Reading: Ezekiel 31-33, Psalm 40
One of the classic tropes of our culture is the train crash you cannot look away from. Whether it is a literal accident or an artistic or social disaster in the making, there is something in the human makeup that cannot look away from catastrophe in progress. Sometimes we don’t see the oncoming calamity until right before it happens, and we have little choice but to simply pick up the pieces afterward. But other times we see a precarious edifice being assembled and have time to intervene. The question is should we?
In the case of Ezekiel, the answer is given to him in no uncertain terms: he must intervene, or be held responsible for the results. This cost to being chosen is a sub-theme in the Hebrew Bible I haven’t talked too much about but that will intersect with all the other themes when the main character of the Story finally appears in a few weeks. Ezekiel, like Jeremiah and Isaiah before him, is told that his role is like that of a city watchman charged with alerting the people of oncoming danger. Such a watchman had to remain awake, alert, and conscious of his duty to the people of the city. He was placed in his role because the people trusted him to let them know when to take action. If he failed in his duty, everyone else did as well. One might almost say he was stood as substitute for the city. Ezekiel is given a similar task, but for the chosen people of Israel. It is a privileged place, but with tremendous responsibility and cost associated with it.
Of course, anyone put in a position of leadership knows a form of this dilemma. If you are good leader, when things go well your team gets the credit, and when things go badly you get the blame. Ezekiel, and the other major prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, had the unique awareness of having been told by God that no one would listen to them, but to keep proclaiming his words anyway. It is hard to imagine that each of them did not at some point experience quite a range of emotions directed at the people they were speaking to, from rage at their ignorance, to glee at their onrushing doom. Ezekiel is required to do some really bizarre things in his ministry, and I wonder if I, in his position, wouldn’t have taken great pleasure in seeing my prophecies of destruction fulfilled.
He does not. God directly works against this by making sure Ezekiel laments and mourns not only over Israel, but the other nations around them that are being swallowed up by Babylon. Even the Assyrians get a lament directed at their fall. Ezekiel the Watchman is responsible and demonstrates a care for the vanquished that is pretty alien to the human condition. He sees the train crash coming and cannot look away, blasts his trumpet as loud as he can, and then expresses sorrow as the results when the train engineers wave at him and say, “Hey, good story about a train crash, what could it possibly mean?” Meanwhile they steam towards one another full speed ahead.
One of those engineers, the leaders of the people in Jerusalem, are so sure of themselves because of a promise to Abraham. After all, we are a privileged people. The chosen people. God will be true to his word and give us peace in our land. It appears they had missed the point of the books of Moses: being chosen is a responsibility, and imposes a cost. They were to bear witness to the nations that the God of Israel is the creator God who will make all things new, not that the God of Israel was an exclusive God who will make our lives super great. God is not amused by their privilege. He has Ezekiel tell them that their ancestry will not save them. If they are rebellious, they will be treated like rebels. At the same time, ancestry will not condemn them. If they are obedient, it doesn’t matter who their ancestors were. Ezekiel is close to making a point about the descendants of Abraham being a kind of person, not a bloodline. This will get picked up in the New Testament in a big way.
The message of Ezekiel is about to turn towards the future of the people, but that first he needs to go watch another train crash. We get the collapse of Jerusalem and the delivery of the news to Ezekiel, which opens his mouth. He is now to leave his house and visit the people, telling them things which they will not listen to. God has a nice way of letting Ezekiel know that he won’t be seeing much success, but that after the trains collide everyone will know that he is a prophet of God. Such is the cost of being chosen. It is only after all the suffering happens that the chosen are acknowledged, understood, and rewarded.