Monday, August 17, 2020                 (today’s lectionary)
Unmindfulness
Those of us with compassion reading the lectionary today are angry with God. How must Ezekiel have felt? This time the “word of the Lord” was hurting his loved ones. Specifically, his wife.
By a sudden blow, son of man
I am taking away from you the delight of your eyes.
As God put Hosea through partnering with a constantly unfaithful wife, now God acts through Ezekiel and his wife to show Jerusalem their evil. Then he tells Ezekiel:
Do not mourn or weep, but groan in silence
Make no lament
Wear the clothes of celebration, not grief
Just as DCFS would have arrested Abraham for taking Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him to Yahweh, the Grief Police Squad (GPS) might arrest God himself this time, for depriving Ezekiel of his mourning.
That evening my wife died.
And the next morning I did as I had been commanded.
And the people were curious, and asked questions.
Why are you doing this?
Ezekiel had fire in his eyes when he spoke. Ezekiel must have been angry at everything that moved, starting with God. When the word of the Lord shook inside him this time, his words were angry with both God’s anger and his own. Anger rushed to replace sadness when the sadness became overwhelming. Adrenalin poured in, and rage poured out.
God speaks through Ezekiel:
I will desecrate MY sanctuary!
It  has become
The stronghold of your pride,
The delight of your eyes,
The desire of your soul.
Did Ezekiel not love his wife? Was she not the apple of his eye? And still …
The sons and daughters (and wives) you left behind shall fall by the sword.
This is God’s sanctuary, God’s people, God’s creation. Only God has the right to mourn. The people cannot properly mourn because they have brought this on themselves. Their feelings will be tied up in knots of guilt and shame and their relationships wrecked because they cannot see beyond themselves. They have stopped believing there is anything for them to look up to. They have become their own god and cannot look away from the mirror.
You shall rot away because of your sins and groan to one another.
You were unmindful of the Rock that begot you.
Mindfulness is a wonderful tool of meditation and stillness which allows me to search myself. But what I discover is my need for God to do a deeper, richer search to know my heart, test my anxious thoughts, and remind me I am fearfully made, wonderfully created to trust and obey.
You forgot the God who gave you birth.
Would God really abandon us? I think not, but the old stories are there, and our stories are there too. Pain and suffering, martyrdom and death, exile and famine, plagues. Plagues do not end with discovery of the germ theory, or war does not end with disarmament, and famine does end when we plant corn from fencerow to fencerow. Our inventions and improvements only uncover new problems, often worse than the old ones. Progress turns in on itself, and we wonder why we feel despair.
Since they provoke me with their “no-god”
I will provoke them with a “no-people.”
Who shall rescue you from this body of death?
Oh, Lord Jesus, come and rescue us. O Lord Jesus, come and heal us. God hears, and Jesus comes. He invites us to turn from our self-focused ways (the definition of “repentance”) and turn toward our Father and each other. Isn’t the ancient Golden Rule? Is there anything new in this message? Maybe not, but when I say it, that’s one thing, and when Jesus Christ the Son of God says it, that’s another.
Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.
Jesus tells those of us who are rich in possessions and greedy for more that we must give it all away. I think that’s me he’s talking to. Jesus’ words in Matthew 19 have haunted me for decades. God’s awful words through Ezekiel describe my self-condemnation: “You shall rot away because of your sins and groan to others.”
Debra, my spiritual director for years, knows how much I groan about my failure to give. And she knows I will probably groan again next month.
Go and sell what you have and give to the poor
And you will have treasure in heaven.
THEN come and follow me.
And the young man went away sad.
I feel sad. But I notice there is something new in me. I complain to Debra less these days.
I’ve written enough for now, though, and perhaps you’ve read more than you expected today. Let me wait until tomorrow to finish that thought.
           (Ezekiel 24, Deuteronomy 32, Matthew 5, Matthew 19)
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