TUE EP Reflection 011822 God’s message to Ezekiel (Ezekiel 3:4-11)
Hearing God’s message to Ezekiel brought some mixed feelings for me. Have you ever felt powerless ahead of a cumbersome task? Not because you are procrastinating but because the task in question has an inbuilt series of obstacles to dodge or resolve? Really when one is not looking forward to it. I wonder if that’s how the prophet Ezekiel felt when God’s message came to him asking him to go and deliver his message to his own people the Jews. We know that a prophet’s own people are not always his fans. Jesus said this once: “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.” Like Ezekiel, we sense that things will not turn out well judging from a possible adversarial response from the prophet’s own people. This triggers a reflection that since God is the message’s sender, there is no need to worry about how the message will be received. Prophets are brave people who obey God’s instructions by transmitting his message as is. Perhaps our given task doesn’t seem like mission from God but nevertheless, we may have anxiety about it just like Ezekiel felt. What can we learn from his story?
We are in an age that need prophets. Pope Francis recently posted words of his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI: “We will soon have priests reduced to the role of social workers and the message of faith reduced to a political vision. All will seem lost but at an opportune moment, precisely in the most dramatic phase of the crisis, the church will be reborn. She will be smaller, poorer, almost catacombic but also holier because she will no longer be a church that seek to please the world but a church of the faithful, committed to his eternal law.” [transl. from French] This too is reassuring just like God reassured Ezekiel, telling him that He understands: “Surely, if I sent you to them, they would listen to you. But the house of Israel will not listen to you, for they are not willing to listen to me, because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart.” I loved God’s internal monologue! God asking himself: surely, they would listen to you…but I know them, they won’t! It is indicative of the faith God has in his people to change.
God strengthened Ezekiel: “See, I have made your face hard against their faces, and your forehead hard against their foreheads. Like the hardest stone, harder than flint, I have made your forehead; do not fear them or be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.” We may think that being strengthened by God would remove all obstacles ahead of the mission, but no the obstacles remain. It means you will be given strengths to endure and to let God’s purposes be accomplished in and through you. A friend of mine just quoted Parker Palmer’s critical lesson: “A leader is a person who must take responsibility for what’s going on inside their consciousness.” Perhaps what we are fearing the most, is not always the obstacles ahead of the mission, but we might be also fearing what is going on inside of us.
This is what I was reading into God’s message to Ezekiel: “I will make you fearless so that you may be able to tackle the obstacles ahead of you (People’s stubbornness). My servant Ezekiel, you are the right person for this job. I know why I am sending you: if they refuse you, they will be refusing me. Take heart, I am with you!” God is ready to empower us to face obstacles ahead of us, but also to help us to face ourselves and overcome areas in our own lives that are detaining us and preventing us from moving forward in God’s power and strength.
God empowers us to serve him fearlessly. When God calls us, he gives us all we need to fulfil our mission. I suspect that Ezekiel wasn’t looking forward to meeting obstacles in his mission, but God knew and understood his weaknesses and gave him the strength that he needed. Turn to God for strength if the days ahead are filled with uncertainty, Let God guide you and lead you in His power and strength!
Amen
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