September 18

Today's Readings: Psalm 78; Ezekiel 34:17-31; Luke 11:1-13; Revelation 20:7-15

The daily lectionary readings from the Hebrew Scriptures for the last couple of months have been grounded in the words of the prophets. I suppose this is since the lectionary is building up and pointing us toward Advent and Christmas. This generally hasn't been a problem for me since I love the prophets. The only downside of the steady diet of the prophets has been an overwhelming sense of gloom and doom as most of the readings have pointed toward the destruction of Israel and Judah because of their sins (particularly their sins of idolatry and infidelity to God). Needless to say, I was suprised to dig into today's reading from Ezekiel and hear words of hope and promise for a change. The words that best exemplified that sense of hope and promise were contained in the later half of verse 28 from chapter 34: "They will live in safety and no one will make them afraid". In the days that have followed September 11th, 2001; we live in a world that is constantly on alert - a world where colors have become equated with levels of threat. We also live in a world where politicans prey on our fears by pitting one group against another (i.e. straight vs gay, resident vs illegal alien, Republican vs Democrat). All of this makes me wonder: What would it be like to truly live into the Reign of God as reflected by Ezekiel's words - a world where WE will live in saftey and no one will make US afraid? With God's help, let us pledge to find out. Together! Til next time...