“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
A prophetic appeal to contrition and mercy always awaits a response.
Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde`s closing words of her sermon in the Washington National Cathedral, the day after the inauguration of President Trump, bear resemblance to words of a particular Old Testament prophet.
Budde emphasized the importance of dignity, honesty, and humility in the pursuit of a leadership of unity, and ended with a direct appeal to Trump, exhorting him to have mercy upon children in LGBTQ+ families and migrant families. The bishop reminded the president that “our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land.”
In a time of great unrest for many, both in the US and beyond, some found her words to be deeply prophetic. However, the resentful response of the president, who declared that the bishop was “nasty in tone, and not compelling and smart,” presents the audience with a dilemma when assessing the nature of prophetic speech:
How important is the reception of a prophetic message if we are to evaluate its effect or “success”?
Prophetic speech as aporia
Traditionally, the Old Testament prophetic address often contained a call to repentance and renewal and an explicit or implicit critique of the reigning authorities. The responses from kings and rulers to the call of the Old Testament prophets were—to put it mildly—varied. However, as the prophetic message issues a verdict of past events or the current situation (or both), it always requires a response.
In terms of genre, such a prophetic message is a sort of forensic executioner speech, where the crux lies in the verdict, as the verdict is fundamentally open. It is an aporia—a puzzle or conundrum—that awaits a reaction.
A prophetic message is therefore aporetic as it urges the audience to rethink the evaluation of the current situation in the light of God’s spoken word: “In the name of our God, I urge you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.”
French philosopher Jaques Derrida has applied the use of the term “aporia” to describe paradoxical or unanswerable questions that force you to think differently. The central question then becomes: How should a prophetic message force the key audience to think and act differently?
Prophetic speech as parable: You are the man!
In the second book of Samuel, chapter 12, we read the story of the prophet Nathan who approaches King David after he committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband, Uriah the Hittite, killed.
Nathan starts by telling David a very moving story, a parable about two men—one rich and the other poor. The rich man had large numbers of sheep and cattle, but the poor man only had a little lamb. The lamb was like a daughter to the poor man, sharing his food, drinking from his cup, and even sleeping in his arms. When a traveler came to the rich man, the rich man took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man—not one of his own lambs—and prepared a meal for the traveler.
The story made David burn with anger, and he said to Nathan, “As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die!”
Then Nathan turned to David and said, “You are the man!”
In her direct appeal to President Trump, Bishop Budde reminded the president that he had told the nation that he had “felt the providential hand of a loving God.” Budde’s sermon indirectly echoes the Old Testament prophet’s brisk response: “You are the man.”
However, the response was quite different. Budde’s plea for mercy did not seem to force Trump to think or act differently. Ironically, the inherent aporia of the parable proved more effective than the straightforward appeal to mercy.
We will not pause here for a speculative intermezzo—a comparative analysis of personality traits between ancient kings and current presidents. Rather, the critical and creative questions should be asked:
- What sort of parable could have moved the mind and heart of a president to think and act differently?
- What paradoxical questions and puzzles could be molded into a prophetic parable that would have forced a response—preferably one of contrition, repentance, and a change of action?
The art of persuasion
What makes a prophetic speech effective or successful? From a rhetorical perspective, it comes down to credibility and the power of persuasion. The answer is, therefore, that it depends.
The effect or success of a prophetic message is not to be decided by popular vote, nor by presidential executive orders. But the aim is still to persuade. For a prophetic speech to be persuasive, it is key to acknowledge the aporetic nature of the speech, where the purpose is to make the key audience think and act differently.
The most powerful way to change the hearts and minds of people is usually through stories. Therefore, any prophetic appeal that awaits a response is best found in the prophetic imagination sparked by aporetic tales.
In other words, tomorrow`s prophecy is a parable waiting to be told.