There is a need in our time to reclaim the proper understanding of Biblical prophecy and divine judgment. To do this, the work of mid-twentieth century Biblical scholar, Wile E. Coyote S.G. can be instructive. His unique approach helps students understand how biblical prophecy really works by arranging a humorous story in such a way that the audience is quickly shifted from a passive, observational role into the prophetic role within a few moments of the opening scene.
In his seminal work, “Fast and Furry-ous,” Coyote immediately establishes the overarching context with a fruitless foot chase of the Roadrunner carried out with knife and fork in hand. Seeing a direct pursuit to be ineffective, Coyote then begins a series of efforts intended to trap or trick the Roadrunner into becoming his next meal. The first effort is to lie in wait and at the last moment hold up a metal trash can lid into which the Roadrunner is meant to collide at full speed. The Roadrunner stops short and turns in a cloud of dust to run off in the other direction. When Coyote then attempts to take up the chase, the Roadrunner returns at the precise moment needed and holds up the same metal lid and Coyote is the one who collides with it.
In the very next scene the pattern of the Roadrunner actively using Coyote’s methods against him is continued as Coyote attempts to capture the Roadrunner with a boomerang. Once thrown, the boomerang returns to ring the neck of Coyote and to further the lesson, we see that the Roadrunner has also thrown another boomerang and after he runs off, that boomerang also returns to assault Coyote. Coyote uses this scene to both reinforce the pattern whereby his malicious efforts are used against him but also to help students understand that Roadrunner’s active participation is not necessarily needed for the pattern to continue. Coyote then uses several scenes to demonstrate this new aspect of the lesson when he attempts to ride a rocket which ends up launching him into an overhanging rock formation and pulling a keystone from under a boulder only to have the boulder fall in the wrong direction crushing Coyote.
At this point Coyote has first established that the proper understanding of Divine judgment is not that God guides natural disasters such as hurricanes or tornados to harm or kill one population in an effort to change the behavior of a completely unrelated population. Divine judgment is rather the natural and often painful consequences that are returned to one group of people who have not lived in a loving, generous or compassionate way toward another group of people who are in a less powerful political or economic position. The lack of care, cruelty and malice that one group throws at another less powerful group will, as Divine judgment is delivered, literally boomerang on the first group and at least figuratively if not literally ring their necks.
As the lesson continues it becomes increasingly easier for the audience to not only see the natural and consequential nature of Divine judgment but also to personally take on the prophetic role. After Coyote runs into the tunnel painting that he just created on the side of a cliff and the plunger explodes in his face when he tries to detonate the dynamite hidden in a mound of bird seed, the audience may not know the exact details of what will happen when he straps an ice making refrigerator to his back, fits it with a meat grinder and straps on snow skis but the audience is now prophetic enough to know that it will end poorly for Coyote.
At this point the audience has not simply heard about biblical prophecy but they have been drawn in by the story and BECOME prophetic in a similar way in which many biblical prophets, such as Jeremiah, were prophetic. The audience was able to see the historical pattern of malice and cruelty that Coyote intended for the less powerful and knew from that history that as the Coyote continued on the same path, there would follow further reversals and misfortune for him.
In our time, as in every time, there are historical patterns of cruelty and malice being directed at the poor, weak and marginalized by those with greater wealth and power. As safety nets are removed and opportunities for fair wages are undermined, history reminds us that these actions eventually always lead to Divine judgment which play out in the lives of the oppressors as dramatic and often horrific reversals. The goal of biblical prophecy is not to predict an inevitable future but instead to remind those in power of what will happen if they continue to walk the path of cruelty and malice that they are currently walking. Prophecy is meant to wake up those in power to their Biblical calling of care for those who are weaker, unfortunate or oppressed before the judgment falls.
We need to reclaim prophecy from those who have attempted to make it a sick joke linking hate and weather and stand up and warn those in power to change their oppressive and manipulative ways. God does not delight in judgment and is happy to see the repentance of those who have been walking down a malicious path, but if the people, governments, corporations and organizations of this world played so brilliantly by Coyote continue to insist on living the real world version of jumping out from behind a billboard with an ax to attack the weak and powerless, God’s divine reversal will just as certainly insure that the “beep-beep” they jump out to assault will turn out to be the horn of an oncoming bus rather than their intended victim.
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