Reflection National Lockdown Saturday 22 August 2020

Ezekiel 43:1-7a        Psalm 85:8-13           Matthew 23:1-12

Good day dear friends, 

Collect:

God of the foreigner and the outcast, no one is excluded from your embrace: inspire us so to love the world that all will live in the dignity and security of belonging in God’s family; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

This vision continues at the eastern gate with Ezekiel being brought to the east gate as a witness to the entering of the glory of God after the temple was measured. This relates directly to the earlier warning of God’s departure due to the wickedness of the people and leaders and the concomitant promise of return and restoration. The people formerly abandoned to destruction is now welcomed to witness and partake in the glorious entrance of God into His dwelling place, the sanctuary and to reign as their King. Worship of the one and only God and King was restored in the same manner and through the same passage of its departure and dispersion. This restoration and return was accompanied by dramatic pictures of thunderous rushing waters and brightly shinning lights that shielded its source and blinded the viewer as a sign of God’s presence amongst His people. This appearance was so glorious, awe inspiring and witnessed to by angels as a true sign of God’s return as He, did as Judge of Jerusalem in an earlier vision. The presence of the Lord left through the very same gate with the judgement and destruction of Jerusalem and the temple as worship centre and makes its return in a similar fashion through the same gate, but this time representing the forgiveness and grace of God.

Ezekiel is shown the glory of the Lord coming into the most holy place and taking up residence accompanied by a loud, thunderous voice addressed to Ezekiel and not the people. This represents the fulfilment of a Godly desire to dwell with the children of Israel as their God and acknowledging them as His people. The temple is restored as place of worship where God would enjoy fellowship with His people as part of the establishment of a new covenant of love and faithfulness. They who defamed the temple with their idols and who were called “human” and “unresurrected: would not be allowed to enter the temple unless they denounce their wickedness, repent and return to God.

Whilst the prescribed psalm may appear as complaint and petition its main message is announcement and description of the coming of salvation and may refer to the Messianic hope. A passionate plea borne out of their personal experience of God’s forgiveness and grace is made by the people for restoration of their fortunes and a revival in their worship relationship with God.  A transition is made from complaint to assurance that God will save and restore his faithful remnant as we move along from the first portion t of the psalm to the last. In verses 8-13 a promise of fulfilment is made for the petition delivered in the first seven verses. Our prescribed text is a representation made by a priest/ prophet of God’s faithfulness after consideration was given to their passionate plea for help. The promise uttered is that God will  offer peace and not just as the absence of conflict or war, but also as an offer to attend to the “welfare” of the people or to make them prosperous and to be given His “goodness and mercy”. The good news of deliverance from defeat and humiliation is representative of the promise of salvation offered the humble and fearless.

Salvation is described as the work of four traits of God’s presence namely “steadfast love,” “faithfulness,” righteousness,” and “peace.” The first two love and faithfulness depicts Gods care for His people in times of hardship and uncertainty as a sign of His favour and reliability that will always reside with them as long as they keep up their faithfulness to Him their God. The next two righteousness and peace means more than simply doing what was right for them, but may indicate “wholeness” or “completeness”.   These four traits work together in vibrant fashion and have an impact on all realms of existence and will be experienced as both a spiritual and physical realty.

The salvation promised here is much more holistic than what many modern people envision and is experienced as inner contentment, as a spiritual reality and as an essential part of God’s work to reconcile all of creation to Him.

Our Gospel reading for today  is essentially about criticism levelled at the scribes and Pharisees as leaders of the spiritual fraternity and gives us a look into the attacks and defences which existed in the Syrian and Galilean Jewish communities. These disputes should however be approached with great caution as to not  level unfair criticism on the Jewish community and thus provoke attitudes  against the Christian community, but to remain focussed on the objective of these discourses. This is Jesus condemning a perceived lack of sincerity in relationship between faith leaders and God and neighbour. Jesus’s challenge to the hypocrisy is as relevant and applicable today as it was with the original hearers of this message. It is an attack on the disconnect between what they profess and how they behave or simply between their words and their actions.  Their basic mistake “they say but they do not”.  The reference Jesus made to Moses is an acknowledgement of the authority and understanding of the Jewish leaders, but He, Jesus is aiming at their inconsistencies. Jesus then addresses Himself to a number of flaws namely:

1. The imposition of laws on the people, which they themselves do not observe or use to ease the burden on the people.
2. Their fixation on recognition and honour through titles.
3. Their maintenance, justification and encouragement of a discriminative social cast system.
4. Maintenance of a system that confer privilege on some and visits misfortune on others, by creating a sense of inferiority amongst the “little ones”, whilst elevating the “great and powerful”.

Jesus is taking issue with their deceptions and then offers the hearers an option out with His own address that encourages them to look at what they held in common rather than to focus on what sets them apart or makes them different. Jesus is saying that they are all brothers and sisters and that they should maintain the fraternal spirit amongst them. This is done through the mutual recognition of the great and the least as being equal and not entangled in a servant master relationship.  The Pharisaic class assumed a position of superiority, dismissed the appeals of the people, did not allow them to speak and treated them with harsh insensitive indifference to hide their own insecurities. They were afraid and lacked the courage to assume the risk of independence and of accountability and used their perceived authority, given them by law as cover. Jesus prohibits the people to use the titles of “rabbi”, “guide”, “teacher” and “father” if used   to support positions of power and authority, rather than to nurture and develop a familial spirit and service.  Failure to act consistently was not just prevalent in the community of Jesus’s time but a problem confronting all diligent believers and Jesus wanted to discourage the guilty members of his community from such behaviour, and call them to conversion. What is your reason for working in the faith community? Are you open to have your motivation for ministry challenged and corrected by the members of your faith community? Do you see your particular ministry as being more important or superior to that of others in the faith community?

Let us pray:

Lord God, our Father, you keep speaking your Word to us through your Son Jesus Christ.
Make us listen to that word and welcome it with all that is in us.
Let that word change our mentality and our ways that it may direct our life to make it a lived message of Good News for all to see, to be inspired by, and to follow.
Let it be the living power that leads all to give you praise and glory, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

From Liturgies Alive, Models of Celebration.