More Than Looking "Tough"

 More Than Looking "Tough"--August 31, 2020

[The LORD said to Ezekiel:] "Now you, mortal, say to the house of Israel, Thus you have said: 'Our transgressions and our sins weigh upon us, and we waste away because of them; how then can we live?' Say to them, As I live, says the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?"

Just for the record, God doesn't have a quota of arrests to make, defendants to prosecute, or criminals to sentence.  Neither does God take some kind of perverse satisfaction in watching us suffer, not even in the name of "justice."  And mind you, that's not just my personal wishful thinking on the subject--it is, to hear Ezekiel tell it, God's own stated policy.

So, all apologies to the well-known Jonathan Edwards and his famous sermon, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," it just isn't true that God "holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some detestable insect, over the fire." Nor is it true, as Edwards went to insist, that God "detests you," or "looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be thrown into the fire."  And is just isn't so that God's eyes "are too pure than to bear to have you in his sight."

Of course, for a very long time, a very many members of the Respectable Religious People's Association have been convinced that this is exactly God's position, and that God is merely a sort of divine umpire, calling balls and strikes without interest in the outcome of the game, or like God is simply a cold, indifferent executioner, whose job is to dole out death-sentences to the guilty without batting an eye about it.  So often the position of the Respectable Religious Crowd is that God secretly savors our sin, because it means God gets to zap us with the fury of divine justice.  

I think a lot of us have been taught somewhere along the way that God has some need to look "tough" and "strong" and that God needs to look like a hard-liner on "law and order" for the sake of the divine reputation, and therefore that God has to make an example of sinners, rule-transgressors, and law-breakers.  Once you've messed up, that's it--you're done.  That's certainly what the prophet Jonah wanted to be true when he was sent announcing judgment and destruction to the people of Nineveh--he wanted so badly for God to be merciless in frying the wicked sinners of that pagan enemy city.  And yet, of course, Jonah had a sneaking suspicion all along that God was not--and is not--actively rooting for our destruction.  Jonah knew, deep down in his bones, that God's nature is gracious and merciful as well as loving justice, and that God looks for ways to redeem, to pardon, to forgive, and to start over with us.

That's the same thing that Ezekiel hears from God here.  God tells the prophet that while there are consequences for wickedness, God is at the very same time actively rooting for us to turn from that wickedness and to be brought to life again.  More than just "rooting for us," God is actively working to get us to see the ways we have harmed others, to own up to it, and to take a new path.  God is actively working for us to be brought to life--not standing by and sharpening his executioner's sword while we get ourselves deeper into sin.  In other words, God is biased--yes, biased!--toward saving and redeeming and resurrecting us.  God is at work pulling, cajoling, persuading, and grabbing hold of us, and all people, to get us to turn from the ways we break relationship with God and with other people.  There is no quota, no number of cases God needs to close, no tally of convictions God needs to clinch, and no push to look "tough on sin" for the sake of God's reputation.  God is willing to risk looking like a pushover who is "soft on sin" and who gives mercy out extravagantly, for the sake of saving us.

This is amazing news.  We live in a time when everyone is obsessed with appearances--with manufacturing a strong reputation and curating just the right public image.  We live in a time when it advantageous to look powerful and strong and to crack down on those deemed as rule-breakers and trouble-makers in the name of "law and order."  And if you are obsessed with whether other people perceive you as being "tough" and "strong," you will have no room for mercy, no time for reconciliation, and no willingness to see the ones in your target sights as beloved and infinitely precious.  But God, according to the prophets, is willing to sacrifice a reputation for being "tough on sin" by going publicly on record saying, "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but want the wicked to turn and live."  God would rather have us alive than have God's ego stroked or reputation burnished.  

God would rather have you and lose "face" than lose you and look tough.

Let me say that again, and let it sink in: God would rather have you, even if it costs God the appearance of being tough, than to lose you and keep a fearsome divine reputation.  God would rather have you.

And God would rather have all of us.  God would rather that all the mess-ups, the rule-breakers, the failures, sinners, and troublemakers be given life than to have someone to zap.  In fact, Ezekiel says, God would prefer there would be no one to zap at all.

I have been remembering these days a phase I went through as a kid, when I tried to get my grandparents to quit smoking.  (This seems to be a thing you go through at around eight or nine--my kids are going through it now, reminding all the adults they meet, including us non-smokers, that smoking is dangerous.)  I can remember having a conversation with my Grandpa and my Grandma with all the righteous indignation a third-grader can muster where I said, "I think smoking is bad for you.  I don't think you should smoke."  And when I said it, it wasn't because I wanted to be mouthy or rebellious to my grandparents.  It wasn't because I wanted to embarrass them or make them suffer.  It was because I loved them and wanted them to live, and everything my eight-year-old mind had learned told me that their smoking was a danger to themselves, to each other, and to me when I was in their home.  In other words, as awkwardly and as clumsily as I did it, I was asking them to turn from their choices because I loved them.  I didn't want them to suffer for having smoked for so long in the past--I just wanted them to quit so they could live and I could have the time with them.

I think something like that is what Ezekiel has in mind.  God isn't looking to puff up the divine ego by taking cheap shots at us, and God doesn't punch down to us in an attempt to look strong.  God pleads like a little kid who doesn't want the grown-ups to get cancer.  God does everything God can think of to get us to see the ways we are harming ourselves and each other, so that we can turn and make new choices.  God is daily mounting an intervention for all of us, compelling us to see how we are destroying ourselves and others in our current actions, so that we can stop and change and have life in the fullest.

That's not a God who capriciously dangles us over the fire as Jonathan Edwards pictured.  That's not a God who is more interested in looking tough than in saving lives.  Rather, the God who speaks through the prophets is forever willing to lose face if it means gaining us.  The God we meet in the Bible isn't like the Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis, who objectively weighed the souls of the dead to determine who was worthy of the bliss of the afterlife but didn't really care what the outcome was.  The God of the Scriptures cares.  The God of the Scriptures is biased toward life.  The God of the Scriptures is on the side of mercy.  The God of the Scriptures loves you more than the idea of looking like a "law and order" kind of deity.

And that is our hope.

Today, may we have the courage to see the ways we are caught in rottenness so that we can turn, find mercy, and begin again.  May we be brought fully to life by grace.

Lord God, bring us face to face with our rotten ways so that we can be led to change and brought to life.