The Bible is a tough read because it was forged in hell. When the armies of Nebuchadnezzar stomped Jerusalem flat, the people of Judah lost everything in a single stroke. Thousands of innocent men, women and children died by the sword, disease or, worst of all, gradual starvation. Multitudes were dragged off to Babylonian exile. Worst of all, the great temple of Solomon, the very dwelling place of Yahweh, was torn down, stone by stone.
As survivors struggled to find meaning in their madness, the Hebrew Scriptures sprang to life.
In Lamentations, we see the first step in the process — a bewildered outpouring of honest pain. In Jeremiah, we see a link between religion and social justice forged. Now we come to Ezekiel.
Marvin Tate, one of my seminary professors, introduced Ezekiel as “the weirdo of the Old Testament.” Ezekiel was weird. He built a little model of Jerusalem, complete with siegeworks, to demonstrate what was in store for the Holy City. Then, he spent more than a year laying on his left side to signify the 390 years of Israel’s sin; then he laid on his right side to dramatize the 40 years of Judah’s apostasy.
Weird religion
Ezekiel’s brand of religion also was weird. He started out a temple priest in Jerusalem, one of the sons of Zadok who were trained from birth in a priestly tradition that, to modern ears, sounds pretty weird.
But Ezekiel’s priestly responsibilities ended when the Babylonians breached the walls of Jerusalem in 597 BCE. King Jehoiachin and his royal retinue were bundled off to Babylon, a fate shared by the sons of Zadok. Separated from their precious temple, Zadokites like Ezekiel were out of work.
Then Yahweh gave him a new job, standing on the walls of Jerusalem, scanning the horizon for signs of danger. But how could a man in Babylonian exile stand sentinel on the walls of Jerusalem?
This is where the visions come in. As Ezekiel sat with his fellow exiles by the river Chebar, he was transported in the Spirit to the Holy City. There he saw a fiery throne-chariot of Yahweh, the one with the faces and the whirling wheels “way up in the middle of the air.” As Ezekiel looked on aghast, Yahweh rode his chariot-throne out of the temple and away from Jerusalem. It was Ichabod time. The glory had departed.
From that point on, Ezekiel lived a double life. Physically, he was with the exiles in Babylon; but his spiritual habitation was on the walls of Jerusalem, standing as a watchman, or sentinel.
The Babylonian army eventually withdrew from Jerusalem, leaving a small force behind to keep order. Life quickly returned to normal. Solomon’s temple was still standing, and the Levites (formerly temple servants) assumed the role of the exiled Zadokites. Word had it that the Babylonian army was gone for good.
Ezekiel knew better. Since Yahweh had vacated the premises, nothing stood between the Holy City and unmitigated disaster. Ezekiel preached but no one listened. Why should they? Everyone knew Ezekiel was a weirdo.
So, Yahweh confined his prophet to quarters. The prophet didn’t utter another word until a fugitive from Jerusalem arrived with the awful news, “The city has fallen.”
Suddenly, Ezekiel’s tongue was loosed. A glorious future lay ahead, the prophet declared, but there would be no going back to the old ways. In the old temple, the sacrifices offered to the cruel gods of the surrounding nations had turned the hearts of the people to stone. But Yahweh was about to gather all his exiled people, from Babylon, from the old Assyrian Empire, and from Egypt. Yahweh, the thoracic surgeon, would “remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh.”
Then things got even weirder. Ezekiel was scooped up by the hand of the Lord and plopped down in a valley of dry bones representing “the whole house of Israel.” All Yahweh’s exile children were like Hebrew slaves wandering in the desert. But Yahweh was about to reunite the 12 tribes of Israel.
Yahweh is going back to square one. New bodies, new hearts, new spirit, new creation.
In the final section of Ezekiel, the priest-prophet is carried off to a high mountain where, weirdly, he is introduced to the city where Yahweh dwells. A tour guide-angel familiarizes the prophet with every inch of Yahweh’s temple in the clouds. We tend to find these passages tedious (and weird), but the priest-prophet can’t get enough of this stuff.
Then Ezekiel notices a tiny rivulet of water trickling under the temple door. As Ezekiel and his angel guide move east from the temple, the water gets progressively deeper, until the prophet is swimming in a mighty river. When the river of life reaches the Dead Sea, the lifeless lake brims with sea creatures. And wherever the river flows, a desiccated landscape blossoms.
If stony hearts turned Eden into a wasteland; people with hearts of flesh are agents of healing.
What would Ezekiel say to us?
Imagine that Ezekiel was standing sentinel on the walls of America. What would he see, and what would he say?
Would he tell us that our headlong pursuit of a high-tech Eden is trashing God’s good creation?
I just finished reading Brian McLaren’s Life After Doom, a book about faith and the climate crisis. Although McLaren isn’t sure what our planet’s immediate future will look like, all the potential scenarios he lays out are bleak.
Unlike America’s other moral failures, global warming is a relatively recent phenomenon. The human saga will stagger forward whether or not we address ancient sins like racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia. But misreading the climate crisis is like misreading the threat posed by Babylon — it has the power to end our story for good.
The United States of America is currently drilling, consuming and exporting more fossil fuel than at any time in history. But conservative politicians insist it’s not enough. The Trump campaign wants to scrap renewable energy projects and sees drill-baby-drill as the path to American greatness. Disturbing stuff.
And then I flip on a podcast and hear a progressive policy wonk advocating more oil production so, with gas prices low, Joe Biden will have a better shot in November.
In short, nobody in Washington is taking the climate crisis seriously. Are you? Climate scientists are alarmed, and advocacy groups are issuing dire projections, but they aren’t the people making policy decisions. Shifting to renewable forms of energy, electric cars and battery-operated lawnmowers (the kind of measures Biden supports) are steps in the right direction, but these changes will not, by themselves, stave off catastrophe. Our way of life is unsustainable.
But wouldn’t Ezekiel come up with something more spiritual than climate science?
No, he wouldn’t.
First, we must remember that biblical prophets make no distinction between economic sin and false worship. For them, it’s all of a piece.
Second, the contemporary equivalent of Nebuchadnezzar’s army is the climate crisis. Reduced to its simplest terms, we have released so much carbon dioxide into the air in our pursuit of economic growth and creature comforts that the survival of our race is at risk. Our addiction to prosperity is killing us.
Ezekiel would tell us that idolatry (the worship of prosperity) has turned our hearts to stone. He would call us to bow down before the Creator of all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small.
How would we respond? Like ancient Judah, we would call Ezekiel a weirdo and go about our business. We would glue his tongue to the roof of his mouth until the day our city falls. Only then would he be able to prophesy over our dry bones.
When Solomon’s temple was reduced to rubble, the people of Judah were finally ready to listen to their weird prophet. The game was over and everyone knew it.
By contrast, climate change creeps upon us imperceptibly. Every year is hotter than the last. Extreme climate events become more common. But we have AC, and sometimes the weather cooperates. Even if Greta Thunberg is right, we tell ourselves, the worst won’t come until after we’re gone. How bad do things have to get before preachers climb up on the wall with Ezekiel?
Ezekiel realized his weirdo status came with his calling. It still does. Preachers are cautious creatures, and for good reason. But imagine that 20 pastors in your town climbed up on the wall with Ezekiel and started speaking honestly about the threats we face. And imagine that their congregations found the courage to listen. Can’t you see those tiny trickles of living water merging into a healing river?
Sounds weird, I know. But the truth always has a weird ring to it.