Ezekiel
was an exile, a displaced person. He was
an Israelite living in Babylon, because the Babylonians had come to Jerusalem,
destroyed it, destroyed God’s house, the Temple, in its midst and forced them
on the long march East to Babylon. The
people were bereft of the only ways they’d known God: the Temple, the kingship,
the Land. But, God did not desert
them. The people would discover that in
their exile, God was in their midst too.
Just as, centuries later, the Church, bereft of Christ’s humane
presence, would discover that wherever two or three gathered in his name, he
was there. But, I’m getting ahead of
myself. God did not desert his
people. God continued to send prophets,
to call them back to covenant living, even when living in a strange land.
God
calls Ezekiel to serve as a watchman. Tsōfeh:
It’s the normal, military-civic term for someone stationed on a high
wall or a watchtower who has two jobs: to be attentive to all that’s going on,
and to convey the truth of his observations accurately and
indiscriminately. The book of Proverbs tells
us that God himself is a watchman, keeping us under his watchful eye and
revealing the truth of his love and kindness.
God shared his own mission with a human, sharing part of himself with
Ezekiel. And the stakes are high: for
Ezekiel, his life must be the faithful exercise of God’s commission; if he flinches,
he loses his life. The rewards are great
too. We only read a snippet from Ezekiel
at Mass today, reading on just a few verses we find the promise of life for
those who turn from evil, we hear God prophetically pronounce what the future
has in store: that the people turn, their sins are forgiven, justice and right are
done and then, and lo! (he exclaims) you shall live!
Knowing
that God would, eventually, triumph can’t have made it easy for Ezekiel, the
displaced watchman. This past week, we
celebrated the feast of St. Gregory the Great, who found in Ezekiel’s words
powerful resonance with what he was experiencing. Gregory had become a monk, wishing to spend
his life in prayer and simple work, committed to hospitality to all and close
fraternal life with his brothers. But,
God had other plans. Gregory was chosen
to serve as Pope. In a homily on this
passage of Ezekiel, he said:
Anyone appointed to be a watchman for the
people must stand on a height for all his life to help them by his
foresight. How hard it is for me to say
this, for by these very words I denounce myself. I do not live my life according to my own
preaching. I do not deny my responsibility; I recognize that I am slothful and
negligent, but perhaps the acknowledgement of my fault will win me pardon from
my just judge. Who am I to be watchman,
for I do not stand on the mountain of action but lie down in the valley of
weakness? Truly the all-powerful Creator
and Redeemer of humanity can give me in spite of my weakness a higher life and
effective speech; because I love him, I do not spare myself in speaking of him.
“Because
I love him, I do not spare myself in speaking of him.” Gregory says this of God, but we could say it
too of our neighbor. “Because I love, I
do not spare myself in reaching out to them, in sharing the truth in love with
them, of challenging them when they need challenge.” But we do, we each do. And, we, the baptized, have been anointed in
our baptism, priest, prophet and
shepherd/servant/king. It is not just
Ezekiel who has been appointed tsōfeh,
it’s not just Ezekiel and Gregory, or just Pope Francis and Bishop Rhoades and
the parish staff who are watchmen. It’s
the baptized. It’s the Church. That’s where Jesus dares to put us. This speech we heard as our Gospel reading
was not just given to select apostles. “Jesus
said to his disciples.” All of
them. Jesus lifts us up and puts us on a
watchtower. I went looking for the
tallest thing I could find called a watch-tower in the Ancient world, and I
found Homer referring to the Trojan Acropolis as a skopia, or watchtower, the temple of Artemis. Archeologists tell us it was an impressive structure. Well, we are watchmen raised by God atop the
Temple of the Holy Spirit, and it’s grander yet.
We’re
raised there because that’s how God wants to extend forgiveness to the world,
wants to reconcile the world to Himself, a bring us to live wholly and holily with
him. This recipe for bringing an erring sister
or brother through repentance to forgiveness, is only part of a longer speech
Jesus gives, commonly called the community discourse. It begins with gathering the children to
himself, the scene depicted in stain glass above our main church door, and
encouraging us all to become like them, vulnerable. It goes on to talk about the shepherd who
searches out the lost sheep and goes on to talk of forgiving seventy times
seven times. And in between, we have
this. This call to be watchmen. To seek the sheep who don’t know they’re
lost, and tell them we need them, tell them we need them to live holily and
lovingly with us and that that’s not happening. To tell them of forgiveness and
mercy. To tell them of sin. To tell them of turning away. To tell them of the embrace of Christ which
they are evading, however unknowingly, but not walking in justice, mercy and
humility.
St.
Paul said it. We owe each other
love. Nothing more, nothing less. And we learn love from those arms, spread
wide on that cross, and tenderly wrapped around the little ones.
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