WHY DOESN'T GOD BEHAVE?

TERRIBLE JOKE...

During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director,

"What is the criterion that defines a patient to be institutionalized?"

"Well..." said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, and offer a teaspoon, a teacup, and a bucket to the patient and ask them to empty the bathtub."

"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. "A normal person would choose the bucket as it is larger than the spoon or the teacup."

"Noooooo," answered the Director. "A normal person would pull the plug."

The joke of course hinges on us missing the point, being distracted or not seeing the situation as it is...

WHY DOESN’T GOD BEHAVE??

Today’s readings are about being stubborn, refusing to see God at work in our situations and circumstances - about not expecting to meet God in the unexpected and unusual, and being upset when God chooses to act in a way or a person we think he shouldn’t... It’s about God not doing what he’s told: what we think he ought to do...!

I’d like us to think particularly about Ezekiel, but notice too how the same problem shows itself in the ministry of Jesus and the first disciples, and to consider Ezekiel’s situation in three ways: how his call came in the context of worship; about how the task is Commission Impossible; and about how God is present and active, even if his listeners can’t see it.

At the beginning of the book of Ezekiel, the prophet is commissioned for his task.

THE COMMISSION

which comes from the context of worship.

A bit of background and context: Ezekiel is a priest five years into the Exile, he is with the captives, by the river, and unbidden he gets an incredible vision of God. There’s a windstorm with flashing lightning, brilliant lights, and four living creatures - taking the over all appearances of a man, an ox, a lion and an eagle. Sounds familiar? (In the early church these were taken as symbols of the four gospels - St Mark the man; St Luke the Ox; St Matthew the Lion and St John the Evangelist an eagle...) These creatures are surrounded by incredible and awesome lights, precious metals and rich gem stones, sheets of ice... Then an enormous noise like thunder, like rushing waters, like an army... and right in the middle of this incredible scene is a throne of sapphire, and on the throne a figure like that of a man, glowing like molten metal, surrounded by a radiant rainbow - “this was the appearance of likeness of the glory of the Lord...” and that’s where our reading starts. The priest Ezekiel’s response is to fall on his face, recognising how unworthy he is. Up until this point in the vision the experience of God has been largely (but not exclusively) visual: now God speaks and Ezekiel hears his voice.

Ezekiel is floored by the awesomeness of God’s grandeur. It is only the Spirit of God who can enable him to be raised to his feet; and he is given a job to do.

ROOTED IN WORSHIP

So Ezekiel’s understanding of what God is asking him to do is rooted in his experience of worship, his understanding of who God is. And for us as disciples today, anything we do ought to arise out of our experience of worship and prayer: out of our experience of who God is and how he has revealed himself to us.

It’s not that we have some great ideas a rush off and beaver away - it’s that we respond to what God reveals. Nobody in their right mind decides to become a priest... there is no hierarchy of morality in God’s call - it is not somehow better if God calls you to be a priest than a nurse or a teacher or an administrator or a dress designer... God gifts us: God calls us: God is in charge, God has the plan, the task the roll - not us. Just ask Ezekiel!

So Ezekiel’s call as God’s spokesperson, his identity and task were rooted in his experience of worship. And exactly that is true of us today: our call as the people of God, our identity and our task is rooted in our worship.

SPEAK AS YOU FIND...

What Ezekiel saw in his visions was what he declared - where he saw mercy, communication, holiness, beauty, awesomeness, purpose, movement... that was the God for whom - and of whom - he spoke.

What of us? Do we speak of the God we encounter in worship? Do we speak of God who is immortal, invisible... “other”... yet intimate, personal, seeking us out, repairing and restoring...

THE JOB...

An easy one?

Ezekiel is being appointed as prophet - one who speaks God’s word into a situation - to tell Israel what God is up to.

And that won’t be a bed of roses, because he’s being sent to a rebellious people who are in Exile in the first place because they have disobeyed God, they have forsaken the ways of Yahweh. In fact rarely has a preacher been called to a less attractive ministry...! The audience are so hardened by disobedience that they will not listen: they will oppose him - he will feel like he’s living amongst briers, thorns and scorpions God goes on to tell him (v7).

As prophet it isn’t just that Ezekiel will “foretell” the future, so much as “forth tell” - in other words for the most part the prophets were more interested in the here and now, rather than the future.

FORTH TELLING OR FORETELLING?

Where they did “foretell” the future it was often more about alerting people to the consequences of their actions, rather than giving any direct detailed account of events that would unfold. And that is important because it shows us again how God deals with us. Some people have a fatalistic approach to life. They say that everything is predestined and mapped out... we are just pawns in the game of life... God, or the Fates, or Life in general, moves us around and we can’t do anything about the outcome...

But if we say that we take away our free choice and our responsibility to be involved with God in the building of his kingdom. It really doesn’t matter what we do; the choices we make; the way we treat people because we can’t affect what the outcome will be anyway...

So however the prophets spoke, they certainly didn’t present a future that was unaffected - or unaffectable - by the present.

Proclamation rather than prediction was the primary business of the prophets - does God deal with us by cold prediction of terrible calamities to come, which are inevitable and over which we have no control, influence, or ultimately responsibility? Or by speaking into the situations for which we have responsibility and involvement, by identifying hope, confronting sin and by assurance of his presence, guidance and ultimate protection?

That was how he was to minister: would it be easy?

PIECE OF CAKE?...

Is Ezekiel all set for the high life, will he be writing the “How To... Manual of Prophecy” in a couple of years’ time?

No!... There is more than a hint that Ezekiel’s mission will be unsuccessful... He is being sent to a rebellious people... they have hard hearts... they have been five years into their Exile as prisoners in a strange land with alien culture and customs, and they are beginning to think that God has indeed abandoned them.

There is in some quarters of the Church a belief that as long as you say or do “the right things” (whatever that might mean), people will come and flock to you; or revival will come, your church will be heaving at the seams.

HEALTH WEALTH & HAPPINESS?

But this just doesn’t resonate with the scriptures - where we see the prophet Jeremiah being lynched or ignored; with Ezekiel’s Commission Impossible; and in the gospels where Jesus is rejected in his own home town; and where he tells his disciples that they should shake the dust of their feet of the places in which they will be rejected. It is too simplistic to say that God works like a slot machine: press button A for revival; button B for the answer to a particular prayer; button C for evangelisation guaranteed to make your church grow...

Ezekiel is called to something much more difficult than success: he’s called to faithfulness. The success or otherwise of his words are up to God; not dependent on Ezekiel’s prophetic skills. Just as Ezekiel is refereed to as Son of Man (or, as our translation has it, “Mortal”), reminds him that he is but a vehicle for the divine: there is nothing extraordinary or superhuman about the prophet.

We too must realise that we are called primarily to gospel faithfulness - any success is lovely icing on the cake, but even a cursory glance at scripture should alert us to the way God deals with his friends! If our job is to be God’s spokespeople, to live out our lives in God’s pattern, we too must realise that it won’t be level roads, constant adulation or automatic respect. The people to whom Ezekiel went - with a message of redemption and mercy - were sharp thorns, prickly briers and stinging scorpions...

So Ezekiel’s call, role and task were forged in the experience of worship; the job was to be God’s representative spokesperson; the task would be very difficult.. but... finally ...

GOD IS HERE!

Even if they chose to ignore or try to forget what they have heard, they will know that there has been a prophet among them. They will know that God hasn’t given up on them. In Exile they may be, struggling to understand what’s brought them there or where God is in the midst of it all, but equally stubborn and pig headed - turning away from Yahweh, and now 5 years on from that momentous event of being separated from their homeland. There is also more than a hint that the people to whom Ezekiel is sent are not willing to look for God acting in ways or places or people other than what they are expecting.

Ezekiel’s commission is tough indeed, but it won’t be fruitless, or useless. His faithful service will count - God will see to that.

This phrase “they shall know that there has been a prophet among them” crops up in Ezekiel - at the end of each oracle the prophet speaks there is a “recognition statement” reminding the listener that God has done something.

If living with the Exile will be like living with thorns briers and scorpions, then having Ezekiel speaking to them will also be a constant reminder of a God they are trying to ignore or forget...

THE COMFORT & DISTURBANCE....

There is both a challenge and a reassurance for us in today’s readings. The reassurance is that God is present and active in the situations we find ourselves in. Even when things look as though they’ve gone pear shaped. When you’ve been taken into Exile away from your homeland; when you’re country is occupied by Roman invaders; when the things you thought you’d been promised don’t materialise; when those who grew up with you, your family and neighbours think you’re mad and reject you; when you can see the way ahead but nobody else can... In those circumstances, God is not absent. There is always a prophet, Christ is always there, God’s word will always be present...

...the challenge is that it is our role to look for God’s work, to search for the hidden ways in which God is working, to name God in those situations. Bishop Stephen Cotterell’s definition of mission is quite simple: to look and see what God is already doing, to roll up your sleeves and join in...

Fr. Andrew Perry
Rector, St John the Evangelist, Pevensey Rd, St Leonards on Sea