The Jesse Tree: Tears – How to Build a Prophetic Imagination

Advent 2021 – The Jesse Tree

This is a series of reflections on daily readings designed for families during the season of Advent.  

Activist and new monastic Shane Clairborne writes in his book, Irresistible Revolution, “Protesters are everywhere, but I think the world is desperately in need of prophets, those little voices that can point us toward another future. …Whether in the church or in circles of social dissent, there are plenty of people who define themselves by what they are not, whose identity revolves around what they are against rather than what they are for.

Protesters are still on the fringe like satellites, revolving around the system.  But prophets and poets lead us into a new world, beyond simply yelling at the old one.”

In the fifteen years since Shane penned these words our need for prophets has only intensified.  We need people with the prophetic imagination to envision what a healthy, just, and humane culture might look like.  In a context of deconstruction, we need prophets with vision to build and plant for the future.  In the midst of dehumanization, we need prophets with vision of a beloved community.  In the midst of destructive and self-serving lies, we need prophets committed to confronting uncomfortable truth.  

Where might such a prophetic vocation start?     

Day Eighteen – Tears: Jeremiah 9:1-24

Jeremiah’s vision begins in tears.  “Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears!  I would weep day and night for the slain of my people.”  Jeremiah is not content to watch his culture disintegrate from a safe critical distance.  He does not use his prophetic insight or poetic ability to create distance between himself and the stubborn and rebellious people he’s called to.  Instead, Jeremiah weeps for his people, longing for their freedom, healing, and restoration, even as it becomes abundantly clear that judgment, death, and exile await them.  

This lack of schadenfreude is compelling.  Sadly, some would-be prophets in our world seem a little too keen to eviscerate opponents rather than weep for them.  The problem with such an approach is not that it lacks truth.  Our culture, like Jeremiah’s, is full of dehumanizing practices, economic exploitation, greed, envy, licentiousness, and idolatry.  To pretend that everything is ok is to collude with death.  It’s good and right for visionaries to confront evil in all its personal, relational, and systemic forms.  

Still, if our prophetic vision does not begin in tears, in empathy, we won’t be able to envision a truly better future.  Dan Jensen, who teaches innovation at the Air Force Academy, says, “All great innovation begins in an exercise of deep empathy.”  He’s right.  Perhaps that’s why we need weeping prophets, like Jeremiah, and like Shane, to show us how another way is possible.   

Can you think of a time that deep empathy led you to discover a creative solution to a difficult problem?  What was that like?