Ezekiel and Baaad Shepherds

In November of 2016 our community partner was Nebraska Appleseed and we planned events around immigration reform and healthcare expansion. There was nothing special, we have done these before, like four or five times a year for the last 9 years. But this time it happened the week Donald Trump was elected. Folks began to arrive early for the event, the leaders from OTOC who have been in it for a long time came first, tired of one more hard round to fight. The young professionals from Appleseed and partners gathered, we embraced and took a deep breath, grateful to be present with one another. The room began to fill with faces new and known. Dreamers arrived, their eyes heavy with worry for their families and their futures; their well-being at stake. Every table filled, every chair was pulled out, I asked folks to get closer together on the benches and the college students gave up their seats and found space on the floor. We were trying to start, but more people were arriving and there was not another inch. I had to close the coffee bar (which you know is a last resort) and we couldn’t even give drip coffee away because there was no way to get to the counter. Folks stood in the hallway, behind the book shelves, behind the counter, we opened the doors and turned the speakers as loud as we could and, thanks be to God, it was a nice November night for folks to lean in and listen at the door. We took a deep breath and began. The Dreamers asked, “Would they be deported, would the rules change?” and the attorneys didn’t know and could only remind us it was an election not a policy change…yet.

I stood at the door greeting those still hoping to attend and trying to stay positive. I reminded them it was amazing to have such a full house. One woman arrived, quite disappointed with me, as though I had missed her reservation. Her wine breath engulfed me as she wondered why we didn’t have a bigger space. I thought, “LOOK we hadn’t planned on half the country not voting and a quarter of the country being so comfortable with a ‘groper in Chief,’” but I smiled and said, “We typically have 35 to 55 folks at these gatherings, but tonight is a wonderful surprise and we are so happy so many people joined us today. If you share your e-mail, we will get you the presentation and we will connect with you the next time we gather.” She was not satisfied and began complaining about how long her server took at the restaurant around the corner. As I watched this elegant woman complain about service at an expensive restaurant, I wanted to shout, “maybe if justice wasn’t just an evening out or an interruption to your fine dining, we wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with,” but of course I just suggested she listen in at the door as I gave her my spot.

We gathered again around Medicaid expansion that month, the house was full once again and once again the questions mattered, but couldn’t be answered. “If I’m on the ACA, will I have to find new insurance?” “Will my kids be able to stay on my insurance if they gut Obamacare?” “What happens to the people in the gap in Nebraska waiting for Medicaid expansion?” Again it was an election not a policy change…yet.

We whispered, “the office will shape the man…right?” And soon key appointments were announced and their lack of government experience touted, as though we would all choose the CEO of the stent company over the Cardiologist with 20, 30 or 40 years of experience to care for our precious hearts.

Then the inauguration came and within moments we knew the office would not shape the man. Within moments we were asked to not believe our very eyes, debates about crowd size and alternative facts and the willingness of many to lie over and over and over. That same day, cartoonish signatures made executive orders to ban and limit and wound and we watched, wondering if we were helpless to stop the rollback of human rights.

But we didn’t just watch, we gathered and we marched. This space, our Sweet Urban Abbey, once again made a home for folks to gather. Every table filled with folks in homemade kitty cat hats and smart remarks to pen on their signs, the tables filled and the floor filled, too, and folks took the markers outside and then we prayed together out loud and then we marched hopes and prayers to the Century Link. There were so many people; some in wheelchairs and some in strollers, from every part of the city and a beautiful diversity with a common spark. A brazen sign of hope and determination, there were so many people we lost each other. I couldn’t keep track of the Abbey folks, so I watched Lila’s eyes experience the sea of people from Mike’s shoulders and she didn’t want it to end. We marched in this resilient flood of humanity, the loudest “NO” I have ever seen to grabbing and groping and mocking and wounding. We marched in this lively determination and I kept feeling Mary’s Song of God lifting up the lowly and sending the rich away empty.

And that wasn’t it. That wasn’t all. You came back on Sunday, too. Every service needed every chair, we moved things around. We gathered in love and hope and worry and longing. We had more people than Christmas and more people than Easter the year before. The Abbey was full and it wasn’t full of Chr-easters, it was full of Justice Seekers. I left that night risen and saying to Rev. Chris Jorgensen, “I don’t know what he will do to our country but he sure as expletive is making progressive church great again.” We had passion and purpose and fire, a spark to fan into a cleansing flame. We had a renewed sense of call.

I want to step further back, not just four years but generations back, to the prophet Ezekiel. We inherit his words from the Jewish scriptures and they are spoken into a period when Israel knows the poetry about “walking through the valley of the shadow of death” with its own steps. Ezekiel already lives in captivity under the harsh dictates of Babylon. The dependents of David could not muster a response to the pending destruction, they couldn’t even stay unified in one kingdom. They split in two, cousins connected and yet at odds. 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. Ezekiel says,

Thus says the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? 3You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. 4You 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. 5So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and scattered, they became food for all the wild animals. 6My 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.

The root of Jesse has failed them, the dependents of the once great shepherd and King David forgot their call. The Shepherds have failed to protect, they have failed to bind the wounded, they have fed themselves and not the sheep, they have taken the wool for themselves, they have been harsh and ruthless, they have not protected or searched for the lost, they have slaughtered the sheep for their own fine dinning. 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. 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 do to 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 mistakes and failures and rail against the oppressors.

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.

17 As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God: I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats: 18Is 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? 19And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet? 20 Therefore, 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;

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? Where are we when the ruthless take so much for themselves and wealth doesn’t really trickle down? Where are we when children are hungry in a world with plenty? Where are we when we fund prisons over schools? Where are we? What kind of sheep and what kind of leader are we? Ezekiel asks each of us.

This question should be with us as we lean into this new administration. We can feel gratitude for the inauguration, for the poetry and the music and the people. We can celebrate the glass shattering from the ceiling rather than from violent mob attacking our democracy. We can pause, relieved that major news will no longer be delivered via tweet. But we can not stop working for change. Now is not the time to take our foot off the gas and assume it’s all going to work out okay. Now is the time to fan the flames, lean in, show up, march on and get to work. The election was hard, the inauguration was powerful, and the work continues. Because one man is a symptom of the whole and it’s going to take a lot of Grandma’s salve to heal this festering wound of inhumanity. Now is the time to push for an investment in public schools and infrastructure that bring us to a new age. Now is the time to demand racial justice and now is the time to eliminate our growing wealth disparity. Honestly the failures of the vaccine rollout are enough to make us all call our Governor every minute of every day, lives are at stake and we are all hungry for justice. In Twentieth Century American history you can find that every time we invest in each other, we all rise. Every time we make vast sweeping investments that lift the vulnerable, we all rise, even the market bears this out. 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.

Ezekiel concludes with beautiful poetry.

25 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. 26I 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. 27The 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. 28They 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. 29I 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. 30They 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. 31You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, says the Lord God.

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, we all live in abundance, “The earth shall yield its increase.” Every day and every moment we must seek justice, we must seek the well-being of the whole community.

Now is the the time to pursue this purpose with every beat of our heart. May we have the courage.