This week’s Living in The Story reading attempts the entire work of the prophet Ezekiel. This is ambitious but quite do-able. Challenge yourself to spread out your reading over the week and stick to it. Reading all of Ezekiel in short order gives us the ability to see connections we may miss when we read it piecemeal.
Remember Ezekiel wrote for Israel during the time of Exile. Here we see both visions of hope and visions of judgment.
As you read this week, consider how the tradition of Scripture often records God’s people calling for judgment and justice. The current chapters of Revelation picture “bowls of wrath” being poured out upon the earth. The images are violent but the prophetic understanding of John is that the judgment of the Creator will allow creation to implode upon itself under the weight of its accumulated evil.
Here is the cry for justice from this week’s Psalmist:
Our enemies say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation;
let the name of Israel be remembered no more.”
O my God, make them like whirling dust,
like chaff before the wind.
Pursue them with your tempest
and terrify them with your hurricane.
Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever;
let them perish in disgrace. (from Psalm 83)
https://livinginthestory.com/2015/10/parables-and-poetry-ezekiel-and-mark/
