Four weeks ago we met the young Ezekiel who is called to be a whistleblower and to expose the corruption and degradation of the priests and leaders of those who have been left behind in Jerusalem. Instead of deliverance from Nebuchadnezzar they are going to be overwhelmed by his armies. God has left the Temple and Jerusalem. All that will remain in Jerusalem is what will remain in this world when the Church departs – a world without pity, mercy, justice, hope or pleasure. Only complete delusion. Evil that has been boiling below and ever present in the world will be revealed. What has been hidden will be obvious. In Chapter 16 we looked at the founding story of Israel according to the people and then Ezekiel’s exposure of who they really are and where they came from. Their founders were nothing but white trash and had it not been for God’s compassion they would have died as a tossed out and despised baby in the wilderness. But, this is a story of a God who patiently raises an unwanted infant and is caught up in undying love for that child. It is the story of a discarded baby becoming a woman and then married to the one who rescued her. But, it is also the story of a wife who became a prostitute who will be ridiculed by the very people she ran after. “Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers..They will strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry and leave you stark naked. They will bring a mob against you who will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords.”

Last week we looked at God’s judgment on Tyre – the most prosperous nation and once a friend of Israel. But now, they had taken advantage of Israel’s defeat to enrich themselves even more. They did not see their wealth as a sign of God’s blessing but as something they had done on their own and it corrupted them.  As God said to Israel when they came into the Promised Land:

God said to the Israelites when they first came into Canaan: “Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.”

Tyre had become not only proud and opportunistic by the misfortune of Israel but had begun to think of themselves as godlike in their prosperity. They worshipped their own success.  So much so that Ezekiel sees in the King of Tyre the qualities of Satan himself who was once perfect and had fallen.

“Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings.”

Today, we are looking at the failure of the shepherds of Israel. These are not shepherds as we think about them in the Christmas story but they are the appointed rulers of Israel. They have stopped thinking of themselves as protective shepherds and begun to only see the benefits and entitlements of royalty. They no longer serve the people but the people serve them. They have betrayed their calling and abused their trust. They are not just ineffective and incompetent. They are morally deformed and loyal only to themselves.

“Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.

“‘Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.”

What an indictment of those who are given responsibility for people and then only line their own pockets. It’s easy to follow that path when everyone around you is doing the same. It’s easy when leaders above you give you permission by the example of their own behavior.  It’s even easier when the people have lost all hope in their leaders having a scrap of integrity and have become cynical.  I have read this passage from Hannah Arendt’s description of the rise of totalitarianism before but it is so appropriate for this passage:

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. … Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”

G.K. Chesterton remarked that the greatest danger of his time was not the assertions of falsehoods, but the endless and irrepressible repetition of half-truths. I think we are well past the repetition of half-truths but are exposed constantly to lies from those who should be shepherds but have become wolves.

But it is not just the shepherds who have forsaken their calling. Bigger sheep trample and bully the smaller who are unable to defend themselves. They are not satisfied with what they have but either ruin or steal from the others to advantage themselves.

“Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet?

But there is coming a time when God will place over them one shepherd, “my servant David, and he will tend them; he will lead them and be their shepherd. The Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them.”

As Christians, we know that is Christ. He is the Great Shepherd descended from David and the rightful ruler.  As Peter says in Acts 2:

Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said,

“‘The Lord said to my Lord:

    “Sit at my right hand

until I make your enemies

    a footstool for your feet.”’

“Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”

The promise is not self-rule or a democracy or a republic. It is a kingdom under the reign of Christ. You probably remember the story I’ve told about my father having a conversation in London years ago with an older gentleman who had spent a career in the British army.

“You Americans don’t understand the difference between being citizens and being subjects. We are subjects of the Queen. You insist on being citizens of a country.”

Yes, Paul says our citizenship is in heaven but that does not mean self-rule. We are, even now, subjects of a king but we sometimes forget and resist being ruled. We want the King to serve us. We want the benefits of belonging but we want the final say.

How does God view that? Will he redeem us for our own sakes or out of pity? No.

“Therefore say to the house of Israel, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name…then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes.”

And then we come to that great passage in Chapter 37: The Valley of the Dry Bones.

“Son of man, can these bones live?”

That’s the question not only for Israel but for the Church and even for us as individuals. These are not just exposed bones but they are the bones of a defeated army that have been dishonored by not being buried. They are scattered and everything has been picked over. Nothing remains but thousands of disconnected bones. They have become an example to others of what happens when you are defeated by Babylon. You are simply left for the vultures and other animals to feed on. There is no honor in your death. “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.”

“Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones. I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.”

And that is what happens – bones come together, tendons and flesh are covered by skin but there is no breath of life in them. They are like a collection of dead men lying on the ground. Then something happens. “So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet – a vast army.”

Sometimes that is the Church. It has flesh and organization but no life. It has presence and people but no life. It has worldly power but no spiritual life. It is Christendom but without Christ. It is a Kingdom of this world.  It is like an army of the dead. It is only when God breathes life into it is it able to be what God intends. Until then, it is what Paul describes as the carnal life of the Church:

I Corinthians 3: “You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarrels among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men?

Romans 8:5 “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live according to with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”

And that is why it was so shameful and appalling that we saw the Christian flag among those who were part of the violent insurrection last year in the Capitol. Those people profaned the name of the Lord and the witness of the Church. They were an army of the misinformed, misguided, and a ragtag mob of sheep and corrupted shepherds trampling the rule of law and order.

But that is not the true Church, is it? What is the true Church? It is the witness of the Spirit Paul describes in Galatians. It is the witness of love he describes in 1 Corinthians 13. It is the peace he writes about in Ephesians. It is the humility of Christ in Philippians. It is the transforming of the mind in Romans. It is ridding ourselves of anger, rage, malice and slander he writes about in Colossians. It is, finally, the realization that we are not our own. We are subjects. We are bought with a price.