Surely Ezekiel was speaking to the environmental crisis today! I have separated the Ezekiel reading into two parts. The first, which extends from verses 17 to 22, could not present a clearer picture of human history, and applies most clearly to the consequences for poor nations of how developed countries (particularly ours) have been dealing with world resources and the environment. It bears repetition here: “you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide.” Our decimation of the buffalo herds on which many Native Americans depended is only one example of an attitude and pattern of behavior we (western, developed nations) have repeated countless times all over the world. Even now, we cut denude land, flatten primal forests, and claim ownership of precious water resources.
Moreover, we not only rush to claim world resource for ourselves, but we pollute and defile in the process. God confronts us: “Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? 19 And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet?” The fact that the toxic mining practices of multinational corporations not only displace tribal peoples in other countries, but poison landscapes with toxic chemicals that seep into soil and water supplies is only one illustration of countless practices that leave waste and poison behind for the poor and for future generations.
From verse 23, God sets up his shepherd to protect his sheep, and God addresses his sheep in the last verse as “you.” But lest we be too quick to claim that God is on our side, let us look at just who constitutes the flock that the shepherd protects from ravaging beasts and foreign armies. It is not us. Rather, it is those who suffer the consequences of our standard of living, our true values, our individualism.
The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews distinguishes between the sanctuary raised by mortals and the sanctuary that God has set up, the pattern on earth with the divine truth of which it is “a sketch and shadow.” We can read this as a contrast between Judaism and Christianity, or one strain of faith versus another. But if we look with a wider lens, we might read this passage as pointing to the metaphysical fact that we know only a small slice of reality, but the truth is infinitely larger. Developments in science are a good metaphor for this contrast of a limited understanding versus the mystery of reality. Until relatively recently, modern science has proceeded by analysis, breaking things into smaller and smaller parts in order to attain true understanding of the world. However, we have been undergoing a revolution in scientific understanding (several, in fact) that has not only thrown this assumption into question, but is making the old model “obsolete.” The science of ecology illustrates this revolution: understanding of the part is embedded in understanding its place in the whole. My personal concerns, or the concerns of my group—more than that, my identity and that of my group—is not apart from that of others, but a part of others. My relationship with God is not a private affair; it is deeply involved in my relationship with others and with the world that is our common home.
In the gospel reading, we cannot help but identify with Mary, who has chosen the “better part,” but if we give the story more than a superficial reading, we realize that we actually identify with Martha. In Christ, The New has come, the Truth is among us, but we act according to our training, our habitual manner of relating. Rather than sit still and open up before reality, we busy ourselves maintaining the old order—all the while thinking that is the right thing to do. What is in fact asked of us, but a revolution?
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