Ezekiel & Baaad Sheep
Ezekiel 34:1-5
The word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them—to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. 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, but with force and harshness you have ruled them. So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals.
The prophet Ezekiel is saying the quiet part out loud. He is mad, kicking ass and taking names. And just like Jesus calling the demons by name, he shares how the Shepherds shirked their duty and exploited the sheep. He is speaking to folks who know what the Shepherd's job description looks like and he details all their failures out loud.
You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep.
Ezekiel pulls no punches. And God is not mad because they didn’t post the 10 Commandments in elementary school classrooms or because two guys had a beautiful wedding. God is mad, which we often have a hard time with but it should be noted that God is mad at injustice, at the staving of the sheep and the greedy disregard of the Shepherds. The metaphor is severe, sharp and blistering. Ezekiel does not dance, even diplomatically around the truth. He does say “oh you know it would be nice if everyone had been kinder to each other” or “folks should have shared a little better.” He does not make a critique sandwich with something friendly to butter everyone up.
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, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.
Israel’s people have suffered because of selfish leaders. Of course, a post game report is easier to make than actually coaching through the crisis. Ezekiel is likely writing from exile, part of a kingdom that crumbled first under the Babylonian might.
The Kingdom that David built has done nothing but collapse. His descendants couldn't even keep the kingdom unified and so they split into two, the northern kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom, Judah. These royal cousins will struggle to live into their grandfather’s legacy. History will say over and over, ‘and they did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.’
Israel's history, largely collected in exile when everything has fallen apart, will name just how their leaders failed. There are a few good kings, of course, this is defined by the judgement of the religious leaders who have their own bias and get to write the stories.
Ezekiel will deploy some unsavory metaphors as well, calling the two kingdom’s whores for making alliances with other nations. Frequently a God King might be defined by how he leads the country for the better ment of the whole, but often there is a vein of religious purity and intolerance, blaming the fall of the kingdoms on Kings who allowed people to worship different divinities and married wives from other faiths and kingdoms.
And in this great floundering and failing, there is a movement to Make Israel Great Again. Every generation follows, hopes and dreams and struggles; poverty will grow and economic disparities will grow.
To be fair to these leaders, I’m not sure they could have kept the whole thing in tack. I love to imagine that a just community, as dreamed by the prophets, would have made a difference but we can only imagine. David emerges when the geo-political landscape has a power vacuum. The normal powerhouse empires that are always warring and usually warring their way right through this little strip of land on the Mediterranean sea, were on the decline. Egypt and Assyria were in decline, at least for the moment And Israel with David met that moment. David brings the twelve, historically divided tribes of Israel into one centralized government. It was great…for a while…at least for some folks. And then it begins to collapse.
Ezekiel’s kingdom feels the brutality of the Babylonians first but now in exile, their hearts sink once more as Jerusalem falls. The Temple’s sacred stones desecrated and the blood spilled on the streets, fire and carnage and violence that scars the earth yet to this day. Ezekiel has been quiet until a new word came, a reminder to us all of how real prophets wait for the word that makes a home in them before they speak a word.
Ezekiel speaks and the old metaphor of Good Shepherds and rhetorically convicts the BAD shepherds of their sins. The Babylonians, like wild beasts, have shredded and torn to flock and they have looked on from their luxury which, in the end, did not protect them.
And God is so mad, like a fed up Mama who can not bear one more peep out of these unruly children, she is coming down to do it herself.
Ezekiel gives Her voice, “My sheep were scattered, they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search or seek for them.”
God will search for the lost sheep, God will bind their wounds, God will bring them to the good pastures and still waters, God will strengthen the weak…because when you can’t find anyone to do it right, you just have to do it yourself. Ezekiel could have left it there…God is coming. God is coming with water and food and protection from the ruthless predators and the selfish leaders (threats foreign and domestic, if you will). God is coming with food and safety and healing. “I will feed them with justice.”
Ezekiel could have left it there, folks like to blame threats foreign and domestic, people like to deconstruct the leadership's mistakes and failures and rail against the oppressors. Ezekiel could have left it there. The leaders were bad. Everyone has suffered for it. The blood has been shed, Jeruselm was destroyed.
But then the word gets real, at least really hard.
Because everyone is pretty comfortable with post-game analysis of the poor leadership choices, particularly when they are made by ruthless, greedy, ego driven asshats (to put it nicely and I looked that up in the Urban Dictionary and I stand by it). It would have been so nice to stop there, essentially those guys are terrible, the Babylonians are predators about to be banished and God is coming…take a deep breath and get ready to be fed some justice…which must taste sweet.
But Ezekiel does not stop there. There are good and bad sheep and God is going to name names.
As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God: I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats: Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet? Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; (17-22)
There are jerk sheep. It’s not just the leaders, it’s not just the shepherd. It’s the sheep. Most of the metaphors stop at the shepherds and the sheep are never really bad or good…until now.
It’s phenomenal poetry.
Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet?
There are jerk sheep. What a powerful metaphor for the worst of our inhumanity. We eat till we are full and then, we don’t even eat but we wreck the rest of the food. We drink plenty and then we muck up the water. It’s one thing to pick apart the leaders but to look at our flock and ourselves. That’s when a preacher starts meddling (as some folks like to say.)
Ezekiel’s word gets hard because he asks everyone to not just deconstruct the leaders but to deconstruct themselves. Where were you when the water was fowled? Where were you when the vulnerable needed space to graze? Where were you when the weak needed support?
He asks the people of Israel to take responsibility and he asks us as well. Where are we when the water is undrinkable in Flint or Detroit or Dallas or Modesto? Where are we when the ruthless take so much for themselves and wealth doesn’t really trickle down? Where are we when the richest man on earth cuts food aid for the poorest people in the world? Where are we when insurance says no to the medicine people need, when the insulin cost skyrocket or folks can't even afford the time to go to a doctor. Where are we when children are hungry in a world with plenty? Where are we when we fund prisons over schools, or love guns more than our kids being safe? What on earth are we doing?
The world is heartbreaking. The last time I looked deeply at this passage we were just coming off of Joe Biden’s presidential nomination. And I felt hopeful that we were going to make some progress towards earth as it is in heaven.
And at this writing we have sworn Donald Trump in for a second term. The news and the tweets and the lies and the created chaos. The national politics, the global politics, the local pains and hardships. It feels nearly impossible to keep moving forward or to keep being open hearted. It’s hard to go to our state capitol and watch families share once again their heartbreak, offering their testimony while senators care so little. The state of the world is overflowing with loss and violence and hatred and pain. And we voted for this. Our neighbors voted for this, Donald Trump in his first term and in his second term is using his power precisely to harm and fan the flames of hate that keep dividing us while the wealthy extract even more for themselves.
The world we live in is looking less and like the one in which I wanted to raise my daughter. And we might be filled with grief and longing and it is hard to hold onto any hope or even imagine how we get out of this.
When I was teaching 20th Century American History, I remember preparing lesson plans and marveling at how people must have felt like the world was ending. Every decade, faced with critical moments locally and globally had epic struggles, debates and upheavals. Their choices were heavy, the elections were critical and sometimes in crisis our nations has made sweeping changes for the health of the whole. (We have done this with Social Security and Medicaid, we have done this with the GI Bill and VA home loans, we have done this with public works and every time we do this, even as we do it imperfectly, we make steps to our American Creed and God’s dream.)
There is always this challenge; will we live with compassion and include more folks at the table or will we let the wealthy grow in power and control at the expense of the whole. Right now, it feels impossible to imagine the world being made new.
And the truth is we are not the first to feel this way, it is actually the “tale as old as time.” Ezekiel was surrounded by heart break and loss. The reasons to hope were few and the odds were not in their favor. And so he gave them the only thing he could; a dream, a vision. His people were slaughtered by a violent and powerful empire and the leaders had taken care of themselves first. And he gives them the only thing they have, a reminder of God as the Good Shepherd. Ezekiel concludes with a dream of the world made new.
I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild animals from the land, so that they may live in the wild and sleep in the woods securely. I will make them and the region around my hill a blessing; and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing. The trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase. They shall be secure on their soil; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke, and save them from the hands of those who enslaved them. They shall no more be plunder for the nations, nor shall the animals of the land devour them; they shall live in safety, and no one shall make them afraid. I will provide for them splendid vegetation, so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land, and no longer suffer the insults of the nations. They shall know that I, the Lord their God, am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, says the Lord God. You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, says the Lord God. (v25-31)
Ezekiel will not see Jerusalem rebuilt but he paints the pathway. And yet he holds out hope. He gives a vision of the Good Shepherd and the accountability on how we participate to get there. Hope is a hard won thing and Ezekiel looks at pain and destruction and says, this is not the end of the story. We are a part of God’s story.
The faithful pick it up. Jesus will echo Ezekiel in his work and life, asking Peter to feed his sheep, in his prayer for daily bread, in his belief that god has anointed him to bring release and recovery and liberation. Ezekiel ends with a vision of safety and abundance, when the vulnerable have enough to eat, when no one can make them afraid, when the wounds are bound, when the waters are clean and the yoke of oppression is broken.
Now is the time to pursue this purpose with every beat of our heart. Now is the time to hold on prophetic imagination, that will not relent and will not give up. It is time to dream, to practice hope and to hold on to it with fierce hearts. May we have the courage.