Ezekiel 4: 1-3, 9-15
And you, O mortal, take a brick and set it before you. On it portray a city, Jerusalem; and put siege-works against it, and build a siege-wall against it, and cast up a ramp against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering-rams against it all round. Then take an iron plate and place it as an iron wall between you and the city; set your face towards it, and let it be in a state of siege, and press the siege against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.
And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them into one vessel, and make bread for yourself. During the number of days that you lie on your side, three hundred and ninety days, you shall eat it. The food that you eat shall be twenty shekels a day by weight; at fixed times you shall eat it. And you shall drink water by measure, one-sixth of a hin; at fixed times you shall drink. You shall eat it as a barley-cake, baking it in their sight on human dung. The Lord said, ‘Thus shall the people of Israel eat their bread, unclean, among the nations to which I will drive them.’ Then I said, ‘Ah Lord God! I have never defiled myself; from my youth up until now I have never eaten what died of itself or was torn by animals, nor has carrion flesh come into my mouth.’ Then he said to me, ‘See, I will let you have cow’s dung instead of human dung, on which you may prepare your bread.’
Try reading this scripture lesson aloud to yourself.
After reading it aloud, sit quietly for several minutes.
Now look up the words ‘skit’ or ‘parody’ or even ‘lampoon.’
With those definitions in mind re-read aloud these words from Ezekiel.
Has anything changed in how you hear them?
Matthew 21:12-16
Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, ‘It is written,
“My house shall be called a house of prayer”;
but you are making it a den of robbers.’
The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he cured them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did, and heard the children crying out in the temple, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David’, they became angry and said to him, ‘Do you hear what these are saying?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Yes; have you never read,
“Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies
you have prepared praise for yourself”?’
This ‘temple incident’ is very familiar and hotly debated among Christians. Is there anything akin to Ezekiel’s approach and what Jesus is doing in the temple?
Earlier Jesus had said this; ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.’
Is there a way to hold Jesus’ words ‘blessed are the meek’ and Jesus’ ‘temple incident’ together?
How do you understand the English word ‘meek?’
Romans 12: 20-21
No, ‘if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.’ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
What kinds of ‘gumption’ or ‘fortitude’ does a WAYfarer of Jesus have the freedom to perform?
