Responsibility For Our Own Sins And Crimes Series

Friday of the First Full Week in Lent 2024

“Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” says the Lord GOD, “and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” Those are the words of God reported to us by the prophet Ezekiel, off in Babylonian exile with the elite of Israel. His listeners had been moaning and griping about the injustice of God sending them away from Jerusalem into slavery, and had complained mostly about being punished because their ancestors had sinned. “Not so,” says the Lord. The true God is God of justice and goodness and truth. Punishment only comes to those who are directly responsible for evil, but sometimes the consequences of sin have their repercussions only generations later. Ezekiel is showing his hearers that what ultimately happens to each of them will be due to how they are living in this life. The same for us. Do we faithfully follow God’s law, worshiping Him alone as the highest Good and showing unselfish love of our neighbor? Or not?

Jesus is speaking similar words to His first-century hearers, particularly the hypocrites who were selective about the commandments they obeyed. He seems to be saying to them, “I know you well. You haven’t slain anybody in the street or back alley, but you show anger at others, insulting them and using four-letter words to defame them. You can’t be innocent of “Thou shalt not murder” if you slay another by your words, can you?” Having that kind of reputation can even mark your children as members of a family nobody will want to have dealings with. I remember when I was a life insurance agent, I spent an inordinate amount of time living down the reputation of other, less scrupulous agents. And they weren’t even my ancestors!

So our punishment should be for our own sins. What about the collective punishment of Israel? It would seem that Ezekiel’s congregation–remember he was a member of the priestly class–had a real complaint when thousands of them were deported and enslaved. Why was that?

Israel made a series of covenants with the Lord over the earlier years of their existence. Most especially, they agreed to follow the natural law as engraved on the tablets given to Moses on the mountain. There is only one Creator, one Master of the universe, and we owe everything to that one God. So worship Him and Him alone. Don’t take His name in vain or skip out on community worship. Respect your parents; don’t kill your neighbor, most especially the innocent and vulnerable. Respect your wife and your neighbor’s spouse; don’t lie to cover up your own stupid mistakes; don’t steal what is not yours and don’t even entertain thoughts and plans to do that. Simple and obvious commandments.

Skip back in your imagination to King David. He was a sinner like all of us, although his sins were pretty bad. They at least didn’t involve corrupting a whole nation. And he repented and took his just punishment. His son, Solomon, inherited his kingdom and started off pretty well. His wisdom was so great that he attracted visitors from foreign countries to learn from him. Solomon was not like costly wine; he aged poorly. Mostly he got entangled with multiple marriages, and they were usually with foreign women who brought the worship of false gods–really demons–with them. And each one said, “Sol, you’ve got your own big, costly Temple for your God; why don’t I have one?” So each got her own Temple, open for public worship, with an idol or even several in it to worship, and foreign priests. Since Israel was living in an area that had other ethnicities with traditions of false gods, they were attracted to the novelty of these false gods, and their sensory stimulation. Solomon, too, went to these temples and “turned his heart to strange gods, and his heart was not entirely with the Lord. . .as David had been.” He even had a Temple to Molech, “idol of the Ammonites,” Israel’s ancient enemy, right on a hill in sight of the Lord’s own Temple. Solomon heard from the Lord about all this, and found out that God would take away ten of the twelve tribes from him, but only in his son’s lifetime. And that is what happened. David’s line was not extinguished, but his kingship was much reduced shortly after he died.

And his descendant kings continued to lead the kingdom of Judah badly, not only allowing but also encouraging the worship of many false gods. King Ahaz, for example, even slaughtered his own firstborn son, heir to the kingdom, as a sacrifice to one of them, probably Molech, and had no backup heir. That was the occasion for the prophecy from Isaiah that “the virgin” (presumably his new wife) would give birth to a child, an heir for him. He would be the good king Hezekiah. So the total destruction by Assyria was pushed back by the mercy of God. But Ahaz’s grandson, Manasseh, brought a new kind of wickedness to Jerusalem. We read in the book of Kings, “he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem. . .he did evil in the sight of the Lord, following the abominable practices of the nations whom the Lord had cleared out of the way of the Israelites. . .He worshiped and served the whole host of heaven. He built altars in the temple of the Lord. . .for the whole host of heaven. . .he immolated his son by fire. . .much evil in the Lord’s sight and provoked Him to anger.” He was warned by the prophets that all this would go terribly wrong, but did not stop.