Beginning today, Monday, and continuing until August 24th, with the exception of some solemnities, Sundays, feast/memorial celebrations, our first reading is from the Prophet Ezekiel. It is a dense book with lots going on, and it is broken up into bits and bites that make it hard to know what is transpiring. And without that sense of continuity and flow, it’s difficult to understand what the Word of God is trying to say to us in our time. So…. let me bring you “up to speed.”
For several hundred years since the time of King David, the people of God have been burdened by less than faithful kings (Hezekiah and Josiah being the exceptions) and being a city and kingdom located at the crossroads between the empires and ambitions of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. By the year 597 BC, idolatrous worship was common, the king cared not one whit about the covenant, the prophets – and there have been many – were roundly ignored, and the barbarians were at the gates of the city. These particular barbarians being the Babylonians.
The city surrendered. The King of Judah, his courtiers and leading citizens were taken into exile as refugees, settling in the far eastern regions of the Babylonian Empire. This was not the total destruction of the city and the Temple by Babylon – that event was still 10 years away. Ezekiel was in this first wave of exiles and was already settled in Babylon before the armies of Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 587 BC (which Ezekiel comes to know in Chapter 33).
Monday’s reading: Ezekiel becomes the first prophet commissioned outside the land of Judah or Israel. Even in exile, God has not abandoned his people. As part of that commissioning, Ezekiel has a vision of the glory of God – there among the people in exile – and that’s good news… sort of. It means God does not abandon his covenant people, but the bad news is that it means the Glory of God has left the Jerusalem temple (more details in Ez 8-11). And it also means that some tough news needs to be delivered to the people already in exile.
Tuesday’s reading: the tough news to be delivered is given to Ezekiel, but we are not told what it contains apart from a general description: “Lamentation and wailing and woe!”
Wednesday’ reading is an ominous reading echoing the Passover when certain folks were marked for their righteousness to form a remnant of believing people, but the rest were given over to their idolatry. Some translations simply read “place a mark.” Other passages, such as ours, read “mark a ‘Thau’” – a good translation from the Hebrew, describing the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet – which by the way comes into the Greek as “tau” – the shape of the Franciscan cross.
The passage, in part, describes the sacking and destruction of Jerusalem – five years before the fact. God’s judgment has been made. Later on, in Ezekiel 14 and following, God notes that not even the pleading of Noah, Daniel or Job would turn away the judgment.
Thursday’s reading would have been from Ezekiel 12 except this year we celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The sins and idolatry have driven God’s glory from the Temple and goes into Exile with his people – but promises that one day a faithful remnant will return to the holy city. But in this reading from Ez 12-24, God’s judgment is announced on Jerusalem and all of Judah/Israel.
Friday’s reading makes the point that the Promised Land was given to the Hebrews even though the Canaanites were already in the land. The Hebrews were to be a light to the Canaanites to leave behind their child sacrifices, idol worship, and evil ways – but the people were seduced and became like the Canaanites. In the use of allegory, Israel is compared to a low born, cast off person that no one wanted. Yet, God reached down and lifted Israel up, bringing her into a marriage covenant with God. He established her and yet she was enthralled with her own beauty and importance forgetting the God who lifted her up. She truly had the hard heart Ezekiel foretold in Chapter 11. Yet even then, God promises faithfulness to the Covenant.
A take away for a week with Ezekiel. The prophet Ezekiel is important because it is the ongoing record that even at our worst, while the consequences of our choices are ours to endure, God is ever with us and ever committed to the covenant. Borrowing from my homily of yesterday:
- Even when we stopped talking to God – He has never ended the conversation.
- Even when we turned away – He has never rejected the covenant with us.
- Even when we desire so many things not of God – He always desires that we be saved
And that is good news.