As I was growing up in an evangelical church, one of my pastors' favorite scriptures to use to wake up a congregation and remind us to keep going was the "run-the-race" scripture. In Hebrews 12, we are instructed to "run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith." But I was never a runner — or, in fact, had any athletically inclined bone in my body — and I desperately needed a different metaphor, something that I felt would teach me to carry on my faith in a sustainable way.
To this day, I've yet to find one that really fits, but the idea is the same: The long haul work of justice, of making things right in a world where things have gone wrong, is work that lasts throughout the centuries. For prophets must recognize that the dreams we work toward probably won't be realized while we are still living and breathing.
Perhaps prophets realize that our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, foster children, our students, they are the ones who carry forth the work that we could only hope to finish. They are the ones who will realize the dreams of God in a hurting world.
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