Profile as priest, prophet and king

The social media and many organizational development initiatives encourage us to develop and publish for others our “user profile”. Google, Facebook and Twitter have summaries of who we present ourselves to be. What is the user profile created by Baptism of the Christian? The texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary offer the opportunity to reflect on the practice of the baptismal profile of Christians as priest, prophet and king. The role of priest is as one who brings us in contact with God. The psalm paints a picture of the servant attending to the hand signal directions of the master or mistress. This attentiveness is based on the expectation that the servant will be called to action. The psalmist compares this to the expectation that we certainly encounter God in mercy. The preparation for encounter with the Divine is the priestly component of our profile. We expect and extend mercy. The Prophet Ezekiel is given instruction by God in the text today about the nature of the people he is being called to serve. The prophetic gift in our profile is that insight through which we are empowered to see the world through the eyes of God. The vision of God which is shared with the prophet illuminates the actions and attitudes of people which are in opposition to the will of God. Traditionally, prophets have seen the failure to make the attitude of the psalmist, who depends on and waits for God, in the actions of people who become superficial in worship and negligent in loving action towards brothers and sisters in need. As Paul proclaims to the Corinthians, the one bringing the Word, will themselves be lacking in the fullness of conformity to the will of God and will like the psalmist dwell in the attentive understanding of the psalmist that God will provide the elements missing in our profile to accomplish His Will. Jesus models the king aspect of our profile. In the passage from the Gospel of Mark, He leads his disciples to the synagogue where after serving the needs of Jew and Gentile, described in Chapter 5 of the Gospel, He teaches with such authority and Presence that the congregation suffers the cognitive dissonance that this cannot be the man who they have seen mature in the community. As servant leaders, with a history, our role as prophet king, honouring our baptismal gifts, may be to generate that cognitive dissonance which is a prophetic path to offer the intimacy we know with the Divine to others as we see more clearly our own” thorn in our side” which keeps us dependant of the power of Love and the extension of mercy for the action which makes us servant leaders in His entourage.