A Reflection for Friday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
The hand of the LORD came upon me,
and led me out in the Spirit of the LORD
and set me in the center of the plain,
which was now filled with bones. (EZ 37:1)
Do you love prophets? I do. They are those people in Scripture (and beyond it) whose truthfulness is so searing that we can’t turn away. Prophets are relentless. They open our eyes because theirs have been opened; they break our hearts because their hearts have been broken; they bring us to action because that is their ultimate goal. They are graced humans who expose themselves to the wounds God needs them to see. The prophets know God’s grace isn’t about peacefulness or comfort, but about knowing God is always for us in the very midst of what would break us.
Are you broken? I am.
Every day there is something that breaks me. There are the wars, lack of health care, hunger, racism, gun violence, environmental catastrophe and the persistence of the systems that perpetuate all this suffering. It’s not difficult to see Ezekiel’s enigmatic valley of the dry bones extending before us. We get it. Think of Bucha, Uvalde and the 90 million displaced people in our world. I love Ezekiel for being too much; la realidad is too much.
So what do we do? Ezekiel lays out God’s plan. First, don’t keep yourself safe. Did you notice that God makes Ezekiel go out to see the devastation? God needs us to open our eyes and understand the starkness of the dry bones. Then, just as Ezekiel does, as our heart breaks God needs us to reach inside and feel God’s purpose. God wants to restore us. In God’s vision, devastation never wins. In God’s vision, flesh and spirit are made whole and infused with the determination to walk again.
The prophets know God’s grace isn’t about peacefulness or comfort, but about knowing God is always for us in the very midst of what would break us.
But whose flesh and spirit? Whose bones are these? They are ours. Yours and mine. We are the ones who need to get up and feel the Spirit breathing into us. God needs us to open up to the pain, to feel the brokenness and then, defying all logic (because God is that way), to walk.
The God of life wants to transform this broken reality. From the dead in war, to the abolition of war. From the cries of the sick, to caring for them. We can do this. You and me. From the sinfulness of lack of food, abundance of guns and money that flows while it despoils creation, to a vast multitude of renewed people doing God’s hard work of being prophets. The through-line is clear. Ezekiel’s vision awakens us so we can hear Jesus’ stunning simplicity in the Gospel: Love God and love your neighbor. That’s the entirety of the law. There’s terrible pain; you humans cause most of it. Wake up! Then love God so fully that you can hear God wanting only one thing from you: to love all of Creation, communicate this, live this. Relentlessly. All of reality is your neighbor. God is the God of life who requires you to love. In this love there is no room for guns, or famine, or illicit gain. God is outraged. Be outraged. Prophesy! Just like Ezekiel, you are God’s hope.
