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Meditation on Jesus as Prophet

Years since goodbye, I call to hear her voice on the answering machine—she used to finish my sentences, and I loved her for that. She knew my heart. She didn’t demand words.

Tonight, across the street, some man, desperate for words that hint at intimacy, will pick up the phone and pay by the minute.

Across town a psychic is doing well—three appointments today. A widow, a mother, and an orphan are hoping for words from the other side. They feel that they cannot go on without them.

Right now, a man, confident in his new bride’s love, or at least in her commitment, lays a finger over her mouth at the consummation. His pupils are dilated enough so that he sees gazelle and fruit and cedar trees. Only later will he tell her what he has seen—the words mean more after the fact. Though the words can’t prove his love, he’ll speak anyway and eventually, but only because she asks for them, feeling that she needs proof.

I sympathize. The insecure lover, the phone-sex addict, the bereaved—we are waiting, dictionary in-hand, for a word or two to translate, some spoken thread to hold us together.

My bite-sized Japanese-English Dictionary gives me the words for “priest” and “king,” but not for “prophet.” I settle for “mouth” instead. The Japanese symbol for mouth surprises me at first. I expect ornate labyrinths of line, like a temple or wheels inside wheels. Or a small intestine. Instead, I get a box. Four clean lines almost right-angled, connected at the corners, like a book, or a robot mouth, as if I could shove a loaf of bread through it.

The German word for “creator,” Schopfer, also means “scoop, or ladle.”

One word and the stars unfurl. Another and the moon unfolds, voids the darkness, its corners curl. A tree rips through the ground, an apple drips from a limb, bones from dust. God spoke the world into being, Moses told God’s people, but they weren’t there when it happened, so I don’t blame them, who kept looking for a mouth. They heard the LORD’s voice from the desert cloud, from pillared fire, from Sinai’s stained mountain crown. Moses broke the back of the golden calf, and still the people scanned the clouds, pointing out profiles. They looked for tongues in the fire. They said that if you squint small enough, the mountains look like chipped incisors. All they wanted was a mouth, a set of lips to lock onto.

The evidence—lintel blood, manna, the mountain’s tremble—should have been enough. Still he gave them words; they should have been and were not enough. Again, then, he condescended: To Moses sent Elijah, Amos, Isaiah, Jonah, Jeremiah, Malachi. To smashed tablets cast parched land and dry bones clinking, altars drenched and flame-consumed, one ass bared, bicuspids full of dirt and grit. “Go on. Pick a mouth, any mouth.” Locusts, honey, scratchy shirt.
That wasn’t good enough.

God sighed, put-out, and once more emptied his pencil box: How should they appear, Jesus’ lips? Chapped, cleft, moustached, wax. We don’t care if they’re glossy, puckered, or pouty, we want to see the words drip from your lips, they said. We want to see your mouth move. Our bones are drying up for lack of syntax. Vowel us to death, they said.
So he did. For thirty-odd years.

At 33 years old, the Creator, the Word incarnate, was summoned to defend himself before a man, Pilate, a product of His own word:
Pilate’s robes are gaudy and turbulent, his hair shiny, the marble floor. Sweat. Having heard that this man Jesus is a prophet, he asks, “What is truth?” For a moment—ten seconds maybe—the prophet just poses, blinking, silent. This is the best answer, and Jesus can tell that Pilate, though irritated, finds this a bit sexy. Then Pilate snaps out of it, and the prophet speaks. Pilate will wish that he hadn’t demanded these words—once they are spoken, there is no going back. He must put Jesus to death. So Pilate has him crucified, the lips of God writhing, ripped, then limp—they are, then, sealed in a tomb. The people become too afraid to speak. For once, words are pointless.

For so long this cycle—His people felt that they needed more proof; He gave it to them; they didn’t like it; they asked for something else; He gave it—until they proved Him into the ground.

But that was 2,000 years ago. We know the story. We know what happens—Jesus is not dead after all, not finished speaking. As long as you’re talking to us again, well, we’re still not sure. Maybe you could just give us a sign? Nothing big, but make it clear.

Maybe lips are just boxes for shaping air. Maybe we quit demanding form and trust content. Damn the predictions, the tea leaves, nebulous signs from above, telephone prophets, Benny Hinn and his honey-forked tongue. Stick your holy pearly whites in our hearts. Grab my head and jerk it back. If it’ll do the trick, break my stiff neck. Expose the jugular, jack my jaws apart, reach down—hell, bypass the heart and ladle the words straight into my gut. If I tell you I won’t listen, don’t listen to me. I’m telling you, right now, I need you to speak, words or no. For God’s sake, I’m tired of living on bread alone. Forget the finishing. Start starting my sentences. Speak. Please. Speak.

(appeared originally in Critique)

Posted by ghetto monk at February 4, 2004 02:11 PM | TrackBack