Today's Morning Reflection

Psalms 119:145-176 (morning)        128, 129, 130 (evening)
Ezekiel 34:1-16
1 John 2:12-17
Matthew 10:5-15

We begin a new section of ministry instruction from Matthew's Gospel.  The disciples are sent out into Israel to proclaim the good news of God's reign, to "cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons" and to do so freely. 

From this point to chapter 15, this mission will be to Israel only.  At that wonderful moment in chapter 15 when Jesus tells the Canaanite woman, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and she responds, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table," the mission will expand universally, including the Gentile world, culminating in the Great Commission.  Jesus' disciples will embrace for everyone the good news of God's reign;  they will cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and cast out demons everywhere.

John's epistle has another way to describe our mission.  He contrasts the love of God and the love of the things in the world.  John tells us to obey God's new commandment to love and to forsake "the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches."

It is easy to put these two readings together.  Our mission is to act with love toward all, giving special attention to the sick, to those living under death's many guises, to the outcast, and to the oppressed.  We are to resist the opposite agenda, "the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches."

Although we are going backwards in time, we see the same message in Ezekiel, only the prophet is addressing the leaders -- "the shepherds."  What does good leadership look like?  What is good government?  Ezekiel is pretty clear.  "Should not shepherds feed the sheep?"

Ezekiel condemns the leadership of Israel.  "You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost..."  Instead of acting out of an agenda that places first the needs and interests of the weak and the lost, these shepherds have looked after their own interests and the concerns of the rich and powerful.  "You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wood, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep." 

Ezekiel has defined the prophetic expectation for just government.  And he says that the contemporary leaders/shepherds have failed.  "Thus says the Lord God, I am against the shepherds; ...no longer shall the shepherds feed themselves.  I will rescue my sheep from their mouths."

Ezekiel says God will seek out the scattered and fearful sheep, feed and care for them.  "I will seek the lost, 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."

What a judgment!  To the rich and powerful leaders, who have preferred the privilege of the powerful to the needs of the weak, God says through the prophet, "I will feed them with justice."  For Ezekiel, God's justice will be to destroy "the fat and the strong" and to "rescue the sheep from their mouths."

We are in a political season.  What would Ezekiel say to those who seek to be our shepherds?

The shepherds are given the same mission that Jesus' disciples are given.  Love one another in real and concrete ways by enabling the good news of God's reign -- cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and cast out demons everywhere, forsaking "the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches." 

That's God's agenda -- for us and for our shepherds.

 Lowell

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