To tell you the truth, you might not like him if you met him. Chances are you would not invite him for cocktails at the club or for dinner at home with some of your prestigious friends. The likelihood is your children would think him curious and your teenagers would scorn him as not worth an autograph. The tabloids might attempt to puff him up as an oddity or curiosity piece for the sake of profit. But the respectable newspapers might think the news he had was not fit to print. I speak, of course, of John the Baptist.

After a long silence in the unique and influential strain of biblical prophets, John the Baptist appeared in the sparsely settled Jordan River valley preaching a startling message of judgment and repentance. Ascetic, gaunt, austere, and uncompromising, he resembled the austere severity of the wilderness where he sounded forth his message which has rebounded through the corridors of history for twenty centuries. No street corner prophet this. No televangelist con artist, this prophet. No panderer after the sympathies of the rich and famous. No sycophant of the elite and powerful, this man. This man was a man of God -- fierce, unyielding, piercing, penetrating, forthright, and forceful.

He sought no coveted memberships in elite organizations. He asked no favor of those in power and never fawned over those with position. Instead, the rich and famous left the comforts of their homes and clubs to come to the Jordan wilderness to hear him.

He was a novelty to be sure, and even King Herod went to hear him, only to have his ears singed with fiery rebuke and his heart pierced through with the living word of God. John had his day with Herod; but, of course, Herod later had his day with John, beheading him, and presenting the head on a platter to jealous and fearful Herodias.

Politicians may hold a finger to the political winds to set the sails of their political fortunes for a political safe haven, but not prophets. Politicians may take opinion polls to ascertain the direction of the political parade so as to get in front of it to appear as leaders, but not prophets. Politicians may speak with a forked tongue and out of both sides of their mouths, but not prophets. They tell it like it is, like it or not. And we usually don't. That's why we scorn them, keep them in the wilderness or lock them up or kill them if they get too close.

Let's kill the prophet Elijah, said Queen Jezebel to King Ahab nine centuries before Christ. Go back down south and preach there, the high priest Amaziah told the lonely and rustic Amos seven and a half centuries before Christ. Throw Jeremiah in the cistern, said King Zedekiah six centuries before Christ, because he never says anything good about me. But that's because there was nothing good to say.

These prophets, these brave, lonely, powerful, penetrating prophets. We have a strange, reluctant admiration for them, even if we do ignore them, ostracize them, persecute them, even kill them. Yet we have to deal with them, especially John the Baptist, because they are always getting under our skin. Why is that?

I

For one thing, they criticize our background.

In 1970, my wife and I went to Australia, where we stayed for about three weeks. The magnet that drew us there was a World Church Convention as well as our interest in the country itself. We stayed in hotels in some places. But at other times we were privileged to stay with Australian citizens in their homes. And while in their homes, there was one thing we didn't do; we didn't inquire into their background. And why? Because, as many know, for a period of time Great Britain used Australia as a dumping ground for British criminals and other malcontents. Were you convicted in the British courts? Then it's either prison or Australia. Many had the good sense to choose Australia!

John the Baptist, knowing the background of many Australians, might have left them alone if they had the good sense to remain humble about themselves because of their background. But John knew most people didn't do that. He well knew that most people, in their anxiety of nothingness, and their craving for somethingness, begin to put undue pride in their background. They strive to develop a socially acceptable pedigree that will look good on the resume‚ and the club application. But God, says fearless John, is more concerned about fruits than roots. God is more interested in where you are going than where you came from. He is more focused on what contribution you are going to make to society than on whether you grew up in the right neighborhood with the right parents and right schools on your resume. If you are content to justify your life by bragging about your father and grandfather, God's prophet strips you of the family coat of arms and asks what you, in your time and place in history, will do for the kingdom of God. When it comes to faith and faithful living, God has no grandchildren. Each of us has to stand on our own.

Is it any wonder a lot of people wanted to see John dead? To the ancestrally elite and the religiously impeccable he was scathing. "You low-down, wriggling snake in the grass, who warned you to flee the wrath to come?" John knew there was nothing more obnoxious in the nostrils of God than puffy pride not only in ancestral lineage, but in religious heritage. That is why all of us handle John with fear and hear his message with trepidation. He gets under the skin of our conceit and pride -- powerfully.

II

Another reason prophets get under our skin is because they ask us to share our wealth. Oh, I know John's advice for a person with two tunics to share one of them with him who had none is simplistic. To be sure, even Jesus' advice to share a cup of cold water with the thirsty and some food and clothing with the needy sounds too easy in view of the crunching, grinding poverty so prevalent in much of today's world. However, both John and Jesus had something greater in mind than cleaning our closets of old clothes for the poor to make room for the new we bought at recent sales. Both were suggesting something far more sweeping than a few Thanksgiving turkeys and Easter hams for the hungry. Standing as both did in the rich and powerful prophetic tradition of Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, they were advocating basic economic reforms. They were advocating economic systems where the rich don't just get richer and richer and the poor get poorer and poorer and the middle classes get sucked toward the bottom again.

The grinding, wrenching poverty of the huge mass of humanity which overshadows the opulent splendor of the elitist few of Rio de Janeiro will someday erupt in violence and revolution unless basic reforms take place. The grinding, wrenching poverty of the seething huddled masses yearning to breathe free will continue to yield violence and bloodshed and warfare all over the world. Whether it is the poor of Northern Ireland, or the poor of Chiapas, Mexico, or the poor of India, or the poor Palestinians shoved into overcrowded refugee camps, or the poor of East Harlem, the prophets forever speak for those who crave a place in the sun to call their own -- a place where they can work with dignity and enjoy the fruits of their labors without harassment and exploitation.

And those of us who are rich and well-off and privileged don't like the sound of the prophetic words. And those of us in unions who rightly worry about our jobs with the new trade and tariff treaties don't like it. And those of us threatened with layoffs in our corporations because of downsizing or because of corporate moves to less developed but more economic countries don't like it.

But like it or not, these prophets get under our skin because they have a universal mission and an all-encompassing compassion which reaches beyond our ethnic group or business or union or nation. They know that in the long run economic reform must take place to enable the masses of poverty-stricken peoples of the world to share in the earth's fabulous wealth. There will never be peace on earth without it. There is more than enough wealth for everyone. The prophets get under our skin, challenging us, especially our business leaders, to find ways to share in earning it, working for it, and enjoying it before it is too late.

III

Another reason prophets get under our skin is because they ask the government not to extort with taxes. Under our skin, did you say? Hardly! Who could disagree with the prophets on this one? we might ask. Even if we didn't vote for Reagan a few years ago, we might have secretly resonated with his campaign promise to "get the government off our backs and out of our pockets." And most of us would agree with Justice Holmes, who said, "The power to tax is the power to kill." With the end of the year at hand, and April 15 not far behind, and with many of us paying thirty to forty percent of our income in taxes, we surely could cheer the prophets when they tell the I.R.S. not to extort through taxes.

And possibly those cheering the loudest would be those multi-millionaires Forbes magazine calls "The New Refugees." In a recent article (Nov. 21, 1994, p. 131), Forbes says that quite a number of rich Americans are renouncing their U.S. citizenship to live in places like the Bahamas and Bermuda where they are not taxed to death.

Francis Mirabello, a Philadelphia lawyer, spoke in Bermuda this fall at a conference regarding offshore money. He said, "I talk to a new client interested in expatriating every week. Many people can't pay the federal tax rate and live in the style they want." Some believe that what Judge Learned Hand called "enforced exactions" have come to be virtual confiscations, especially when it comes to estate taxes up to fifty to sixty percent. And, say Forbes authors Robert Lenzner and Phillippe Mao, "The exodus may speed up under an administration that campaigned for office on a tax-the-rich platform."

Their actions may sound, well, unpatriotic, but any political system which overtaxes the productive to redistribute to the non-productive may be heading for trouble. And any government which demeans incentive and creativity by excessive and burdensome taxation may be doomed to failure. Prophets have always been criticizing governments for exploitation. And they have been getting under the skin of the citizenship as well for high expectations of eternal entitlements. Yes, there may be only two certainties in life -- death and taxes. But too much of the latter by extortion will surely hasten the former.

IV

Lastly, the prophets get under our skin because they tell us not to depend too much on military might. This may sound like strange advice to a nation like ours, the world's only surviving superpower. Many would say the only reason we survived is due to superior military strength. World Wars I and II are testimonies of that. So is the Korean conflict, more or less. And of course, Vietnam is still up for grabs. Nonetheless, many militarists would claim the defense buildup under Reagan helped topple the Soviet Union and bring to an end the Cold War. Could be.

But look outside our borders to a nation like Iraq and a brutal madman like Saddam Hussein. He expends huge proportions of his gross national product on arms. He is enormously in debt for his military acquisitions. He expends the lives of his citizens as cavalierly as some would expend fleas. His own men and youth mean no more to him than expendable cannon fodder. And they either have to shoot at Hussein's enemies or his commanders will shoot them in the back.

Or consider the warlords of Somalia, or the tinhorn dictators of Rwanda or Ethiopia who bring their countries to ruin. Or think of Haiti and its struggle to get out from under military rule, or the Soviet Union, which hastened its collapse due in part to over-expenditure on the military, or our own enormous national debt, fueled in part by Lyndon Johnson's "guns and butter" policy during Vietnam and Ronald Reagan's lower taxes but increased military expenditures.

Over and over again the prophets warn against putting too much trust in military might, in investing too much confidence in national military muscle. In God's eyes, says Isaiah,

The nations are like a drop from a bucket and are accounted as the dust on scales.... All the nations are as nothing before him. They are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. (40:15, 17)

Nations come and go, political leaders rise and fall, generals have their day in the sun and fade away, but the kingdom of God remains forever, says John and all the prophets. Therefore, soldiers individually and collectively should never be deceived into thinking might makes right, and that the strong are never wrong.

The problem is, say the prophets, the strong often are wrong, and the mighty often are mistaken, especially in many underdeveloped countries, not to mention Nazism and Fascism. That's why prophets get under our skin. Because just when we're resting confidently behind the massiveness of our aircraft carriers and the accuracy of our missiles and bombs and the effectiveness of our military technology -- just when we were heaving a sigh of relief over the power of the military, the prophets got under our skin to point us toward the power of God and the potential corruption and perversion of the military.

Prophets -- we revere them, respect them, ignore them, listen to them, and sometimes heed them. But we rarely love them -- until later -- because they always get under our skin. And it is usually later when we realize they needed to, had to, for our own sakes, and for God's.

Prayer

Eternal God, who in your majesty encompasses the universe and all dimensions of time and space, and who in your humility infuses all living things with the pulse of your life, as flowers and trees are inclined toward the sun's life-giving light, so are we, in our reverent worship, inclined toward you, light of all life.

In your radiant presence we always are conscious of our clouded conscience, the dimness of our insight and intelligence, aware of our faltering, flickering witness and our susceptibility to contrary winds of doubt and skepticism against our flames of faith. Forgive also our negative thinking and dour moods in the presence of so much grace and glory. Save us from any descent into the slough of despondence and rescue us from the fatal grasp of the dread. Be pleased to cleanse our souls of all unrighteousness. Make us radiant in faith and hope and love.

Speak to us anew today the truth about ourselves we have not wanted to hear. You know well those dimensions of our personality where insight has been ignored and where growth has been inhibited. Too often content with petty conceits, and too frequently circumscribed by a provincial mind-set, we fail to explore the vast spiritual and intellectual world which only awaits our energy and courage. By your grace, take us by the hand, O Lord, and lure us beyond the boundaries of our smug conceits and ready rationalizations.

But now we lift up our prayers for all the Church and world. In every place and in every day, your people struggle to keep the faith, to work for justice and peace. Give them strength. Bless your worldwide Church.

And for nations large and small, for leaders in politics, business, and the military, for diplomats and workers of every kind, we pray progress toward a greater share of wealth and freedom and opportunity for all. Help us, O God, to strive ever onward toward your glorious Kingdom envisioned by the prophets and by our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.