(Please read this Scripture passage first, before the homily.)
God’s sheep were scattered. They had had false or bad shepherds or leaders. The description of the devastation that the bad leaders had caused is shocking. The descriptive words like, harshly, brutally, scattered over the whole earth, pillage, wild beast, give us some idea of the terror and scope of the death of a nation.
We should ponder a while what Ezekiel described. God’s Jewish people suffered this defeat that Ezekiel described. Throughout history they have suffered at the hands of the Romans with the destruction of Jerusalem, through the medieval ghettos and the Nazi extermination camps and even into the present day God’s Jewish people have suffered.
God also loves people of African ancestry, those enslaved by white people and cruelly treated. God loves the people of different sexual orientation who have suffered at the hands of the dominant culture. God loves all the people whom we hate or of whom we would like to get rid.
What does God intend to do? God intend to shepherd the people. God said, “I myself shall shepherd them to save and protect them.
What does God’s word have to say about all this persecution, this grisly blood and gore perpetrated against people whom God has loved? God will come against those who mistreat those whom God loves. Does God really want to destroy the destroyers? No, God’s word calls the persecutors to repent, even if that is to happen at the point of death, so that God can pasture them into life.
Where do we stand in all this? What word does Ezekiel have for us? Are we like the sheep, scattered over the whole earth, or are like the bad shepherds and those who brutally scatter the sheep’s bloody corpses over mountains and high hills? We must not judge our innocence too quickly. We might better ask how the word of God spoken through Ezekiel calls us to repentance.
An additional point: Air Force Chaplain, Father Timothy Hirten, of Sheppard AFB, died over the past weekend of depression and loneliness. He had no one shepherding him. I have a sister and a next-door neighbor who share greetings with me every day. They shepherd me and I them. Whom do you shepherd?