Daily prophets
Day 136
“Go to your people, the exile community and speak to them. Say to them: Thus says the Lord, your God-whether they listen or not. Then a spirit carried me away…”Blessed is the Presence of God in God’s place”. Human being, I appoint you watchman for the House of Israel; and when you hear a word from My mouth, you must warn them.”(Ezekiel 3:11,12,17).
We are still learning of Ezekiel’s call from God and his experience of this call. Imagine being able to experience the Presence of God and know that this experience is beyond words while still using words and descriptions to point to the magnificent, breath-taking, spiritually infusing meeting with God. To know that we are in God’s presence is so awesomely terrifying and Ezekiel is letting us know that we don’t have to hide from God’s call and God’s Presence. “Blessed is the Presence of God in God’s place” is a prayer all of us need to recite each day. Without God’s Presence in God’s place, we could not live our presence in our place and then the world falls apart again and exile happens again!
God is telling him, in the first verse above to do the work God is calling on him to do without worrying about the results. Amazingly, God is concerned with the solution to Israel’s problem of being in exile which is Israel letting go of its stubborn, rebellious, brazen ways and returning to God. A simple solution that, it seems, is very hard for the Israelites to follow. We are faced with the same dilemma today-return to God, or continue in our rebellious, stubborn and brazen ways. One leads to redemption while the other leads to exile, death and possible extinction. We complicate our lives by seeking convoluted solutions while God and Ezekiel are telling us be in the simple solution, stop running away from God and your authentic self.
Ezekiel is told by God to be the watchman for Israel, an apt description for all the prophets. Ezekiel is also told to sound the alarm when God tells him to so that people have the opportunity to change their individual ways and, hopefully, create a community of people who change from their pathway of destruction to a pathway of creation, joy, love and return to God. In fact, later in this chapter, Ezekiel is told if he doesn’t warn the people that God tells him to warn-he will be responsible for their deaths and liable for their deaths as well. God is sending a messenger to promote life, to promote return and show love, mercy, kindness and concern. I find this description of God’s love moving and powerful.
Rabbi Heschel teaches: The prophet’s duty is to speak to the people, “whether they hear or refuse to hear.” A grave responsibility rests on the prophet:…The main vocation of a prophet is …to let the people know “that it is evil and bitter…to forsake…God”(Jer.2:19), and to call upon them to return.”(The Prophets pg. 19). I believe that this is the duty of all of us, since we are all descendants of the Prophets. While we think of prophecy as being a seer, a diviner of the future, Rabbi Heschel’s words remind us that our duty, as descendants of the prophets is to speak to people in our lives and in the life of the world and let them know the evil, bitter ways they are forsaking God and show them a path of return. God is calling us each and every day to return as individuals and as communities. We have to be louder, stronger, more compassionate, more transparent, more authentic, more truthful, and more loving to ourselves and others: holding hands and “walking humbly with God” and each other.
In recovery, being in the solution is the only thing we can control and we know this. We keep it simple because every time we complicate life and experiences, we fall back into old habits and pathways. We know how blessed we are and we make gratitude lists as well as say prayers of gratitude for everything we have. In recovery, we want what we have and we speak truth to all people we encounter during a day, week, month, year. We no longer look for the loophole, we look for how to best serve God and another human being. In recovery, we carry the message to others who suffer from a spiritual malaise and bring hope, solution and love to those we encounter-no matter how they respond to us.
I know the blessing of God’s Presence being in God’s place and that place is within me. I understand Ezekiel’s ecstatic experience not only from the text and immersing myself in it, also from my own ecstatic experiences with God’s Presence overwhelming me, my body, my thoughts and my soul. It is impossible for me to describe the experience, yet Rabbi Heschel’s words above, and all of them, speak to me of his experiences with God’s Presence. Being a watchman for years has brought me joy and sadness, scorn and accolades, death and life. A watchman is not well-liked when the crisis of the moment is over and the watchman is still calling because we have to-it is in our bones to call out God’s warning. This is not usually a welcome call by people, yet we guards have to sound the alarm. The ridicule and the hatred that is heaped on the guardians for God still doesn’t stop us, although I needed to rest for some time after my last experience with scorn, sadness and people trying to kill my spirit. We get to be the guardians for God and to our people, let’s rejoice in the gift of the experience of God’s Presence being revealed to us and carry the simple solution of returning to God to people across the globe. Stay safe and God Bless, Rabbi Mark