In the biblical narrative, priests and prophets are more chalk and cheese than birds of a feather. Priests are members of the establishment structure. They tend the flock, defend tradition, sustain the life of the community, sort out disputes, punish offenders, and maintain law and order.
Prophets are loners. Or better, they give voice to the alternative imagination of a sub-community within the mainstream. Prophetic speech is critical of the official language of power. Prophetic actions are deliberately out of step with the dominant political and religious arrangements. Both are designed to provoke.
In word and deed, prophets give ‘human utterance to holy word’, to use a phrase of Walter Brueggemann’s. By holy word Brueggemann means a word from God. The prophet’s speech does not arise from the endless easy-speak of the palace or temple or marketplace. Its source lies ‘beyond’ this world. Yet it has a knack of being directed into the heart of the political and economic life of the community. It makes imaginable an alternative social reality against the taken-for-granted world of dominant rule.
For this reason prophets don’t make old bones. Or if they do, it is often in uncomfortable circumstances. Those who call the shots are never happy with a voice that presumes to speak a truth beyond their control and against their interests. So the prophet’s ‘letters and papers’ often bear the post mark of prison or exile. Jeremiah and Paul in the ancient world, Bonhoeffer and Mandela in the modern.
Occasionally, prophets move to become priests, and priests move to become prophets. Moses the vagabond prophet became Moses the priest/leader of a nation. Saul the establishment Pharisee went the other way. After his Damascus road encounter, he became Paul the prophetic herald of a breakaway faith. Both actions had radical consequences.
The move of Peter Garrett (no relation) from radical activist to star Labor candidate for the up-and-coming election has the feel of a ‘prophet to priest’ transformation. For years, Garrett’s voice in word and song has come from the edge. He gave powerful utterance to the aspirations of a sub-group within the Australian community—a diverse, scattered, yet identifiable group—concerned with weapons of mass destruction and American bases on Australian soil; with ecological damage and organised greed on a global scale which makes it possible; with the logging of old growth forests and the anguish of refugees. His has been a prophetic vision.
So what