THE RAGGED TROUSERED PROPHET

 

A mysterious character trudged heavily along a North Belfast street on a wet Sunday morning. Clad in the garb of a monk, the cowl hanging low across his face. With his gnarled hand grasping tightly onto a staff he steadied himself against the storm. He was lonely, cold and hungry, and as the wind whipped his cowl about his leathered face you could see that his features bore a Middle Eastern appearance. Who could have guessed that in another time and place he was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief... yet he opened not his mouth.

But what was such a man doing on the damp streets of North Belfast while decent people were in their places of worship? And why was he wandering from church to church as if on a mission? The truth was that he had come in answer to a call from the faithful followers in those churches who cried out for a change to be wrought in their community.

‘This used to be a good area,’ complained one of the elders. ‘But a bad crowd has moved in; there are parties, drinking and revelling – even drugs. Our people are verbally abused as they make their way to the Lord’s House on the Sabbath. They even through stones through our beautiful stained glass windows; no respect with these people, that’s the problem.’

And so it seemed the church people of North Belfast had been praying for years for divine intervention. ‘God is faithful,’ they said. ‘Soon he will do something to protect his house and his people!’

And the call went out, and the mysterious man in ragged clothes answered the call. But who was he? ‘...and what’s he doing in our church? Look at the state of him, and the smell! Let’s get back to our prayer meeting – O God, we look to you to save this nation. If you don’t act O Lord we’re finished!’

 It has been said that God comes to us disguised as life; he speaks to us, caresses us, cajoles and nurtures us through every event in our lives. That’s not to say he sends those events, whether catastrophes or pleasant surprises, he doesn’t do that, he respects our free will. But in the clamour and striving of life his words of comfort, guidance and wisdom are too often drowned out.

The New Testament writer to the Hebrew wrote, ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’ Who can be sure how literally we are to take that injunction, but the ragged traveller could have spoken much-needed wisdom, provided enlightenment and guidance to the folk in that North Belfast church, if only its pious parishioners had had the humility to listen and the insight to reject their prejudices.

He was the answer to their prayers but like so many of us they didn’t like the answer they got. They had made their minds up about the future of their congregation and were asking God to rubber stamp their decision. Church was their middle-class social club and there was no place in it for the common people who had been displaced from another part of town by sectarian violence. But the ragged trousered prophet who bore a message of love and humility and tolerance went unheard and within three years of his visit to that church in North Belfast it was derelict.

Is there anything new under the sun? Hardly. The prophet Ezekiel was not the first to foretell the coming of the Messiah. For thousands of years God’s people adopted the waiting mode, and they became comfortable with the waiting mode for there were no demands made on them and they didn’t have to change their life-time habits. Theirs was an existence of going through the endless meaningless motions so that when their promised Messiah appeared and ushered in a new order; no longer the waiting mode, now the receptive mode – they had him killed.

The good people of North Belfast didn’t nail the ragamuffin messenger to the tree that stood on their carefully manicured lawn. They just turned him out; he was despised and rejected. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and he didn’t get a chance to open his mouth.

So here’s the question; is 21^st century religion fulfilling its function? How many of its adherents even know what their function is supposed to be? And as their churches empty do they point the accusing finger at the ‘apostates’ who used to warm the pews or do they ever think to ask, ‘Do they know something we don’t know?’  

The Ragger trousered prophet could have told them!