Call for justice and good governance

What is the role of a prophet?
Irrespective of common understanding, true prophets are not in the business of foretelling the future nor are they in the business of moralising or being overly spiritual or religious.

The primary role of a prophet is to speak the truth and call for justice, to do it especially to those in power and do it in season and especially out of season.  In this respect, modern thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber or Karl Marx got it in my opinion wrong when they theorized about origins of slavish morality, religion of the suppressed and postulated biblical religion as an spiritual/religious escape of downtrodden and underprivileged.

I believe that thought-provoking German egyptologist and anthropologist Jan Assmann got it right when he maintained that the biblical call for justice actually originated in the Ancient Near Eastern wisdom tradition. He is right to trace the call for justice to the ideal of a wise ruler. I myself can provide examples from the area of my intellectual interest - pre-biblical Ugaritic literature (in this case the epics of Keret and Aqhat). 

The prophetic (and generally Biblical) call for political and social justice, for protection of the vulnerable, poor and the weak, was not and is not a religiously cloaked whining from the "losers" of the world. From time immemorial, it has been a well established and age tested rule of good governance.

Exploitation of the poor and tax cuts for the rich is shortsighted and eventually self defeating. The growing social gap within the society and the neglect of the vulnerable in the end does not serve anyone--not even powerful and rich. Plutocracy combined with egotism and nepotism are like an aggressive corrosion, they have the potential to take down the whole societal structure including the rich and powerful.

Come this Sunday and hear a biblical prophet calling for justice and telling the truth to those in power! On this World communion Sunday catch glimpses and celebrate sparks of something different, something harmonious, something arriving, something of hope.

Cuneiform tablet of the Epos of Aqhat from Ugarit KTU 1.19.
Louvre Museum.