Existentialist, Prophetic, Muppets

I have been thinking a lot lately about prophetic ministry. As I was ruminating a bit last week, a line from the humblist of 20th century Existentialist philosophers, Kermit the Frog, emerged from my subconscious.

Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection
the lovers, the dreamers, and me

When those of us from the Abrahamic faiths think of rainbows we often think of the Flood Epic from Genesis. Noah himself is rarely considered a prophet, but it is a story of God creating a new alternative community from that which existed. The rainbow is a particular reminder that God will never recreate the community that way again. From that point on in scripture, God always recreates the community in and through people not through divine war upon creation. It is the task of the prophet to articulate this new community.

Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann writes in his book The Prophetic Imagination"The task of prophetic ministry is to nuture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us." It was upon this idea that Kermit emerged in my head. To do this, to evoke an alternative community it requires love, dreams, and me.

It requires a love that emerges from love of self and the realization that the best way to love one's self is to love God. Furthermore the best way to love God is to love one's neighbor.

It requires dreams because if we aren't free to imagine, if we can not visualize within ourselves the new creation then we can never begin to articulate it to others.

It requires me, that is to say action. We must act within the world, within history. We can not wait for the "pie in the sky, by and by". We must engage the powers that be through love to shape a community that works for all.

Thanks Kermit