Sitting Together

December 4, 2017

God had work for Ezekiel, the unpleasant task of prophesying to his rebellious people with a message they didn’t want to hear. It wasn’t one of those “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life” kind of messages. It was the kind of message that today would get you skewered and shunned, if not physically assaulted. If you are the kind of person who needs a trigger warning when some unpopular speech is imminent, Ezekiel would not be the man you’d want to listen to. 

He didn’t flinch. He had a word from God, and he was tough. God had told him that he would make Ezekiel’s forehead like flint, ie. he would be able to face entrenched opposition without flinching. He wasn’t kidding. Ezekiel fearlessly waded into hostile audiences and told them not what they wanted to hear, but what they needed to hear. He was one tough dude!

But lest we imagine that he waded into a fight, guns blazing from both hips, God slipped into the record a little phrase that changes the whole tenor of Ezekiel’s career. In 3:12, he hears a thunderous voice exclaiming, “Blessed is the glory of the LORD from his place!” Before he could say anything to God’s people, he needed to understand that the word of condemnation that he would be speaking wasn’t the whole story. The condemnation of sin isn’t something we do with glee, as if we are happy to hear judgment passed. Any preacher who proclaims judgment without a tear in his eye and an ache in his heart isn’t speaking the word of God, but his own prejudice, revealing his own judgmental heart. Sin is a rejection of God’s glory, and apart from having even just a glimpse of that glory, we have no basis of judgment.

But it is the 15th verse that impresses me. Having experienced the glory of God, Ezekiel “came to the captives at Tel Abib, who dwelt by the River Chebar; and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days.” Before saying a word to them, he sat where they sat. He didn’t pass judgment or proclaim God’s word from on high. He sat where they sat, experienced life as they experienced it. He listened before speaking. 

I suspect that if more of us took the time to sit where our people sit, we might speak God’s truth to them with more compassion than is often done. It’s easy to condemn people we don’t know. But when we sit with them, see life through their eyes, we tend to frame the message differently. If there is a word of correction, it isn’t given harshly, but with the tenderness of love. 

Over the past four months, I’ve been preaching to the Dunkirk congregation. It started out just filling in, but it’s different now. I’ve spent time with the people, listened to their stories, heard their hearts. In short, I’ve come to know them, and in knowing them, to love them. The message isn’t any different, but the way I give it is. I am grateful God has given me the privilege of sitting where they sit. It may not change them, but it is changing me.