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.
One way
in which God’s presence became real for them was in the prophets God called. God
calls Ezekiel to serve as a watchman. A
watchman, stationed on a high wall or a watchtower, has two jobs: they must
be attentive to all that’s going on, and they have to convey the truth of his
observations accurately and broadly. In
the book of Proverbs, we read that God himself is a watchman, keeping us under
his watchful eye and crying out the truth of his love and mercy. 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, watching and telling; 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!
When St.
Gregory the Great, a monk who was made Pope, read these words from Ezekiel, he
understood them as directed very personally to himself. Not in prideful way,
actually more in a mournful, yet hopeful, way. He preached once:
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 he could also
have said it of 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. I say we, because, we,
the baptized, have been anointed in our baptism, priest, prophet and shepherd/servant/king.
It is not just Ezekiel who has been appointed watchman, it’s not just Ezekiel and Gregory, or Pope Francis and
Bishop Zarama or the parish staff who are watchmen. It’s the baptized. It’s the Church. God has shared his mission, part of himself,
with us.
That’s,
in essence, what we heard from Jesus in the Gospel. This speech we heard 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, asks us to watch, and asks us to speak out.
We’re
raised there because that’s part of how God wants to extend forgiveness to the
world, wants to reconcile the world to Himself, to 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 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 be
watchmen, and to recognize that we’re surrounded by watchmen. To listen, of
course, to the Pope and our bishop; to listen too to those little ones Jesus
puts at the center; to listen to those our world would shun from the center. To
listen to the displaced, like Ezekiel. To listen to the ones we think are lost!
And to trust, that in our listening, our watching and our speaking, God is
bringing us home, God is bringing us to life.
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