God is Faithful and Free Part 2

Introduction

Our shared human experiences in terms of our growth, identity, relationships, and self-acceptance consist of moving with God through periods of being securely orientated, painfully disoriented, and surprisingly reoriented[1].

When we are painfully disoriented, these are periods and events that can push us to the edge of our humanness. These are experiences that teach us how precarious and uncertain life can be. These experiences leave us dazed and confused, not knowing who we can turn to for help. It is often hard to even reach out to God in these moments because we are suspicious of his involvement in the painfully disorienting event.

This is the place where we began to engage the Prophet, Ezekiel. The children of Isreal fail to remain faithful to God, and in many ways, they turned into a version of the very nation God had to deliver them from through the Exodus.

Now they are in Babylonian captivity, and the nation in general and the Priest Prophet Ezekiel are in an extremely disorienting situation.

Fundamentally exile is to experience the loss of our structured, reliable world, which gives us meaning and coherence. The author Ralph Klein in his book Israel in Exile: A theological interpretation, draws our attention to the theological challenges and problems that are more severe than being geographically displaced.

The reality is that there was a Palestinian remnant that never went into exile, but they still struggled with the same exilic hardships and challenges to their faith[2].

The temple in Jerusalem had been burned. The temple was a visible and tangible symbol of the people's election and a reminder of God's unfailing actions in history on their behalf. Therefore, the temple's destruction calls God into question: either there were gods stronger than or superior to Yahweh or Yahweh rejected his people[3].

The second theological issue is the end of the Davidic dynasty. Was God still a faithful and trustworthy God? Connected to this reality are the promises of land and descendants that were also critical items from the patriarchal tradition[4].

In summarizing their context, we need to understand that we have a people whose religious and cultural symbols have been rendered useless. Every institution that defined them religiously and culturally, such as the temple, the priesthood, and sacrifices, are no longer functioning.

Our exile's underlying danger is that we can lose ourselves when we can't correctly handle the emotions of feeling forsaken, lonely, and abandoned.

This is where we parked last week, as this is what Ezekiel was in danger of doing as a Priest with no temple. His calling, purpose, and ministry were all up in the air as he endured an Exile that he attempted to prevent by faithful to the ministry assignment God had given him.

Despite that, God was faithful to Ezekiel and met him in his place of exile. Furthermore, God showed that he was free to move; however, he needed to move in Ezekiel's life. For God making Ezekiel the priest a prophet shows that our calling is more significant than our circumstances, for God is faithfully committed and free enough to make it happen.

While this is great and comforting, encouraging, and worthy of giving God some praise over, we can't get stuck here, for yes, God is Faithful and Free. Still, when this is manifested on our behalf, it also comes with some responsibility on our end that we must be willing to accept.

(Let's go back to Ezekiel's book and, this time, meet me in chapter 3 and verse 15.)

Ezekiel 3:15 (NLT)

15 Then I came to the colony of Judean exiles in Tel-abib, beside the Kebar River. I was overwhelmed and sat among them for seven days.

(Let's continue in our series, God is Faithful and Free part 2.)

I. Recognize Our Personal Exile Experiences

Before going any further, it is imperative that we began to make the connection between the exile that is being experienced by Ezekiel and the children of Israel with our life experiences today, for there is no way for us to understand the correct application of this text until we have an accurate understanding of our current situation.

Our current situation has many managing or suppressing but not facing the conflicted feeling associated with the loss of our structured and reliable world. I said this phrase last Wednesday, but let take a moment to unpack what this means as we look to see ourselves within this text.

The phrase structured, reliable world speaks to the social, moral, and cultural context in which we live. These are three of the ways we organize our lives.

The social aspect speaks to the relational side of our human experience. These are the relationships that are important to us and the relationships that, in many ways, make life worth living. The social aspect of our life is upset when we

are hurt by someone we feel should protect us.

When that happens, our social reality is confused when we are betrayed by someone we believed we could trust. Socially we are surrounded by a relational paradigm that is full of distrust, abuse, and misuse. Relationships have become the currency used for transactional purposes. At this point, our humanity is lost, and people become a means to an end.

The moral aspect speaks to our understanding of right and wrong, cause and effect, actions, and consequences. Essentially it is the lens that we use to interpret life and guides our responses to the various things that life brings our way.

Therefore, when our moral equilibrium is thrown off, it tends to bring everything else in life into question. In other words, how do I respond to life when I live right, but bad things happen to me? How do I make sense of life when the actions I take do not match the consequences that come my way?

Furthermore, our postmodern perspectives don't provide us with a true sense of right and wrong. As a society, we have come to a place where we don't even know what truth is anymore. The definition of what is right and wrong is in the eye of the beholder.

The truth of the matter is we are finding ourselves in this exile of conceptual relativism where absolute truth does not exist. We face a world full of fake news, alternative facts, selfies, sound bites, and memes. Amid all this noise, confusion, and staged reality, we still have to create a life for ourselves and our families

Last but not least, there is the cultural dimension. Culture is the environment and the climate in which we live. Culture is the way we talk, our music, our artwork. It is how we do life together, and our current culture is violent, divisive, and dangerous.

When we bring all this together, I think we can see many metaphorical points of contact between our everyday experience and that of our ancestors in the faith. While this is a reality that many of us may not want to admit, that does not change the fact that many of us live as baptized exiles.

(Now, that zoom in on the first part of this verse.)

II. The In-Between Place:

15 Then I came to the colony of Judean exiles in Tel-abib, beside the Kebar River

In this verse, we pick up this narrative right after the miraculous theophany that Ezekiel has just experienced. At this point in the story, the priest and prophet Ezekiel has just been called and commissioned by God.

It was during this divine-human encounter that Ezekiel was not only given a fresh revelation of God, but he was also given a new call from God. It is interesting when at the moment, Ezekiel should have felt the furthest away from God, is the moment when God decided to draw near and do a new thing in his life.

I don't want us to miss because there is a process to the manifestation of the new thing that God is doing in Ezekiel's life. Up until this point, we need to notice that Ezekiel has been encountered by God, called by God, and commissioned by God, but God has not given Ezekiel an assignment.

Let me explain; in our sermon last week, we find Ezekiel being engaged by God through a vision of his glory.

In Ezekiel 2:3, God calls Ezekiel and tells him that he is sending him to Israel, a nation full of rebels.

After that, in Ezekiel 2:7, we see God commission or appoint Ezekiel to speak his word to Israel. Then right after this, find Ezekiel in our text sitting with the exiles along the river.

Therefore, a close reading of this text shows us that God has not given Ezekiel a specific assignment at the point of our text. However, what this does show us as we wrestle through facing our season of exile trying to hold on until God shows up The text shows us that:

Exile is a time to proclaim God's power to save.

Exile is a time to face our pain without falling into despair.

Exile is a time for hope, not triumphalism.

Exile is a time for new obedience.

Exile is an opportune time for bold assertions of faith.

Exile is a time for maintaining identity.

Exile is a time for prayer.

As we look at our fractured lives and communities, we must resist the temptation to move inwardly and ascribe to a perspective of isolated individualism. Believing the lie that no one knows how you feel and no one understands what you are going through.

Our text for this evening finds Ezekiel in a liminal state. As Ezekiel sits with exile along the river, he is in an in-between place. Ezekiel is in between his call and his assignment. Ezekiel is in between being the priest he was when he entered exile and being the priest and prophet that he will function as while in exile.

(Now we are ready to engage our text.)

III. Our Doing Must Flow Our of Our Being:

15. (b) I was overwhelmed and sat among them for seven days.

This often-overlooked verse seems like there isn't anything going on here, but when we look at it in connection to the events surrounding it, I think we will see a very practical truth that we can carry with us into the days, week, and months ahead.

Think about it, Ezekiel has just had his whole world turned upside down. Out of nowhere, God has barged into Ezekiel's like and arrested him with a vision of his glory like no other. Then God has proceeded to call and commission him to be a prophet to the nation of Israel. After all of this, the first place God takes him is to sit with a group of exiles by the Kebar River.

Where the text states he sits with the exiles for seven days, silent and overwhelmed. But remember, Ezekiel has been given general instructions about the ministry God is calling and commissioning him to, but he has not been given any details regarding his assignment.

When we look at this reality in light of the in-between nature of this passage that we just discussed, it appears that Ezekiel has one more lesson that he must learn before moving forward in the work God has called him to. This is a critical lesson! A lot of people don't understand that our doing has to flow out of our being.

That is precisely what is going on in this passage. Ezekiel has to learn how to be the kind of Prophet God is calling him to be before he can do the prophetic work God is calling him to do.

The work God calls us to is original in that it has been set aside specifically for us. God doesn't need Ezekiel to be another Isaiah. God doesn't need Ezekiel to be another Jeremiah, but God needs Ezekiel to understand the specific anointing God has placed on his life.

That is the lesson Ezekiel is learning here. In the text, we can see that the first thing God does with Ezekiel is take him to a place where he has to sit with the people he is called to minister to.

How powerful would our ministry be if we took the time to sit with the people God has called us to? What if we didn't run to them with a Bible Study, but we ran to them to sit with them. What if we didn't run to them with scripture to explain why they shouldn't do this or that, but we ran to sit with them? Now, I am not saying we should never do these things; I am suggesting that maybe we should sit with them first.

Let me draw your attention to a few details related to Ezekiel sitting with the exiles next to the river in Babylon silently for seven days. Now, if we let scripture interpret scripture, Psalms tells us that:

Ps 137:1 (NRSV): 1 By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down and there we wept and remembered Zion.

But then we see in Job:

Job 2:13 (NRSV): 13 They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.

Now seven days was the set time limit for mourning, and it was also the time limit given for a priest to be consecrated. Now let's look at the meaning of the word overwhelmed in this text in light of these two verses and the significance of the seven days of silence.

The basic meaning of being overwhelmed is the feelings associated with desolation caused by some great disaster, especially that related to divine judgment, and stresses the horror caused by the desolation of judgment. The result of this devastation is what the verb refers to in the present context, and so conveys the sense of being appalled, dismayed, stupefied, shocked, horrified.

Therefore, what we have here is Ezekiel, on the one hand, is learning how to minister by sitting and mourning with the very people he has been called to be God's voice to. While at the same time, he would appear to be wrestling with God's instruction in light of his brothers and sisters' mourning.

When God has called us to something, we need to understand who we need to be before understanding what we need to do. Just like the turbulent times of exile required something specific out of Ezekiel, the turbulent times we live in require something specific from each of us.

Margaret Wheatley said, "leadership in turbulent times is spiritual[5]." This is because life is uncertain, life is cyclical, and we need peace of mind[6].

Let me push this a little deeper since this is bible study. Remember, Ezekiel was a priest. He never stopped being a priest, but God added the gift of prophecy to his priesthood. Therefore, the way Ezekiel ministered as a prophet flowed out of his priesthood.

Some scholars have said that Jeremiah was a prophet who happened to be a priest; Ezekiel was a priest who happened to be a prophet. While this is said jokingly, there is some truth to this statement. Although Ezekiel is a genuine prophet, he carries out his priestly functions as a pastoral prophet caring for the individual souls[7].

But why is this important? Remember, the priest represented God to the people. Therefore, by serving as a priest-prophet in exile, Ezekiel played a vital role in encouraging his community that God was with them in their suffering.

So we have a duality going on within the text, Ezekiel is learning how to represent God to Israel properly. On the other side, as he was doing this, Ezekiel showed the nation that God is Faithful and Free enough to sit with them in their suffering. Although it's their fault that they are in exile, God is still Faithful and Free enough to sit and mourn with them.

It's the goodness of God that leads to repentance. Amid the nation of Israel living out the consequences of their choices that were against God. God is still Faithful and Free enough to attempt to move them to repentance.

It is the Faithfulness of God and the Freedom of God that allows us to say with Job, I know my redeemer lives, and my advocate is on high! I don't know what you are facing, and I don't know what consequences you may be living with.

But I know that God is Faithful and Free to be our God and treat us as his own.

I do know that God is Faithful and Free to turn things around.

I do know that God is Faith and Free to do a new thing in your life.

I do know that God is Faithful and Free to cause all things to work together for good.

[1] Brueggemann, Walter. Praying the Psalms: engaging scripture and the life of spirit. Wipf and Stock Publishers Eugene, OR pg.2.

[2] Klein, Ralph W. Israel In Exile: A theological interpretation. Fortress Press. Philadelphia, PA pg. 3.

[3] Klein, Ralph W. Israel In Exile: A theological interpretation. Fortress Press. Philadelphia, PA pg. 3-4.

[4] Klein, Ralph W. Israel In Exile: A theological interpretation. Fortress Press. Philadelphia, PA pg. 4.

[5] Wheatley, Margaret J. Finding our way: leadership for uncertain times. Berrett-Koehler Publisher San Francisco, CA pg.125.

[6] Wheatley, Margaret J. Finding our way: leadership for uncertain times. Berrett-Koehler Publisher San Francisco, CA pg.126-130.

[7] Ellison, H.L. Ezekiel: the man and his message. The Patterson Press pg. 27.