Ezekiel 34:11-16,20-24 God the true shepherd
11Thus says the Lord God: ‘I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. 12As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. 14I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down’, says the Lord God. 16‘I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.’
20Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: ‘I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, 22I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.’
23‘I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd, 24and I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken.’
Text ©The New Revised Standard Version, alt, Used with permission.
Just listen to the righteous anger! The religious leaders of the day had been so inept, and drawn the people’s focus away from God’s message, that He wasn’t prepared to send another messenger for them to ignore or kill. God would seek out the lost sheep Himself.
The so-called shepherds of the flock were more like the hirelings to which Jesus referred (John 10:12), because they had let the sheep wander and get lost, and they didn’t seem concerned.
Through Ezekiel God told the people, and especially the religious leaders, that the sheep would be sought in ALL the places to which they had been scattered. They would be looked after and fed appropriately, instead of being fed rubbish or left to starve. God would do the shepherding because those charged with the job had failed so miserably. Those who should have known better are accused of pushing and shoving the flock and driving them away. No wonder God was angry!
When we think of some of the gospel stories we can see the same righteous anger, and for the same reasons. Jesus didn’t just drive the money-changers out of the Temple; He effectively drove out those who had corrupted the people for their own benefit, power and prestige.
Have we learned anything? No way!! Do we need to be reminded about politicians who don’t like election results, or those who are blind to the risks of Covid-19, or don’t think of what can be achieved by supporting less polluting industries? Do we need to be reminded about churches which are more interested in protecting their images than addressing serious issues of misconduct and subtle abuse, or churches that profess to be pastorally caring when the evidence says much to the contrary? Please don’t misunderstand me: there are plenty of people in churches working hard for the good of the community and being thwarted by those higher up the power chain who say it shouldn’t be done.
Bishop Jack Spong raised an interesting point about focus on status in the churches. When someone is ordained he/she is called “Reverend” – the revered one; when that person is made Dean of a cathedral the title becomes “The Very Reverend”; a bishop is “The Right Reverend”; and an Archbishop is “The Most Reverend”; the Pope is “His Holiness” and the head of the Greek Orthodox Church is “His All Holiness”. Do any of these go out to meet the down-and-outs in mufty – civilian clothes that make them look just like everyone else around them – like Jesus did when he washed the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper? I know of one Australian bishop who did, and it changed him for ever. He realised how much the church over which he presided had strayed from its ways like a lost sheep without a shepherd.
So often through the scriptures we are called to repent and to re-focus on what God wants, not what we want. While the mainstream churches complain about a lack of clergy they frequently reject those called by God and who challenge the status quo. Is that because they would show up how scattered the flock is, by bringing them into the stable and teaching them to love and obey God? We are ALL called by God to spread the Good News and to be faithful shepherds, but it seems a number of those to whom leadership roles have been given are lacking the skills or focus, just as the shepherds in this passage from Ezekiel.
I would love us to be focussed on what God wants us to do, rather than keeping the whistleblowers quiet, though our scriptures, canonical and contemporary, show we still have a lot to learn from Ezekiel.
Jesus knew His scriptures, often quoting them or referring to them. Jesus was often portrayed in the New Testament as being a new, and greater, Moses, or one of the prophets. If we go back to the Exodus story (24:1) we hear about Moses taking seventy elders onto the mountain when he went to talk to God; in Numbers (11:16-25) we hear about Moses choosing seventy to share the load of work he had; the Sanhedrin itself was composed of seventy men; so to portray Jesus as being greater than those who had gone before Him, He had to send out seventy as lambs going into the territory of wolves. The seventy whom Moses had chosen were to prophesy, but only two did so within the camp. Since the Israelites were on a long journey through the desert, to whom did the other sixty-eight prophesy? I’m not offering an answer. Jesus’ seventy, however, were sent ahead of Him into the towns where He intended to go – a sort of advance party to prime people for the coming of the Lord and a new revelation.
What hit me first with this passage is the similarity to medical approaches in the 21st century. In the current Covid-19 era, where we are dependent on medical staff for advice and treatment to minimise the impact of the pandemic on our lives, we should take heed. “Honour physicians for their services” means honour them; don’t tell them they don’t know what they are talking about, don’t tell them we don’t need to wear masks when those physicians are telling us that’s one way to reduce the risk to us and to others, don’t belittle them because we can’t see the serious nature of an illness or injury. The physicians’ gift of healing comes from God, through all the research and development that has gone on through the centuries. We know as much as we do about the human body and how it works because physicians in the past have made discoveries which would astound most of us, and yet there are untrained people who think they know better, and whose concern is more about themselves than the safety of others. Think of how doctors and surgeons work together to restore our health when we have been attacked by bugs or violence, and we must admire their skills.
The popular Christian song “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice” is a direct lift from this passage. Despite his dire circumstances, Paul urges everyone to rejoice always. If you break a leg, rejoice; if you win the mega-lottery, rejoice; if you get a bad dose of Covid-19, rejoice; if you pass your exams with flying colours, rejoice. We may not see what there is to rejoice about it, but God can, and it will turn out for good.
This wasn’t just anyone asking a question, it was the Chief Priests – think of it as the Archbishops and Bishops – and the elders of the faithful people – our lay church leaders – challenging His authority to cast people out of the Temple and to use it as a healing venue. Given that those Chief Priests and elders were only allowed to be in their positions of pseudo-authority because the Roman forces were using them to keep the people from causing disruption, it isn’t surprising that they were anxious to find out where He thought His authority came from, and who gave it to Him. Authority can reside in a position of power, but even people elected to that position – Presidents, Prime Minsters, Chief Priests, etc. – cannot assume the authority and often consider they have more authority than they actually have.
How many times should I forgive somebody who sins against me? There is dispute about the response from Jesus, not in the need for forgiveness, but in the number. Some manuscripts suggest seventy-seven times, others seventy times seven. Those who take the scriptures literally would encourage us to have notebooks in which we record each act of forgiveness, and on the 78th occasion (or the 491st) refuse to forgive. That’s a horrible distortion of the message from these few verses. Not only should the forgiveness relate to one type of sin – so not counting ‘you lied to me when you were four years old, and you forgot to buy a loaf of bread for me when you were 30, so I’ve forgiven you twice’ – but the number is not supposed to be taken literally anyway. In the culture of the day seventy-seven would have been a very large number, by which time you would probably have lost count, so best not to even start. The important part of this message is that we should forgive, and forgive, and keep on forgiving, and that we should separate the sin from the sinner. Those who practise this separation on a routine basis can love the sinner while hating the sin – and forgiving someone who has sinned against us does not necessarily mean that the sinner doesn’t have to pay a penalty for the actions. One man who lost the rest of his family in the Port Arthur massacre forgave the man who committed all those murders on that fateful day. The events which led to that forgiveness were far more confronting than those which most of us will ever encounter. Can we do the same?
A lamb, after dressing, will yield about 15kg of meat, or enough for 30 to 40 people. That’s an awfully big family! No wonder the instruction is to share it with neighbours if there’s too much meat. Hold your horses – sorry, lambs. This animal is to be free from blemishes – according to whom? and it can come from sheep or goats. Did I miss something? A small goat is a kid, not a lamb – but here again comes the 21st century understanding, instead of that from many centuries before, and from a different culture. Let us beware of falling into the trap of thinking our way is the only way and it has always been so.
What did Jesus say to the one who had just proclaimed Him to be Son of Man, and the Messiah? “Get behind me Satan!” Jesus wasn’t condemning Peter for his attempt to save Christ from the cross, but condemning Satan, working through Peter’s problem in accepting the inevitable. There’s a real lesson for us there. Jesus separated Peter, one of His most ardent followers and someone able to listen to God, from the influence of Satan, who was taking Peter’s weakness and using it to attack Jesus. Can we separate the sin from the sinner in the same way? Our contemporary society can’t. I can think of many people who have been brilliant in their own way but have done something seriously wrong, and their great works have been discarded as well as them, and I can think of many others who have been treated similarly when their greatest failure is to have a different opinion from the majority. That’s what happened to Christ, except that we try to remember His good deeds, and try to explain away those bits which are difficult to accept.
3For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgement, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
Doubting Peter, always prepared to show he doesn’t understand what Jesus is about, needs clarification, just like we do, but are afraid to ask, or too often we’re told our questions are silly, or we should know, or they’re ignored by those who can answer but don’t want to.
The disciples want her sent away because she was crying out and annoying them, and they, as Jews, didn’t want anything to do with her. The Greek verb κραζω (kradzo), which gets translated as crying out, or screaming, also has a connotation of being like a crow’s call, which can be penetrating and annoying. Were they also reacting to how she sounded as she tried to get Christ’s attention?
It was dark; it was windy; the waves were creating quite a spray; yet Jesus came walking on the water, in the middle of the lake, or Sea of Galilee. No wonder the disciples were terrified. I think I’d need some clean underwear too! Despite them having spent time with Jesus, learning His ways and His teachings, and getting a sense of who He really was, to see a human figure walking across the water would have appeared very much like seeing a ghost. I don’t know how effective it would have been, but Jesus continues towards them and tells them not to be afraid. They were already afraid before He spoke. Surely speaking to them would make them more afraid, not less. Most English translations take the Greek εγω ειμι (ego aimee) and give us “it is I” when good English grammar, as distinct from the Greek grammar, needs “it is me.”
Jesus warned us not to think we will be exempt from persecution. We’ve heard and read much about persecutions over the centuries, be they Romans attacking Christians in the first century, Christians attacking non-believers during the Crusades, Hitler attacking the Jews in the lead up to and during the second world war, and we expect to hear about those and many other movements in a troubled world. However, when the persecutions come from those much closer to home they can be unexpected and devastating.
Last week the revised common lectionary gave us the story of Rebekah having the twins Esau and Jacob. Being the first-born Esau had a “birth-right” which allowed him the lion’s share of his father’s estate when Isaac died, and the right for a special blessing as responsibility for the household was handed to the elder son. “Jacob” is the Hebrew equivalent of “taker” or “supplanter”; and “Isaac” is Hebrew for laughter. When Esau came home at the end of a day’s work so hungry that he thought he was dying, an astute Jacob used his culinary skills, and Esau’s hunger, to get his older brother to pass on the birth-right, much to Esau’s displeasure when he had recovered. Furthermore, some years later, Jacob had connived with his mother to deceive a by then blind Isaac into believing that he was giving his elder son the special blessing before he died. That’s one theory. Another is that Isaac knew that Esau didn’t deserve the blessing he would receive, but without being ‘tricked’ custom wouldn’t allow him to give the blessing to Jacob, so he went along with the ruse as that let him do what he wanted without being seen as a rule breaker.
45“Before I had finished speaking in my heart, there was Rebekah coming out with her water-jar on her shoulder; and she went down to the spring, and drew. I said to her, ‘Please let me drink.’ 46She quickly let down her jar from her shoulder, and said, ‘Drink, and I will also water your camels.’ So I drank, and she also watered the camels. 47Then I asked her, ‘Whose daughter are you?’ She said, ‘The daughter of Bethuel, Nahor’s son, whom Milcah bore to him.’ So I put the ring on her nose, and the bracelets on her arms. 48Then I bowed my head and worshipped the Lord, and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who had led me by the right way to obtain the daughter of my master’s kinsman for his son. 49Now then, if you will deal loyally and truly with my master, tell me; and if not, tell me, so that I may turn either to the right hand or to the left.”
