Blood spots upon the ground - a young boy is set alight in a school playground -they prefer darkness to light
Blood spots upon the ground - a young woman is raped as she walks to her home - those who do wrong hate the light
Blood spots upon the ground - a government decides to cut vital welfare spending which is passed without protest - they avoid the light that their actions be not exposed
Blood spots upon the ground - protesters jailed - they laughed at God's prophets.

The symbol chosen for today's liturgy - blood spots upon the ground - is a stark symbol ,it is a symbol which cuts through into our consciousness, a symbol which we would prefer to silence, to hide away in hospitals or to glamorise on movie screens. In its actuality, however, it is a symbol which touches into the deep recesses of the being of each one of us. It is a symbol of our very life itself and its being poured out on the ground points to our finitude and our light grasp on life. It is the symbol which I wish to take today to lead us into an exploration of the prophetic role of Jesus and of disciples of this prophet.

The readings of today's liturgy offer us the opportunity for rich reflection on this theme-the first reading sets up the models of the priestly and prophetic traditions in Israel giving us insight into the prophetic task of interpreting socio-political, cultural and religious realities in a way which makes space for the newness of God to continually break through rather than allowing ritual sameness to dull our senses; the psalm gives voice to lament, the cry of pain that can become the cry of possibility; and the gospel enables us to hear the voice of the prophet Jesus and Jesus' invitation to those who believe in him to be prophets of the light. I will weave in and out of these three readings to explore with you prophetic ministry within the Jewish and Christian tradition, the prophetic ministry of Jesus and the prophetic ministry that being christian can call us to in the realities of our lives today.

I do this because I believe that our scriptures provide us with a model of or process for making meaning of our lives in relation to the Jesus who has gone before us but whom we believe is with us as we seek to live good lives that are God-filled lives, God directed lives. Our prophetic task today is making life-giving meaning of our lives and living that meaning in ways that neither Jesus nor Nicodemus, nor the psalmist or the chronicler could ever have imagined. They did not face the setting alight of a small boy in the supposed safety of his schoolyard; or the daily rape of women and young girls in their homes or on the streets of their cities. They faced different daily realities in their homes, on their streets, in their political structures and their religious institutions and they sought to interpret these in the light of a vision that was of God, of Jesus, and then to live in new ways. Their interpretations, their reflections on their life experiences as preserved in our scriptures let us see the two-fold prophetic task of critiqueing and if necessary dismantling the present in order to energise and re-imagine a new and life- giving future. [repeat]

The Chronicler in the first reading gives us a very clear insight into the prophetic ministry. The prophet is one who is attentive, who is not duped by the generally accepted interpretations of the way things are but who can see with critical eyes that are informed by a fidelity to a God-vision. The priestly tradition in Israel was the one which conserved Israel's self-understanding, its way of giving meaning to its life in ritual and Temple practice as well as in sacred stories and their interpretation. It was an important stream of tradition in that it gave continuity and stability to a people and its way of being in the world--God was with Israel in its temple and temple worship, in its holy city and in its possession of the land. The priestly tradition continues for us today in our celebration of the eucharist in memory of Jesus, our building of churches as places that represent Cod's presence among us, and our belief in a church leadership that interprets God's vision for us.
Such continuity, however, can dull the religious consciousness, can lull a people into complacency and even empty religion of any real meaning-making that touches our lives. The chronicler of the first reading tells us that that was so in Israel prior to the exile. The people and their priests were not attentive to the world in which they lived nor to those who sought to interpret what was happening in their world in the light of their sacred story - they ridiculed God's messengers and laughed at God's prophets. And what were those prophets saying:
Put not your trust in the deceitful words
'This is the temple of God! The temple of God! The temple of God!"
Only if you thoroughly reform your ways and your deeds; if each of you deals justly with your neighbour; if you no longer oppress the resident alien, the orphan, and the widow; if you no longer shed innocent blood in this place, or follow strange gods to your own harm, will I remain with you in this place, in the land which I gave your ancestors long ago and forever. [Jer 7:4)

The prophet dared to suggest that God might depart the temple, might forsake the land despite an ancient promise if the way the people lived in their world was not according to God's vision for humanity - if they continued to deal unjustly, to oppress, to shed innocent blood upon the ground. The prophet critiqued the religious tradition and its static claims to building, to land and even to presence of God with the challenge of lived justice.

How might this prophetic voice sound in our world:
Do not trust in deceitful words:
The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it! Behold I am with you always!
Only if you thoroughly reform your ways, working toward just land distribution among your indigenous brothers and sisters, making a place not only in your country but in your hearts for newcomers to this land,
letting your voice be heard when welfare to the most vulnerable is cut, taking action when your streets and school yards and even your homes are no longer safe places for children and for women and at times even for men, only then can I remain with this church as I promised, only then can I be present in your eucharist as I promised, and only if your leaders teach and live this way do they speak with my voice.

What would we do to someone who dared to stand up and say such words [and there are many such words one could say to us today] in our midst. Would we ridicule them, despise their words, laugh at them as the chronicler says that Israel did to God's messengers.

Today's symbol of blood spots upon the ground is a prophetic symbol that seeks to cut through our complacency to speak to our hearts, to awaken a new awareness behind our eyes. Its association with the stark cross at this point in the Lenten season is also prophetic and turns our attention to another prophet who did dare not just to speak but to act at another point in Israel's history, to speak to the people as Jeremiah did prior to the Exile. As communities of believers tried to given meaning to Jesus' life and ministry as well as his death and resurrection, they spoke of him as a prophet. His mission was interpreted by these later communities of believers in the way that the mission of the prophets' of old had been interpreted--Jesus was sent by God because of God's love for the world, God's grief at humanity's plight just as Jeremiah or Isaiah had been sent. John's community proclaims that "God loved the world so much as to send the Beloved One, so that everyone who believes may not. be lost…. God sent the Beloved One that the world might be saved."

The role of prophet is not an easy role. It is a role which calls for courage to speak out against the prevailing culture and religion's accommodation to that culture. It is a role which critiques and which calls for a dismantling of the way things are and hence the prophet is not acceptable to those whose positions of authority or power support the status quo nor to those whose lives are comfortable in the status quo. The prophet often needs to use symbols to cut through complacency to a new consciousness. Hence Jesus uses the symbol of darkness and light--can you stand in the light with all your actions and intentions revealed as true: what you do at home in relation to your parents, your partner or your children; what you do at work in relation to finance, to coworkers, to the effect of business decisions in the community; what you do in your social and political life. The bringing of the image of light, the spotlight onto all our intentions and actions by the prophetic word of Jesus makes us aware of the critical role of the prophet. It probably makes us uncomfortable also. The prophetic symbol which arises from the critical imagination of the prophet seeks to cut through to a deep level of religious consciousness dulled by culture and familiar religion. Prior to the section read in today's gospel Jesus also uses with Nicodemus the image of being born again, becoming a new, a different person. To be of God, to live one's life according to God's vision of fullness of life for all is to be in this state of becoming, of being open to see what is not of God in our life-context and to bring this to the attention of others both at the grass roots and in leadership in order that we might work together for change. The prophet does not just critique but energises toward a new future.

This was the way of Jesus the prophet. Jesus' ministry as it is told in the gospels [not just that of John but even more so in the synoptics] is a prophetic ministry. Within the religious and social context of Palestine of the first century, Jesus the prophet was not 'at home' and hence he speaks and acts out of this dislocation. He says to religious leaders--you teach as doctrines, human precepts and leave the commandments of God to hold fast to human traditions [Mk 7:7-8]; and to Nicodemus, who belonged among these leaders, that he must be born again. Jesus was found not in the temple or in the schools of the rabbis teaching for continuity, but on the streets, in the villages and the open fields with the lepers, the outcasts and the needy shaping a new community that was God-directed. He challenged people's lives--change, change your attitude, change your lifestyle and then you will be living according to God's vision. He gave new images to energise the work for change--the reign of God or God's vision is like a mustard seed, like a treasure hidden, like a sower sowing. Critiqueing the present and giving a vision for a new future was, therefore, a threat to the political power of Rome and to the religious powers in Israel who had learnt to accommodate Rome and themselves to it. And so he would be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, his blood shed upon the ground.

Those who belonged to the movement around Jesus sought to continue to live the prophetic life that Jesus had lived with and among them. They faced new and different situations as they went beyond Galilee and Judea into the wider Roman world. They had to interpret prophetic discipleship in their communities in ways that made them alien to much of the world around them and so they told the stories of Jesus in ways which would energise them to live according to God's vision as it had been given to them by Jesus. The way of the disciple was to be the way of Jesus, the prophetic way. They too were, therefore, aliens or exiles who were not at home in the dominating culture and who sought to change that culture as well as to live their held values.

As disciples of Jesus seeking to live this prophetic lifestyle you too may know the experience of alienation or exile. Parents may well attest to this as they try to create a home based on values of love, compassion, honesty, generosity and hospitality when so much around them in the media, in schools perhaps, in local communities and nationally values success at any price, ruthlessness to achieve one's goals, abuse of public trust and public resources. Young people who have made value choices for integrity of relationships, for valuing resources and using them responsibly, for compassion may find themselves struggling against a peer culture which is centred in the individual and his or her needs and desires as well as the pressure of group conformity. Women and men in the public work force who are committed to working with integrity, for a just wage, to making decisions for people's enhancement rather than profit, to establishing a society that services all will feel themselves alien in a culture which values profit and success to the detriment of many other values,

The task of the prophetic followers of Jesus, in the light of the symbols and the stories of today's liturgy, is one of being attentive and open to see how our culture and even the practice of our religious beliefs can lull us into what Walter Brueggemann calls a 'numbness' that simply accepts the way the world is and seeks to accommodate to it. Prophetic attentiveness alerts us to the symbols that can break through that numbness. They may be myriad and they will surprise us but we must be attentive to hear them. I myself had one such experience yesterday. I heard Maroochy Barambah, an aboriginal woman who is both a nationally and internationally renowned singer and artist sing and share a poem at the International Women's Day breakfast. She sang in traditional language and with a pain and passion which touched my own spirit which broke through my dullness and everydayness and made me aware of the divine, transcendent spirit of life that we share and which must inform our struggles for justice. I was touched toward a new level of consciousness by the prophetic voice that broke into my life and that called forth my prophetic attentiveness.

As disciples of the prophet Jesus, we may also be challenged to speak and to act for justice, for integrity, for compassion, for the God-vision and values which our believing community seeks to keep alive in memory of Jesus. We may need to take a stand in our family with spouse, with children, with parents, so that we are a community of faithful and prophetic discipleship attentive to our present and its values and using prophetic symbols to energise us toward a new future. We may need to take up prophetic discipleship in our churches and to speak out about injustice in relation to women, in relation to the use of resources, in relation to the exercise of authority and power as our prophetic attentiveness brings us to see that there are aspects of the life of our church which are not of God. We may need to speak or to act in the public arena when the values we have learned from our telling and living of the Jesus story seem to be abused--to write that letter, make that complaint, confront that abuse.

Prophetic discipleship of the prophet whose blood was spilt on the ground of Golgotha is not a comfortable lifestyle and nor is it one that call be undertaken alone. Jesus gathered a prophetic community around him and we need our own communities of prophetic discipleship, those who share the gospel vision of prophetic ministry [there are many who are happier to read the gospel in the priestly tradition], who will challenge us with the symbols and images that break through our complacency and with whom we can generate those symbols and images which will energise our living of the gospel into the future, You may find such communities in your parish context in small local groupings or among those with whom you share the vision and the challenge of the gospel. The blood upon the ground and the cross remind us of the cost of discipleship of Jesus the prophet. It renders us aliens who like the psalmist must lament the songs that we cannot sing in an alien land, we must enter into the darkness of the struggle that is symbolised in Friday and Saturday of Holy week. But blood shed can also be a symbol of life, poured out for another that the other may have life as each of us experienced in our very birth. We stay with the challenge of prophetic discipleship today but we do so knowing as one of my colleagues in the women's struggle says, struggle is the name of hope, just as blood poured out can be a sign of life.

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