Prayer
Teach me, O God, to walk in your ways. Guide me to see a
glimpse of the prophetic imagination. I pray, that I might see calamity and
avoid it, that I might warn others and help your cause. Tune my recognition to
that which is set apart for you. Open my ears to hear your Word and live by it.
Lead me to work your way for the needy and oppressed, strengthen all who do
your help and healing. In the Name of Almighty God, I pray. Amen.
Ezekiel 7:1-9
The word of the Lord came to me: You, O mortal, thus says the
Lord God to the land of Israel: An end! The end has come upon the four corners
of the land. Now the end is upon you, I will let loose my anger upon you; I
will judge you according to your ways, I will punish you for all your
abominations. My eye will not spare you, I will have no pity. I will punish you
for your ways, while your abominations are among you. Then you shall know that
I am the Lord. Thus says the Lord God: Disaster after disaster! See, it comes.
An end has come, the end has come. It has awakened against you; see, it comes!
Your doom has come to you, O inhabitant of the land. The time has come, the day
is near— of tumult, not of reveling on the mountains. Soon now I will pour out
my wrath upon you; I will spend my anger against you. I will judge you
according to your ways, and punish you for all your abominations. My eye will
not spare; I will have no pity. I will punish you according to your ways, while
your abominations are among you. Then you shall know that it is I the Lord who
strike.
Reflection
This time of the church year has turned fully into the end
times. I have to admit that, this year, I am weary of some of the readings. I
turned to do a reflection on another text, the one for tomorrow, yet it was in
some ways, more of the same. I heard the encouragement of the Spirit to go
ahead. So, I struggle with Zeke. He is not my favorite voice of prophetic imagination.
Yet, I have to own up to the reality that we need to be challenged by
scripture. It is also true that we have heard a lot of gloom and doom
predictions right now in our own time. Many have pointed to current events and
identified trends they see to the end of all days. The prophets, however, were
speaking into their own time and against unfaithfulness that they were seeing
as a direct conflict with God, that God would answer. In many cases, the prophets’
words were answered. Various predictions, however, hang across time waiting
like a judgement before the bang of the divine gavel to mete it out.
The truth is, I don’t want to hear about God’s wrath. I wonder
how wrath connects to a God of love. Yet, I must also struggle with questions
like, “Does God not find us guilty of damage to Creation? Are we not all
complicit in some way with Climate Change? Have we all turned fully to God, or are
we hedging our bets and trying to live in two conflicting worlds?” Jesus was right,
we cannot serve two masters. We cannot love both God and mammon/wealth. God is
jealous for our love. At what point do we test God’s patience too far? Certainly,
we can only rest in the unfailing mercy of Christ Jesus. Our hope is in his deliverance and path forward.
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