Friday, May 22, 2015

Ezekiel 34:17-31

Christians all over the world love Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, …” and we all have Christ as our Good Shepherd (John 10:1-18), the one who seeks the lost, who brings us abundant life, who lays down his own life for the sheep.  Some of us, sheep in Christ’s fold, are prosperous and live in very wealthy countries like Canada; others, equally beloved by Christ as sheep in his fold, live in poor countries, are constantly challenged to get enough food to stave off extreme hunger, and can’t even dream of privileges like good health care that we take for granted.

Our Scripture reading today begins with a strong indictment aimed straight at us as prosperous people in a wealthy country (34:18-20):

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; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.

This should really set us back – we who eat so well while others go hungry.  As an example, for decades rich countries have sent factory ships around the world scooping up almost all the fish in the sea, keeping only the best, and throwing the remainder back as garbage.  Fish species such as the cod off the east coast of Canada and the tuna in the open Pacific are now greatly reduced, even endangered.  In several parts of the world, the local people for centuries were able to meet their basic needs for protein with a small, sustainable fishery, one now devastated by excessive commercial fishing near their waters.  In the words of Ezekiel, we are the fat, prosperous sheep who have been wastefully feeding from the good pasture, ruining it as we go.  The weaker sheep, without our economic power, have had their meagre sources of food devastated, so they are malnourished and sometimes starve.

It’s the same with clean water.  In Canada we have this earth’s greatest share of pristine water, far more than adequate for all our needs.  But we care little for our neighbours, those in poorer countries without our economic clout.  We permit our multinational mining companies to go into developing countries and operate mines whose tailings destroy the streams on which the people depend for all their drinking water, now poisoned by our carelessness, unconcern, and insatiable greed.  Even in northern Canada over 100 first nations communities are under drinking-water advisories, some for years needing to boil their drinking water poisoned by pollution in the midst of great bounty.  Isn’t this exactly what God is decrying in today’s Scripture?

Left to ourselves, we rich countries are now in real danger of bringing God’s bountiful and beautiful world to complete ruin, rendering it uninhabitable.   But thank God that his mercy abounds.  Today’s Scripture continues (34:23-24) by pointing to God’s coming new regime that really cares for God’s flock:

I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd.  And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken.

Since Ezekiel was written almost 500 years after the time of King David, this reference was never intended to refer to King David, but rather to “great David’s greater Son.”  This is a prophecy of the coming Messiah, the one whom we confess Jesus Christ to be, the one who is indeed the Good Shepherd.

In John 10, Jesus echoes much of Ezekiel 34 and therein covertly restates that he is the Messiah, the Christ. Jesus adds one more important point, not found in Ezekiel, who writes with only the Jewish nation in mind (John 10:16):

I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

This statement is the reason why we, as Jesus’ followers from all nations, can take the prophecy in Ezekiel to be as meant for us as well as for the Jewish people.

In this light, our reading today continues with the great blessings of Christ’s coming rule (34:25-31), which the Bible calls us to institute now as a witness to Christ’s kingdom, already begun, and which will reach its perfection when Christ returns to rule this world:

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 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 a 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 … 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.

Let us conclude today with part of a hymn by James Montgomery in 1821 (Common Praise, 101):

Hail to the Lord’s anointed, great David’s greater Son!
Hail in the time appointed, His reign on earth begun!
He comes to break oppression, to set the captive free;
To take away transgression, and rule in equity.

He comes in succor speedy to those who suffer wrong;
To help the poor and needy, and bid the weak be strong;
To give them songs for sighing, their darkness turn to light,
Whose souls, condemned and dying, were precious in His sight.

He shall come down like showers upon the fruitful earth;
Love, joy, and hope, like flowers, spring in His path to birth.
Before Him, on the mountains, shall peace, the herald, go,
And righteousness, in fountains, from hill to valley flow.

May we serve faithfully as coworkers with Christ to bring this Biblical vision to fruition.

– Robert Kruse