Prophets
at the Door
a novel
David L. Whitney
Copyright 2011 David L. Whitney
Smashwords Edition
Cover design: Zan Ceeley, Trio Bookworks.
Cover image: Thinkstock Images
Smashwords Edition, License Notes:
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations by Donna Castillo are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952, 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission.
To Judy,
with love and gratitude
Contents
Preface Real-life heroes.
1. JOSHUA: My prophets will not disappoint you.
2. OBADIAH: Divine revelation is complex.
3. JONAH: This is no fairy tale.
4. JAKE: That’s not how you spell “profit.”
5. JOEL: It’s all about parallelism.
6. AMOS: If I’m real, you have a serious problem.
7. HOSEA: I redeemed Gomer; I bought her back.
8. ISAIAH: I saw things I’d never seen before.
9. MICAH: God is making his point very clearly.
10. NAHUM: God’s problem is that you’re not angry.
11. ZEPHANIAH: So you actually read my book!
12. JEREMIAH: I was considered a traitor.
13. HABAKKUK: God can’t be measured.
14. DANIEL: It’s all about godly living.
15. LONNIE: I hurt too much to try again.
16. EZEKIEL: Don’t expect me to be normal.
17. HAGGAI: Ability to jump-start projects.
18. ZECHARIAH: Looking through a telescope.
19. MALACHI: Third-person-direct questions.
20. ELIJAH: My job was done.
Factual Summaries of the Prophets
Real-life heroes.
For many of us, there is a gaping hole in the middle of the Bible. It begins at Isaiah and ends after Malachi – the sixteen writing prophets. They were called the Nevi’im, a word we translate as “prophets.” But who were they? What did they say? When did they say it? Who cares? Unfortunately, that last question generally trumps all the others. “They are part of the Bible,” we assure ourselves, “but for our lives today, they seem irrelevant.”
One day I purchased a copy of Abraham Heschel’s incomparable book, The Prophets. It opened their world to me. Then, during a planning session at church, I volunteered to teach a Sunday School class – on the prophets! In preparation I read everything I could find about them. And, of course, I read the prophets themselves – out loud – in order to get the feel of their oratory.
Not long after the classes ended, I wondered, What if the prophets stepped out of eternity for a series of twenty-first century visits? How would we receive them? What would they say to us? Thinking thus, I began to write. Months later, Prophets at the Door was completed.
This story is fictional. The prophets, however, are not. They were real men who lived and spoke long ago; but while their environment differed vastly from ours, their story is not captive of their ancient era. Their inspired words still live today. These men are the real-life heroes of this fictional story.
1
My prophets will not disappoint you.
[These are] some of the most disturbing people
who have ever lived: the men whose inspiration
brought the Bible into being – the men whose image
is our refuge in distress, and whose voice and
vision sustain our faith.
ABRAHAM J. HESCHEL, The Prophets
The old man stood at the door, his dark form outlined against the early evening grayness of the wet street. He felt miserable, wishing he’d not been given this assignment. He lacked confidence, and longed to have the old fire back, that reckless sense of mission that had once driven him. Back then, he hadn’t given a fig for the feelings or opinions of others. Tonight, however, things were different. He’d learned mercy and grace over many years, and it troubled him to think that twelve people were about to have their world turned upside-down.
He took a deep breath. Then, nodding his head in acquiescence, he knocked, ignoring the doorbell button beside the door. No response. He knocked again. A moment later, it opened.
“Is this the home of Jacob Pels?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m Jake Pels,” said the man in the doorway. He hesitated, looking at the old man standing there in the rain, and then asked tentatively, “Are you … are you … Obadiah?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear the bell. Come in, please come in.” Jake sounded a little flustered.
The old man stepped inside and removed his hat, water dripping on the carpet. He looked at it apologetically, managed a worried smile, but said nothing. His hair was long and gunmetal gray, thinning on top, and plastered against his scalp where the hat had sat.
Jake Pels looked over his shoulder into the large great room where several people sat in speechless immobility. No help there.
“Oh, here, let me take that,” he said, reaching for the hat. “And your coat too.”
“Thank you.”
A tall young woman stepped forward. “Hello, I’m Angela. Jake’s my husband. Welcome, Mr. Obadiah.”
“Thank you.”
“Let me introduce you to our group,” she said, leading him into the room. All rose as the two reached the circle of chairs.
“Well, everyone,” said Angela, “this is our special guest for the evening. Mr. Obadiah, let me introduce …” She glanced at a note in her hand. “… over there by the fireplace, Al and Tricia Saunders. And next to them are the Randalls, Dick and Willa, and there by the big window, Donna Castillo.”
With each introduction, the old man bowed slightly as Angela continued, pointing to a middle-aged man in the corner, “That’s Martin Novak, and at the sofa we have Inga and Paul Ulbreit, and finally, by the old clock there, Mike and Deborah Rosen.”
The old man continued to bow politely to each, and with the introduction of the Rosens, finally spoke. “Rosen, that’s Jewish, isn’t it?”
“Uh, yes it is.”
“I didn’t know you were Jewish,” blurted out Willa Randall. “Honey, did you know Mike and Deborah were Jewish?”
“Be quiet, Willa,” said her husband, but not unkindly.
“I’m honored to meet you all,” said Obadiah. “Shalom. May God’s peace descend on this house and upon you all.” Then he turned to the Rosens and repeated, “Shalom, Micah and Deborah.”
“How did you know my name was Micah?”
“They told me before I came here. By the way, I think you’ll enjoy meeting your namesake. He’ll be visiting your group just before Christmas.”
“Micah the prophet?”
“The same.”
No one spoke.
Finally, Jake said, “Well, everyone, here we are.” He gave a nervous laugh. “This is going to be a very interesting evening.”
On the previous Sunday ...
“Look at this,” whispered Angela, handing Jake a piece of paper. Not now, he thought. Can’t this wait? They were seated in church, and the organist had just begun the prelude. This was Jake’s favorite part of the service, and he really didn’t want to read anything at the moment. He always felt that music was the closest thing to worship, everything else being more-or-less religious propaganda, and here was Bach filling the sanctuary and turning Jake’s mind to timeless matters and away from the mundane. Reluctantly, he looked at the paper Angela had given him, lifting his eyebrows in mild rebuke.
The notice had been tucked into the morning’s bulletin. On plain off-white paper, a bearded man in a rough homespun shirt stared out from the page with a look of fierce commitment on his weathered face. Above his image were the bold words: “The Prophets: Voices Crying in the Wilderness.” Quickly scanning the copy beneath, Jake’s eye caught the phrase “men of God or mystic psychotics?” and he noted what looked to be an invitation to some sort of class. He shrugged, caught Angela’s eye with a half-smile, and handed back the notice as if to say, not now, Sweetheart, later maybe. But as he returned his attention to J.S. Bach, Jake Pels had a disquieting sense that he’d just seen the immediate future. Angela tucked the notice into her purse.
Crossing the parking lot after church, Jake and Angela heard their names called. They turned and waited as a man approached – tall, athletic looking, with an open, friendly face and dark hair – wearing gray slacks with a navy blue blazer.
“Good morning,” he said as he drew near. “I know you’re new here, but I wanted to say that I’m glad you came.” He hesitated, smiled, and extended his hand. “I’m Joshua.” He gestured with his head toward the church with its gray stone façade and lofty bell tower. “My church.”
“Are you one of the ministers?” asked Angela.
“Well, yes, but unofficially.” He smiled, nodding his head. “I guess you could say I work at keeping things focused on worship.”
“Oh,” said Angela, not comprehending in the slightest.
“How did you know who we were?” said Jake.
“I read the welcome pads that everyone fills out, saw your names there along with the Peters and the Zhou family – pew 27. And that leads me to what I wanted to ask you. As you read in your insert in today’s bulletin, we’re organizing a special study group on Bible prophets. I hope you’ll be part of it. There’ll be just a dozen or so people, mostly from the church here, and it’ll meet in someone’s home for the next few months.”
“Uh, I don’t think …” Jake began, but Angela cut him off.
“Could you tell us a little more?”
“Sure. It seems to me that most people today have no idea who or what the prophets were.” Joshua held up a Bible, looked at it and shook his head. “Here we have the Bible and there’s this huge chunk of it right in the middle that no one ever reads – it’s like those men and women lived in a totally irrelevant age.”
“It is irrelevant, isn’t it?” said Jake.
“You’re right. But not because it’s intrinsically irrelevant, it’s irrelevant because we have made it so. Like soap is irrelevant for those who don’t bathe, or like bread is irrelevant when you’re fasting.”
“And you think that somehow, by studying these prophets, we can connect to them,” said Angela. “But what then? I mean, how can they say anything to me today? Seems to me that’s the real test of relevance.”
“Well said, Angela!” Joshua beamed at her. “What I’m hoping is that you two will take a little step of faith as it were, and join the group, because if you do, I believe you’ll find that the prophets still speak to people over the millennia that separate you. I think you’ll find relevance.”
He looked at them – at Angela, then Jake. “Well, what do you say?”
They in turn looked at each other, Angela with a hopeful widening of her eyes, Jake with a doubtful narrowing of his. Neither spoke. They moved aside as an SUV slowly rolled past them toward the street.
Joshua broke the stalemate. “That’s okay, think about it. Can I call you early in the week?”
“That would be fine,” Angela smiled. Jake opened his mouth to say something but nothing came out. That was fortunate.
Jake was in the shower early on Monday morning when the call came.
“Wow, when you say ‘early in the week,’ you mean early!” Angela smiled into her cell phone.
“Well, I know you both leave for work soon, so I thought I’d catch you before then. Besides, I’ve got some other calls to make and time’s precious.”
“Jake’s not available at the moment.” Angela laughed, “Actually, Joshua, he’s in the shower. Shall I have him call you back?”
“No need,” he replied. “You’re half of the family, so you’re the spokesperson by default. Can I count on you and Jake being part of my group?”
Suddenly, Angela felt very alone. “Joshua, we talked about it. We think it’s an interesting idea, but Jake feels … well, he feels like it’s not where he is right now. Um, it’s hard to explain, but Jake’s not very much into formal religion at this point in his life. I sort of had to talk him into going to church …” Her voice trailed off.
“I understand.”
“Well, that’s good, because I don’t. I believe in God and all that, but it just seems like I can’t make the connection.”
“Like you’re a human appliance looking for somewhere to plug in,” said Joshua.
“Yeah, that’s it, I think. Like the power has got to be out there somewhere. Just wish I knew where.”
“Angela, I guarantee you that the power is there. I think this group study may help you and Jake to find what you’re looking for.”
There was a long silence on the phone during which, for some strange reason, Angela felt her anxiety and doubt gradually dropping from “off-the-chart” down to mildly apprehensive. She sighed, “Okay, Joshua. Jake will kill me … but okay. We’ll do it.”
“That’s great. I promise you, my prophets will not disappoint you. And if Jake kills you, he’ll have me to answer to. Now, about a few details …”
Those “few details” included the fact that, since Angela and Jake lived in a large house with a spacious great room, they would host the study group which would meet twice a month on Thursday evenings, beginning this week. The group would be comprised of the Pels, four other couples, and two single individuals – twelve in all.
“You’ll like Al and Tricia Saunders. Al’s a pharmaceutical rep. He reminds me a lot of Reggie White. Do you remember him?”
“No.”
“Black football player, defensive end for the Green Bay Packers. They called him the ‘minister of defense.’ Tricia, Al’s wife, works for an investment firm.”
“Oh.”
“Let’s see, then there’s Dick Randall and Willa. She is a very sweet lady. He’s retired, spends most of his time managing her. It’s a challenge.” Joshua chuckled into the phone. “Donna Castillo’s a high school teacher – literature. She’s only been teaching for a couple of years but the kids all love her. She’s got what I call a ‘teacher’s heart.’ Another couple, Micah and Deborah Rosen, are medical people – she’s an administrator at a local women’s clinic, and he works at St. Mary’s Hospital in the E.R. Very busy young couple, a lot like you and Jake in that regard. You’ll like them. And you’ll also have the Ulbreits. Paul works for the city zoning department and Inga runs a nursery school. They’re like oil and water. Paul’s trying hard to be a cynic and Inga’s trying hard to keep a positive outlook in life.”
“What do you mean?”
Joshua hesitated. “Paul Ulbreit’s carrying a heavy burden, Angela. But I won’t prejudice your attitude by saying any more. I trust you with what I’ve already said. And don’t worry, he’s going to come through it okay.”
“Okay,” she echoed uncertainly.
“And the last member of your group is Martin Novak, a retired naval officer. Martin’s a widower. No family, few friends. This little group is going to do him a lot of good.”
Angela had been writing names and information in her personal speedy-note style, barely keeping up with the enthusiastic Joshua. “Anything else?” she panted.
“No, I don’t think so,” replied Joshua. “You may know some of these folks by sight, Angela. The Saunders and Randalls attend your church. Oh, there is one more thing …”
That “one more thing” was the interesting fact that Joshua had arranged for a prophet to actually visit them during each of their meetings.
“What?”
“To visit you. It occurred to me, Angela, that if you really want to get to know these men, you have to meet them personally, talk to them, ask questions, hear about their lives first-hand. So, I’ve arranged to have each of them come to your home, usually one at a time, and mostly in chronological order.”
“I don’t think I understand,” Angela hesitated. “You mean you’ve hired actors to play their parts?”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Joshua assured her. “No special preparation, no kosher food even,” he laughed. “Nothing for you to do but to make them feel welcome. Believe me, they’ll appreciate that more than you can imagine.”
“But who are they? I mean, where did you get them?” she asked in confusion.
“Oh, they come from all over. Some are farmers, some are clergy, others work for the government, most are just plain folks – except for being prophets, of course. And no, none of them is a professional actor. They are all volunteers. I think you’ll find them interesting, okay?”
Doubts notwithstanding, Angela agreed. But when she told Jake, he was not happy.
“How many of these crazy prophets are there, anyway?” he exclaimed, pacing across the kitchen with a mug of coffee in his hand. “The Bible’s loaded with prophets. This thing could go on for years!” He waved the mug, almost spilling its contents.
“There are only sixteen of them, Jake,” she said. “Just those with books named after them. Joshua called them ‘the writing prophets.’”
“Sweet sixteen, huh?” He took a deep breath. “Okay, Angie, you might be right, but I have a very bad feeling about this.” Then he added with the stern voice of a lecturer, “If things get out-of-hand, if these so-called prophets of yours turn out to be really wacky guys, or if any of them goes by the name of Rasputin, we call it off, okay?”
2
Divine revelation is complex.
The day of the LORD is near for all nations.
As you have done, it will be done to you;
your deeds will return upon your own head.
OBADIAH v. 15
“My name is Obadiah,” he said.
“Servant of the LORD,” Deborah Rosen spoke softly.
The old man looked at her and nodded. “Names have great meaning,” he said. “Do you know the meaning of yours?”
“Yes,” she smiled. “It means ‘honey bee.’ Not much meaning in that.”
“Ah, but you’re mistaken,” replied Obadiah. “To us, in our day, we would look at you and expect to find an industrious worker, dedicated, tireless. We would also know that when you are angered – look out!” He smiled, shaking his hand as though he’d been stung.
“That’s for sure,” said her husband. Everyone laughed, even the old man.
“Naturally, I didn’t choose the name Obadiah; it was given to me by my parents as an expression of their faith, and their hopes for me. I hope I didn’t disappoint them.”
“Did all your friends have meaningful names?” asked Tricia Saunders.
“Yes, it was the custom. And Obadiah is a rather common name. In fact, there are twelve Obadiahs in the Bible. But some names had meanings that were distressing or even offensive. Many of my contemporaries were given names that referred to pagan deities – Baal, Ashtoreth, Dagan. That told us immediately where the faith of the family was based. It was sad. Sometimes, though, we made jokes about names, played word-games with them.”
“Can you give us an example?” asked Angela.
“Certainly. Do you remember the name ‘Beelzebub’?” They did. “As you know, it referred to the Canaanite idol Baal. Actually, they called him ‘Baal-zebul’ which means ‘lord of the high place.’ ‘Baal-zebub’ was the name we gave him. Means ‘lord of the flies.’ That was a good one,” he chuckled.
“When did your character live?” inquired Paul Ulbreit.
“I beg your pardon?”
“When did this Obadiah live?”
“Hmm. When you say, ‘this Obadiah,’ I presume you mean me. Are you asking when I lived?” said the old man.
Ulbreit smiled a bit. “Yes, of course. I think I forgot the rules here. Forgive me. Yes, my question is, When did you live?”
“The Bible doesn’t tell you, does it?” replied Obadiah. “So you have to examine the evidence. Now if I were Jeremiah, there’d be tons of that – fifty-two chapters full of names, dates, telltale figures of speech, and so forth. But old Obadiah only gives you twenty-one verses, fewest of all the prophets. But maybe that’s enough. Think about it. The burden of my vision was the wickedness of our neighboring country Edom, descendants of Esau, our father Jacob’s twin brother, our cousins if you will. The Edomites had rejoiced over a ransacking of Jerusalem during the evil reign of Jehoram.
“Now, I’m obviously future-oriented regarding them – it’s a prophecy after all. So those critics who have me living much later, after the Babylonian exile, have the problem of a prophecy that foretells the past. Big deal!” He smiled. “And besides, my description of the spoiling of Jerusalem is too limited to refer to the massive and total destruction brought on by the Babylonians. Also, if you notice, I speak of the House of Jacob and the House of Joseph – in other words, the northern and southern kingdoms. They were both in existence at that point in history, and only that of the south, or Judah, was ever restored.” He paused. “There are other clues as well, but to make a very long answer only moderately long, I think it was about the year 850 BC, by your reckoning, when God appeared to me in a vision.”
“Can you tell us what that was like?” asked Angela.
The old man hesitated, rubbed his gnarly hands together, examined them, and sighed. “Not easily,” he said, looking up at her. “But I’ll try.
“I should warn you, however, this will be a rather long answer to your question. Long, because divine revelation is complex – God is a master of variety – even random we might think, although that would be a big mistake. Anyway, let me tell you first what visions and prophecy meant to the pagan religions that existed all around us. Then I’ll tell you what happened to me. First, though, there were the Assyrians, and later the Babylonians, who had a whole hierarchy of so-called holy men. It included exorcists, temple musicians, diviners …”
“Diviners? What were they?” said Donna Castillo.
“Diviners? Now, don’t confuse them with the word ‘divine’ because they weren’t … but they were people who foretold the future. They interpreted omens, dreams, the stars, flights of birds, weather …”
“We call them meteorologists today,” said Al Saunders with a grin.
“Not the same,” said Obadiah. “Your weathermen are more accurate and more detailed. And, of course, their predictions rely on scientific data versus spiritual insight. For example, a Babylonian diviner, or seer, could only give ‘yes or no’ answers. ‘Will it rain tomorrow, yes or no?’ Those were the only options. And of course,” he added with a chuckle, “in Babylonia, the safe answer was always ‘no.’ It’s easy to predict the weather in a desert.”
“But how did they do it?” asked Angela. “Didn’t they have some sort of ritual or something?”
“Yes they did, and you’ll love it,” he smirked. “They read intestines.”
“Intestines?” exclaimed several voices.
“Sheep’s livers,” said Obadiah, “or if they wanted to do it on the cheap, they’d kill a chicken. But a sheep’s liver was considered the more reliable source of spiritual communication.”
“You said ‘reliable,’” said Jake. “Are you implying there was actual validity to that process?”
“Oh indeed I am … a very frightening kind of validity.”
Jake and the others stared at him. The follow-up question went unasked.
“Dear friends,” said Obadiah, “don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that all spiritual phenomena originate in our good God. The enemy has always been there – throughout human history – and if he is nothing else, he is a master counterfeiter. We who knew and worshipped the true and living God were surrounded by foes of all kinds, and military threats were the least of our problems, believe me.” He paused, thinking. “Oh, and I almost forgot, all these false gods had both priests and priestesses.”
“Good for them,” blurted Willa Randall. “The Roman Catholic church needs to ordain women priests.”
“And would you also want them to function as prostitutes?” asked Obadiah. “Because that’s what they were in my day. Especially in Canaan where temples of Ashtoreth were nothing more than religious brothels.”
“Oh! I’m … I’m sorry,” said Willa. “Oh dear …”
“Willa, Willa, Willa,” said her husband, patting her on the arm. “When you gonna put a lid on it?”
“Your wife cares very much about inequality and it hurts her when she thinks people are treated unfairly.” Then, to Willa, Obadiah added, “You will learn, in time, to hold your tongue a little longer until your good intelligence catches up to your emotions.”
Angela stepped into the awkward moment, “Would you please tell us about your personal inspiration? How did you receive your vision? That’s what you called it, wasn’t it, a vision?”
“Yes, I called it ‘the vision of Obadiah.’ But I’m afraid you may be a bit disappointed with me, because, to be honest, I simply had a dream. Wait till you hear Isaiah’s story, or Daniel’s. You couldn’t duplicate those even with your computer graphics. But anyway, I was asleep on my mat up on the rooftop – it was a hot night – when my mind was filled with the most vivid images of Edom; the way they treated our city when we were looted, torturing our fleeing refugees, dancing in wild celebrations over our distress. And I saw it all with a clarity that far surpassed any normal dream. What’s more, I didn’t just dream it, I felt it. It weighed me down – the destruction, the wicked gloating, the cruelty to my people. But most of all, I was absolutely stunned by the sense of God’s anger. I knew beyond doubt he was going to avenge us.” The old man paused. “I woke up in a terrible state of mind. It was many days before I felt calm again.”
“That must have been very frightening,” said Donna Castillo.
“Would’ve scared the crap out of me!” declared Dick Randall.
“I’m grateful that it didn’t,” replied Obadiah. “That would have been a great insult to God, and an embarrassment from which I would never have recovered. However, you are right, Miss Castillo, I was terrified – not just at the scenes of destruction and death, but to be in the presence of the LORD, the God of Abraham, Moses, Elijah. That overwhelmed me.”
He sat in silence. No one spoke for several moments.
“It was only much later that I could even write about it,” Obadiah resumed quietly. “But you know, the most awesome thing is that it all came true. Of course, I was long-gone by then. But all of it came true – I mean all the words God gave all of us – from old Obadiah here right on down the years to Malachi, the last of our calling.” He put his hand to his chin, squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then raised an emphatic finger in front of his face. “Actually, I was wrong about that – it hasn’t all come true, not yet. But it will.”
“How do you know that?” asked Jake.
“It’s empirical evidence you want?”
“I think it’s empirical evidence I need,” said Jake.
Obadiah nodded. “So you do, Jacob. And you’re thinking that an ecstatic trip into visions, dreams, and mysticism hardly qualifies as evidence.”
Jake laughed nervously. “That’s exactly what I was thinking … with all due respect, of course.”
“Of course.” Obadiah looked at him with intensity. “Jacob, it will not be easy for you. You require that evidence precede faith. It rarely does. At the same time, though, faith rarely blossoms contrary to evidence. So you will find the two of them, faith and proof, coming to you as inseparable twins. The big question, however, is going to be whether or not you will receive them. You require proof; God requires faith. The good news for you is that God is willing to meet you halfway.”
“What do you mean ‘halfway’?”
“I mean that God saves the ‘hard-faith’ stuff for later, stuff related to the grand scheme of things, questions of human meaning and divine purpose. Those take some skill-training, the kind God gives us after our first step of faith.”
“So what is this first step of faith?”
“What is it?” Obadiah brought his open hands together in a compression gesture. “Simply believe that God is. Or, if that’s too much, believe that He might be, and then couple your tentative faith with a prayer for confirmation, ‘God, if you really are there, help me to find you.’”
“That sounds pretty weak to me,” said Jake.
“It is, but then who ever said God expects babies to be strong. Strength comes later.” Obadiah’s eyes smiled.
“I think it was easier for you in your day,” said Jake. “Science hadn’t given you any alternatives to God in terms of interpreting phenomena. It’s hard today. We don’t need God in order to understand our world.”
“Ah, but now you’re into the ‘hard-faith’ stuff, Jake. God will answer that for you, but not before you take the first step, and I hear you saying you don’t want to do even that. In other words, you want to write the terms of engagement. Don’t attempt to manipulate God that way. His terms of engagement are fair; don’t dictate your own to him. He is God. You aren’t.”
If he is God, Jake thought to himself … if.
When finally the old clock toned nine, Obadiah stood. “Dear friends, my time is up. I have to go now.” To Angela he said, “Many thanks for inviting me into your home, and for all your kindness.” And to the rest, “I pray the LORD God will grant each of you the deep abiding peace of shalom. This has been a special evening for me. I’ll ponder it for some time, and I look forward to seeing you all again one day.”
At the door, accepting his coat and hat from Jake, Obadiah turned again to the group. “I was asked to inform you that Jonah will be along next time. I think you’ll find him to be very … hmm, what’s your word … challenging? He went through a lot, but I’m sure he will tell you it was his own stubborn fault.”
Jake watched through the front door sidelight as the old man reached the street, turned at the corner and walked away. It had stopped raining. It was a crystal-clear early September evening with the memory of summer still lingering.
Angela came to his side. “Is he gone?”
“Yeah, he’s gone.” Jake looked at her. “Weird,” he said.
“I’ll make coffee,” she said.
“Okay, I’ll see how everybody’s doing.”
Jake turned to the great room where the others were still standing. “He’s gone,” he repeated.
“Well!” exclaimed Inga Ulbreit, offering her sole verbal contribution of the evening.
“Exactly, my dear,” said her husband.
“Okay,” said Jake with a grin, “that’s one way to look at it. Any other deep thoughts?”
“I think you were the real prophet here tonight, Jake,” said Al Saunders.
“Why’s that?”
“Because you predicted that this would be a very interesting evening,” said Al. “And it was. Did you have some vivid dream or something?”
“No,” Jake laughed. “My only vivid dream is in the kitchen making coffee.”
“I heard that, you sweet man,” came a voice from the other room.
“But who the heck was that guy?” said Paul Ulbreit. “I mean, where did they find him? Is he an actor? Jake, do you know if he’s from the university?”
“Not that I know of,” said Jake, “but then, I’m new there and it’s possible the Theater Department may have some thespian group that does these kinds of things.”
“He knew way too much.” Martin Novak spoke the words so softly some didn’t hear him and went on talking over his comment. “He knew too much,” Novak repeated. The room grew quiet. “He not only knew too much, but he was too sincere in matters of religion.” Novak stared at them. “I don’t believe for a minute that he was an actor. I think he’s more likely a retired minister or something like that. He just knows too much of the Bible to be an actor. Actors don’t know squat about the Bible, and even if they did, they don’t believe it enough to carry it off like this man did.”
“I think Martin’s right,” added Donna Castillo. “Our Obadiah made it come alive for me.”
“He certainly created a credible scenario,” said Deborah Rosen.
“IN-credible, you mean,” asserted Paul Ulbreit. “I’ll admit he was good, but are we really supposed to believe he was the real thing? It seems kind of silly to me to keep up a charade like that all evening.”
“Well, he didn’t fall for your little trap,” said Jake.
“True enough. He never even blinked, did he?” Paul laughed. ‘“By this Obadiah I presume you mean me,’” he imitated the old man’s voice.
“Well, what do you all think?” said Jake. “Do we give him a passing grade?”
“Definitely,” said several, others nodding their heads. Ulbreit made a “wishy-washy” hand gesture, but added, “Yeah, I guess so.”
Angela called from the kitchen, “Coffee’s ready. You’ll have to come in here. I’ve got some dessert too.”
At the end of the evening, they all agreed that for the time being it seemed wisest to keep their Bible study in low profile, not to talk much about it to outsiders. Nobody wanted to appear “a little off center-bubble,” as Dick Randall put it.
3
This is no fairy tale.
“Now, O LORD, take away my life,
for it is better for me to die than to live.”
But the LORD replied,
“Have you any right to be angry?”
JONAH 4:3-4
He arrived early in cloudless dusk just as the moon was rising over the hill facing the house at 6257 Salem Street. It was a good evening to be about his business; there was a mid-autumn softness to it, and the air was fresh and clean from a recent rain. He was here because he was determined to be obedient, to discharge the task he’d been given. And a task it was for which he was profoundly grateful, doubly so. First, there was the assignment itself, coming after such a long period of relative unemployment. Then, too, it promised to be a pleasant one, visiting with good people and simply telling his story. No problem, he thought. I don’t have to preach hellfire and brimstone tonight.
He rang the doorbell. Thank you, Obadiah, for tipping me off to this contraption. An attractive young woman answered.
“Good evening,” he said, “My name is Jonah.”
Angela appraised the man before her. He was rather short, dark complexioned, and hawk-like in visage. His black beard and mustache were close-trimmed, as was the hair of his head. There was an intense, exotic look about him and he might have been handsome but for the burn scars on his face.
“And I’m Angela Pels,” she replied warmly. “Welcome to our home, Jonah. Please come in.”
This could not be more pleasant, he thought, as Tricia Saunders was commenting on various forms of ancient prophetic inspiration. So far, it’s not about me at all.
“Obadiah did a wonderful job of explaining it to us,” Tricia was saying. “He was very articulate.”
“Yes, I always thought the old prophets were more or less country bumpkins,” added Paul Ulbreit.
“Country bumpkins?” said Jonah. “What does that mean?”
“Farmers,” said Ulbreit. “Unschooled, ignorant.”
“Oh, I see. Well, you may find some to be … uh … ‘country bumpkins,’ as you put it. I suppose Amos would fit the first part of your description, and perhaps Micah.” He turned to Micah Rosen. “The original Micah, that is,” he added with a tight smile. “However, I can assure you, none of them was ignorant. In that belief you are quite wrong.” He looked intently at Ulbreit.
Sensing his irritation, Angela calmly asked, “Jonah, you are perhaps the most famous of all the prophets. I mean, every child knows your story. We have all heard how you survived the most horrible ordeal, and still went on to preach so powerfully that a whole city repented. Would you please tell us about it?” It was a lengthy question, deliberately so to let the charged atmosphere of the room dissipate.
“Gladly, Angela,” he said. “But it’s not a very pretty story, and certainly not one that I am proud of. My story is about deliberate insubordination. God gave me a task and I refused to do it. So …,” he drew out the word, “don’t expect to hear about a hero; this is about a man who failed to obey God.”
The room grew very still as he seemed to collect his thoughts.
“Once upon a time …” prompted Paul Ulbreit.
“Yes, ‘once upon a time,’” echoed Jonah. “although if I understand that expression correctly, it’s the prelude to what you call a fairy tale, and this is no fairy tale. This is what actually happened to me.
“I had gone up to Jerusalem and was walking through the outer court of the temple one day, the Court of the Gentiles, on my way to the inner sanctuary where we Jews have exclusive access, when just before the low steps there, I heard someone call my name. ‘Jonah ben Amitai!’ I looked around at the crowd, but no one seemed to catch my eye. So I started on up the stairs. And there it was again, ‘Jonah ben Amitai!’ Loud. I wondered why nobody else seemed to hear it. And this time the voice went on to say, ‘I want you to go to Nineveh, capital of Assyria, and warn the people there that if they don’t repent I’ll destroy them.’ That time, I knew the voice – it was God himself.”
Jonah paused as though the memory was as vivid as ever in his mind. “I don’t know how long I stood there – stunned. After all, we don’t hear God’s voice very often, do we? But it was more than that, it was the command itself: ‘Go to Nineveh!’ ‘No way!’ That’s what I said – right out loud. ‘No way!’” He leaned forward. “Let me tell you a little prophetic secret. We prophets can’t always predict the future as well as you might think. However, I’ll tell you what we can do; we can read the trends that produce the future. In other words, we extrapolate.”
He looked at Al Saunders, “For example, Al, you don’t know what pharmaceutical drugs the public may need in ten years. But you read the data, watch the trends regarding health issues of all kinds, and then you might say, ‘I predict we’ll need medication for an obesity epidemic.’” Jonah’s smile was dry. “I chose an easy example. Those trends have been obvious in America for two generations.” He paused to let that sink in. Al and Tricia exchanged looks, How’d he know about my job?
“Anyway, back to my refusal to go to Nineveh. Even though I couldn’t know absolutely that the Assyrians would destroy the northern kingdom of Israel in about forty years, I’d been reading the signs of the times. It was predictably clear to me that one day they would very probably kill untold numbers of my people and drive the survivors into foreign lands from which they’d never return. I knew that about them. Friends, I tell you, in my heart I knew it beyond probability. And now, God comes along and tells me to warn the Assyrians to repent, but to make sure they understand that if they repent, God will forgive them, and spare them – spare them the very destruction that I foresaw them inflicting on us. NO! I refused. If I don’t go, they won’t repent, and if they don’t repent, God will destroy them. It was that simple.”
“Can’t be easy to say no to God,” said Micah.
Jonah shook his head. “No, you’re right. It’s not easy at all. And I even put feet to my refusal. I went down to Joppa, on the Mediterranean. I booked passage on a cruise ship headed for sunny Spain.”
“We were on a Mediterranean cruise last year,” said Willa Randall. “Barcelona, Costa del Sol, it was very nice …”
“Willa,” said her husband gently.
“Oh, sorry.”
Jonah laughed. “I’m sure it was, Willa. But mine was an old merchant ship. You know the expression, ‘bottom-feeder’? That’s what this boat was. And soon I understood why.”
Although, as Angela had said, they all knew the story, it came alive again as Jonah recalled the storm, the fateful decision to throw him overboard, and his incredible encounter with the fish.
“So you were actually swallowed by a whale,” said Paul Ulbreit.
“Actually, it was a big fish, Mr. Ulbreit,” he replied.
“And you expect us to believe that?”
“Paul!” exclaimed his wife. The others looked at him with apprehension.
“It doesn’t matter to me whether you believe it or not,” Jonah replied evenly.
“But why should we?” Paul persisted.
“For one thing, you might consider the fact that Jesus referred to my three-day experience as a picture of his death and resurrection which also took place over three days.”
“But you couldn’t have breathed, could you?” asked Deborah Rosen.
“Actually, I could. Apparently, the fish was creating enough oxygen through its gills, or something like that – I really don’t know – but I do know that I could breathe. I won’t say it was fresh air, or that the fish had nice breath, but it was air.” Jonah shook his head and said, “Do you know what was the worst part of it?”
They didn’t.
“Gastric juice. I got the worst case of gastric acid burn you ever saw.” He put his hand to his cheek. “You can still see the scars, here and on my arms and legs. When I finally reached Nineveh I looked awful. Actually, I suspect that made my message all the more compelling.”
“So you preached,” said Jake.
“Hellfire and brimstone.”
“And everybody repented?”
“As far as I know. I heard that the king did. And he gave orders that everybody else should too. Apparently it worked because God told me he’d changed his mind. He was going to spare them.” Still makes me angry when I think of it. They didn’t deserve it.
“Would you do it again?” Deborah asked.
“I beg your pardon?” said Jonah.
“Would you do it again? Would you go to Nineveh today if God asked you to?”
Jonah looked vacantly into the bookshelves lining the wall on his right. He looked back at Deborah. “Would you?” he countered.
“You’re avoiding her question,” said Micah in a friendly tone.
“Not really, I’m just rephrasing it pragmatically. After all, for me, it’s an irrelevant question … purely hypothetical. But for you, it isn’t.”
“Maybe not irrelevant,” said Deborah, “but definitely not practical. I read somewhere that Nineveh is today’s Mosel, Iraq. We’re Jews remember.”
“And I’m not?”
“Yes, of course, but did the Ninevites hate Jews like the Iraqis do today?”
“When did anybody not hate the Jews?” said Jonah.
“Oh c’mon now,” Paul Ulbreit cut in. “Isn’t that a little trite? I mean, it’s that kind of paranoia that has Israel …” he stopped mid-sentence as Jonah fixed a blazing look on him.
“That has Israel what, Mr. Ulbreit?”
Paul hesitated. “Look,” he said, trying to sound reasonable, “Everyone knows that Israel is always provoking somebody. Maybe they wouldn’t be hated if they weren’t so paranoid about everything.”
Suddenly the room was a combustion chamber. Within himself, Jonah felt a deadly spark rushing along the neurons of his brain, pulsing through collective Jewish memories of discrimination, exile, ghettos, pogroms, and genocides. He felt the weight of the awesome and awful designation of his people, simultaneously chosen by God and targeted by the Evil One. There was a time when Jonah would have exploded in rage, but now for some reason he didn’t. Instead, he felt a flood of pity. In a very quiet voice, he said, “Have you forgotten so quickly, Sir?” Only the words came out in the German language, “Haben Sie so schnell vergessen, mein Herr?”
It was as though someone had hit Paul with a full-force body-blow. He fell back, mouth agape, hands trembling. “How did you know?”
Jonah just looked at him in silence, thinking, Until the moment I spoke those words, I didn’t know, but now I do.
“That was unfair,” said Paul. “It was unfair, and you know it.”
“Yes,” said Jonah. “It was all unfair, wasn’t it?”
“What’s happening here?” said a frightened Angela. “Jonah … Paul … I don’t understand.”
“But we do, don’t we Paul?” said Jonah. Then, to Angela and the rest, “Please forgive us.” He looked again at Paul. “Yes, Paul?” Ulbreit nodded. “Please,” Jonah appealed, “can we return to where we were? We were talking about God’s calling and our responsibility to listen to him and obey, right? And unfortunately, I’m not the best Biblical example of obedience.” He looked at Deborah Rosen. “But to answer your question, Deborah, I honestly don’t know what I’d do if God told me to go back to Nineveh in today’s Iraq.”
“I know what I’d do,” said Willa. Everyone looked at her. Oh-oh, what’s she going to say now? “I’d do exactly what you did. I’d go on a cruise to Spain.” She looked about the room, meeting the eyes of all. They laughed as the tension broke, but she and Jonah did not share their laughter.
“Thank you, Willa,” he said. “I appreciate what you just said more than you’ll ever know. But I’ll tell you a sad truth. If you did take that cruise, you’d still be regretting it many, many centuries later.”
4
That’s not how you spell “profit.”
We and the prophet have no language in common.
To us the moral state of society, for all its stains and spots,
seems fair and trim; to the prophet it is dreadful ...
Above all, the prophets remind us of the moral state of a people:
Few are guilty, but all are responsible.
ABRAHAM J. HESCHEL, The Prophets
“Dr. Pels,” said a student, “that’s not how you spell ‘profit.’”
Jake looked up at the classroom’s overhead screen. He had mistakenly written “prophet.” What is happening to me? he thought. Recovering quickly, he launched his mouth into the unknown. “Now, why do you suppose I spelled it that way?” Nobody had a clue, especially Jake. But he pressed blindly on. “What’s the difference between ‘prophet’ and ‘profit?’” He wrote the two words side by side, projecting them upon the screen. His class sat in mute mystification.
“C’mon, guys,” Jake persisted. “Who can tell me what a prophet is?” He pointed to the word.
“Somebody who predicts the future?” ventured a young woman in front.
“Exactly.” Jake paused to see if he himself could predict where this discussion might be going. He walked across the front of the classroom, looked out the window onto the campus where the trees were changing color as fall advanced. Oh boy, he thought, I don’t know where this is leading, but here we go.
“What have we been talking about for the last hour?” he asked.
“Corporate culture?” said the same young woman. Jake recalled how she always ended her comments with an up-turn in her voice inflection, not quite certain of herself but never far off the mark.
“Right, Marcie. And what one factor most thoroughly dominates the culture of corporations today?”
“Profit,” said a confident young man. Keen grasp of the obvious, Jake thought.
“Right, profit.” Jake double-underlined the word on the projected screen. “And, given the trends we have discussed, would anybody care to predict the future of corporate culture? Do we have any prophets in the room?” He smiled.
But no one was encouraged, so Jake regrouped. “Okay, let me try again. Are there no consequences to the making of money? Can we build our corporate cultures solely on profit and not produce certain negative outcomes?” Silence. But not the silence of boredom. Nobody was looking off into space. All eyes were on him.
“Let me tell you about my great-grandfather,” said Jake, seating himself on the edge of his desk.
When twenty-two-year-old Anton Pels had arrived as an immigrant in 1926, he took a job working for the Proctor and Gamble Company in New Jersey. He swept floors for the first six months. Before he was thirty, he was a middle manager in the Industrial Products division. He retired a vice-president.
“He worked for the same company all his life,” said Jake. “That company was his extended family. He was treated like a valued member, and as he rose in the ranks, he considered those who worked for him as family too. P&G was not alone in that regard. In Detroit, auto workers signed on for life. In the oil industry, corporations like Marathon Oil considered it their obligation to link employee loyalty with long-term managerial commitment.”
“But that’s paternalism,” said a student. “It created dependence and a big-brother system, didn’t it?”
“Yes it did. That’s a good observation,” said Jake. “But while it made employees dependent – especially in company-towns where everybody worked at the same plant – there was still the idea that, ‘although we underpay you and demand long hours, we still think of you as family.’ In other words, ‘we have obligations toward you.’”
“Treated ’em like children, really,” said a student.
“True,” Jake concurred. “But the point is that the sense of obligation was a defining part of the corporate culture of the time.”
“Why?” asked a male voice in the back.
“Why?” Jake thought for a moment. “I think it was based on a clash of moral principles. There was a growing conflict between the old moral ethic of treating others with respect as valued individuals and the work ethic of profit-making.”
“Ancient history,” said someone in a low voice.
“That’s exactly right,” said Jake. “It is ancient history. But it didn’t happen overnight, did it? The balance shifted from paternalism to bottom-line-mentality over a period of many decades, but it did shift. And today we have one corporation after another paying immoral salaries and bonuses to top executives while at the same time ruthlessly cutting costs at the expense of employee job security and, in particular, workers’ medical benefits and pension funds.”
Jake paused to let that sink in. “Now,” he said, “if you had been a p-r-o-p-h-e-t in the decades following the 1920s, wouldn’t you have seen it coming? In fact, if you could extrapolate from trends at all, wouldn’t you have known where we were going to be today?”
“Where are we today?” asked Marcie.
“You tell me,” replied Jake. “How would you all define present-day corporate culture?”
Their answers came mostly in clichés, all of which sounded essentially Darwinian – survival of the fittest – dog eat dog – do unto others before they do unto you – me first – CYA (cover your a--) – et cetera.
“And you think the inner atmosphere – the culture of the corporation – can be built on those concepts?” Jake said. “Because what you’re telling me is that corporate morality, as we traditionally understand it, doesn’t exist any more.” No one spoke in response. “If that’s the case, where is trust? Where is sacrifice for the good of the team? How about quality assurance? Dedication to larger objectives? What’s left?”
“Money,” said Alan Fletcher, a student athlete.
“Money,” Jake repeated. “Do you want to work in an environment built on that alone? Dog-eat-dog is okay if you’re the eater,” he persisted. “Most people, however, at some point in their lives, face the very real possibility of being the eaten.”
Marcie said, “But Dr. Pels, aren’t you getting too much into moral issues for a business class?”
“Isn’t corporate culture ultimately a moral issue?” responded Jake.
“You sound just like a prophet,” she said. They all laughed.
“Maybe so, but remember,” said Jake as he began to write these words on the overhead screen: “Business prophets tell what’s going to happen. Business profits tell what has happened.”
That evening …
Jake chopped the chicken into bite-size chunks which he transferred from the cutting board into a small dish containing a mixture of soy sauce, hot red-pepper garlic sauce, and sesame oil. There it would marinate for thirty minutes while he cooked rice. Angela cut broccoli, red bell pepper, and onion. Cashews would be added later. This was their established division of labor and the resulting stir-fry was their favorite meal. The spicy food would be complemented with a glass of German Gewürztraminer.
They ate with chop sticks.
“I got called a prophet today,” said Jake.
“Really, by whom?”
“Marcie Stewart.”
“Isn’t she the cute blonde you told me about? The one who sits in the front row?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Are you sure she didn’t say ‘profligate’?” said Angela with a grin.
“She might have, if wasting time was my offense,” Jake smiled back. “But actually, what I thought was going to be a time-wasting disaster turned into a pretty good learning experience.”
He told her about his spelling gaffe – “prophet” instead of “profit” – and the discussion that had followed.
“I tell you the truth, Angie, I hadn’t the slightest clue where that was going. But I think it turned out okay, especially with my closing quote, ‘Business prophets tell what’s going to happen. Business profits tell what has happened.’ Neat, huh?”
“I’m not surprised,” she said with a mischievous nod of her head. “You have a remarkable skill for talking your way out of trouble.”
Jake laughed as she gave him that “you clever boy” look. Then he turned serious.
“I’m not sure I talked my way out of anything today,” he said. He took a sip of wine, admired the clarity of the straw-colored liquid, and set the glass down slowly. Leaning back in his chair, Jake looked at his wife. She waited.
“Do you remember that research project I did for the casino industry?”
“Sure,” she said with a puzzled expression, “the one you said they’d never publish because it exposed their greed and lack of integrity.” She added, “And you were right.”
“Yeah, I was. The data proved, at least in my mind, that casinos are basically legal thieves who rob from the poor by giving them false hope and cheap, temporary artificial thrills.” Jake took a deep breath. What’s the point? Angela wondered.
“The point of all that,” he said as though reading her thoughts, “was that they knew I might be right, but they couldn’t afford to bring themselves to admit it. If I was right, they were wrong, so wrong they couldn’t or wouldn’t fix it.”
“And this has something to do with what happened today in class?” Angela ventured.
“Yes.” Jake looked at his chopsticks as though they were objects of intense scrutiny. “Angela ...” he said.
Oh-oh, when he calls me Angela, she thought.
“I feel like I’m being … oh, what’s the word? … pushed, propelled … down a path where I don’t want to go. This ‘prophet thing’ of yours. I keep thinking about it – about them. Frankly, I think these guys are just very good actors, okay? But I mean very good actors. They’re almost too good.” He looked at her. “Honey, I simply can’t go where I think they’re taking me.”
“Taking us, you mean,” she said.
“Okay, us. But you seem to be just fine with these guys. I mean, it doesn’t seem to matter to you whether they’re actors or … or the real thing.”
“What do you mean, ‘the real thing’?”
“That’s the whole point, Angie. Somewhere in my rational brain, a voice keeps telling me, ‘these guys might be the real thing.’ I don’t like that. I simply can’t afford to go there.”
“Why not?” she said.
“Why not? Angie!” He raised his voice. “Listen to you! I hear you saying, ‘Why don’t we both just go insane?’ Think about it!”
“I have,” she said.
He nodded. “Okay then. Look, as I see it, there are two issues here. First, these Thursday night visits. I mean, if these guys are really who they claim to be, we’re sitting there talking to a bunch of ghosts, men who’ve been dead for two thousand years. That’s a little bit spooky, don’t you think?”
“Do they seem spooky to you?”
“Frankly, yeah. I think talking to dead men is spooky. But maybe ‘spooky’ isn’t the right word for you. I don’t want to get into a semantics argument here. How about ‘weird’? Or maybe ‘bizarre’? Or you might prefer something a little less pejorative like ‘wacky.’ Jake’s voice was rising again.
“Jake,” she said.
“A guy comes to our front door. He says, ‘Hi there. I’m a dead guy. Can I come in for a visit?’”
“Jake,” she repeated. “Please.”
Jake spread his hands out in a “take-it-easy” gesture, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, Angie. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve never heard of this sort of thing happening to anybody. It’s definitely …” he searched for a word … “extraordinary. How’s that for a word? And I think maybe a little threatening.”
“Maybe so,” she replied. “But I don’t feel threatened, especially with you there,” she smiled. “And after listening to them it seems to me that they are apparently very godly men. I’m just not going to worry about it. They are what they are. I trust them.”
Neither spoke for several moments. Jake stared at his chop sticks; she at her hands.
“Well, I’m not sure I do,” Jake broke the silence. “But, okay, let’s say we let them do their thing. You might be right – they seem to be very ‘godly’ as you say. So we set that aside, at least for now.”
“But there’s a second issue,” she prompted.
“Yes, and to me it’s the really big one, bigger than spooky dead guys. It’s the Bible itself. If we go along with all this prophet stuff, I think we might have to seriously reconsider what that book is all about. Have you thought about that?”
“Yes.”
“It’s like my casino execs. They looked at the data, realized its implications, and said, ‘No thanks, we don’t want to go there.’”
“But Jake,” she said, “don’t you think there’s a huge difference between a group of unethical executives in an unethical industry and the words of men who spoke and wrote the Scriptures?”