It’s dangerous to be a prophet. It’s dangerous because nobody wants to really hear the truth. Both Jeremiah and Saint John the Baptist find that out very clearly in today’s Scripture readings. Both of them insisted on proclaiming the truth, and both of them ultimately paid for it with their lives, although Jeremiah was protected in today’s first reading.
The thing we need to take with us this morning is that we are all called to be prophets. We are all called to speak the truth. And usually that truth won’t be welcome. But we have to be people of integrity and say what the Lord puts on our hearts. Maybe it will be received and maybe it won’t, but we will have at least fulfilled the call we received at baptism when we, like our Lord, were anointed as priest, prophet and king.
It may be difficult to speak the truth, but God is faithful. If we do what he asks us to do, he will walk with us and never leave us alone. Being prophets is a dangerous business, but as the Psalmist tells us today, “For the LORD hears the poor, and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”