … through knowing … becoming neighbours to each other -- with all the care and sacrifice and satisfaction that entails.

Having lived close to the US border in Manitoba, and in the dead of winter, I’ve been especially mindful of the people of Emerson these days since hearing about the women and men and children who have walked across the border into Canada, trudging their way through the snow … seeking safety, mercy, food and shelter.  It’s those people that I see when I hear the prophet Isaiah announcing:

Thus says the Lord: in a time of favour I have answered you;
on a day of salvation I have helped you;
I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people, saying to the prisoners, “Come out,”
to those who are in darkness, “show yourselves.”
They shall feed along the ways, on all the bare heights shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down, for the one who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them.
Lo these shall come from far away …
Sing for joy O heaven, and exult, O earth;
break forth, O mountains, into singing!
For the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on her suffering ones.”

Now can you hear those words for what they are? … words wild with hope, with promise, with mercy, care.

What if these prophetic words aren’t simply uttered for us to hear.
What if they are ours to speak?
What if we are the prophetic voice called not only to announce words of hope and promise, mercy and care … but to do everything in our power to ensure a safe passage, homecoming, to be the bearers of God’s comfort and compassion to the suffering ones.

What if we are called to be that prophetic voice?