Mhosen Mahdawi (above), a leader of the anti-genocide protests at Columbia U. and also leader of the student Buddhist association, was released from two weeks of ICE detention in Vermont last week. Fortunately, his detainers missed the flight to Louisiana or the rapid action of his lawyers  might have been foiled.

Mahdawi has a reputation as a peacemaker, but he is not shy about speaking the truth, as any prophet would not be. Upon release, he had a simple word for President Trump from the courthouse steps. “I am saying it clear and loud. To President Trump and his Cabinet: I am not afraid of you.”

Buddhists, Jews, Palestinian Muslims and Christians, amoral “nones” and atheists, Evangelicals and Episcopalians all have some prophet in them, some more than others. Some of us are braver, but most of us feel compelled to tell the truth about situations that go against goodness and trample love. When the psychopath president and his abuse victims in the cabinet (at least according to Ann Coulter) say the defenders of the Gazans should be punished, the prophets keep talking anyway.

Afraid to be a protester

In the face of the terrible things the U.S. government is doing, a lot of people are finding their inner prophet, just like Mhosen Mahdawi. But most of us are still standing back and considering the costs.

The other day we were at the huge, union-sponsored protest “For the workers, not the billionaires” and heard Bernie Sanders rouse the crowd to action [PhillyCam]. Part of the  crowd was teargassed and over 70 people were arrested when they blocked 676  during rush hour, trying to get people to hear their prophecy: the nation belongs to everyone, not just the one percent. Some protesters wore their Palestinian regalia but covered their faces, since they are not sure what the government is capable of doing. Other faces. particularly brown ones, were not present at all, because they are rather sure what the government can do.

I don’t find it easy to go to protests. Last week, I had to navigate SEPTA, stand in the sun with a bunch of strangers, and deal with a strange counter-protester sitting on a statue. I also had to feel the absence of many people I know, Christians, in particular. Not only do they not see the value in protesting, they are somehow not paying attention to what is going on, or they don’t think anything is happening to them, so they are exempt from making anything happen.

I see it as part of my Christian duty to tell the truth, especially when the rulers are evil. So I find ways to lift my voice. I have been scared before. But I try not to let fear dull my conscience too much.

We’ve all got a prophet in us

If you follow Jesus, you have a voice. You have the inborn capacity to be a prophet. That’s how I read the Bible. And the Bible influences how I live my life.

Paul sent a one-liner about prophets back to his church plant in Thessalonica. I think we need to read it in a deeper way. He said, “Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast to what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21).

I think most of us read that passage as if someone else is one of those weird, prophet types and we should at least listen to them in a discerning way. But I also think Paul is telling us not to despise the prophecy in ourselves. Each of us is testing everything according to the Spirit of God, who is in us and with us every day. We know what is good, and we need to hold on to it and hold it out like the light of the world we are.

Paul gets into this a bit more in 1 Corinthians 12. Part of the reason the protest leaders on May Day kept saying “When we are united across all our organizations, we are powerful” is not only common sense, it is part of the Christian influence on the United States. When Paul writes to the church in Corinth, he celebrates how we are all unique in our giftedness and in our value, and at the same time we are all part of a glorious whole. He says this in a variety of ways, but he starts off with, “There are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit” (v. 4).

At the end of his chapter, before he moves on to highlight the love that is the deepest part of all expressions of the Spirit, Paul says, “God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers” (v. 28) then goes on with his list. You may have a high opinion of apostles and prophets, the tag-team of authentic Christian community leaders, so you might relate more to “teachers.” You may have children, or you might have helped someone develop their jump shot. You can imagine being a teacher. I say, as surely as you can teach, when called upon, you can prophesy. Now we are being called upon to prophesy. You may not be a gifted prophet like Bernie Sanders, but you have the same Spirit living in you that motivates a prophet. At some point, you are likely to be called on to exercise what you are given.

For the Christian, I think the protests should mainly be about speaking the truth in love, like  Mhosen Mahdawi has been trying to do. Love is at the heart of our prophesy. And our present leaders do not have love as their measure of how to govern, as far as I can tell. They are deadly and need to be stopped. I need to tell them to stop.

There is always danger

When there is trouble in the land, most people run for cover; they don’t automatically put their faces in places a drone is filming. Being a prophet inevitably causes trouble. John Lewis called his prophetic work “good trouble.” It is not just trouble for the evil doers, it is trouble for the prophet.

As the New Testament writers look back over Old Testament history, they find themselves in a long line of people who have been persecuted. When Jesus lists the marks of the new humanity he is creating in the Beatitudes, he ends with: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Prophets always face danger. It boils down to two main things: 1) rejection of themselves and their message, and 2) violence.

• Elijah was ridiculed. The king told Amos to be quiet. Jeremiah got the stone face and was imprisoned under false charges. Micah was rejected — that’s always the prophet’s problem; we like being ourselves but not being rejected.
• Jeremiah was struck and placed in the stocks. The king slapped Micaiah in the face. The king and queen threatened Elijah with death and he fled into the wilderness. The king had Zechariah stoned. The king imprisoned Hanani. Uriah fled to Egypt where the king’s men found him and brought his back to be killed. John the Baptist was killed.

You may not get overtly rejected, beaten or killed. But you will likely be afraid of what might happen to you if you keep speaking the truth about the rulers in love — especially now that bullies run the government and they don’t care about the laws.

Old advice for a new prophet

If you are going to raise your voice along with the rest of us, on the street or wherever you get a chance, these basics might help you be a light in the darkness.

Difficulties with other people are normal.
Good troublemakers are still troublemakers. A prophet has to face being despised by priests and other “professionals,” being opposed by false prophets, and being rejected by familiar friends, even their own family.

We need to be grounded in discernment and compassion to handle God’s prophetic word.
A prophet must speak what God has given– not water down the message to make it more acceptable, must be aligned with previous revelation (like the Bible), must be prepared to bring the same message over and over again, and must let love rule what they say and do.

You will struggle with you own thoughts and feelings.
A prophet must be patient and wait confidently for the fulfilment of God’s prophetic word. They must allow critics to call them “traitors” to their country, their party, their clan, or their church, trusting God to vindicate them. They must accept the fact that they will be isolated as abnormal and disruptive and continue even though they torment their hearers.

A prophet is a blessing
A prophet must follow Paul’s teaching to “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Rom. 12). We can know that Christ is with us, because persecution is one of those things which cannot separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8). You’re trying to do some good, not just call out bad people.

You are rising from the dead
In troubled and perilous times, when all we have left is to exercise the rights they are trying to erase and the convictions they are trying to pervert, we must “love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us” as Jesus has taught us (Matt. 5).

A prophet must expect the same treatment Jesus received: “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you” (John 15). But we must also expect to live in newness of life when we are taking to the streets. I think I share quite a few convictions with Mhosen Mahdawi, the AFL-CIO, Bernie Sanders, and the protester in D.C. with that great sign I am still singing with Mary  Poppins: super callous fragile racist sexist nazi potus. As angry as people are, protests are usually joyful — we’re trying to make something better together! It is encouraging to be so alive!

I want the U.S. to be a safe and loving place for everyone. I want real justice under good laws. But when I get into the street, I’m mostly motivated like Paul as he wrote in his letter to the Philippians (chap. 3):

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me.

If the light in us is dark, how great the darkness!