“Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, says the Lord God. Turn, then, and live.” (Ezekiel 18:31-32).
Shortly after arriving in Palestine this past January, our group was greeted by Bishop-Elect Imad Haddad, now bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. His words are words I have carried with me and pondered ever since. He shared with us words of both invitation and warning. “While here in Palestine,” he said, “keep your eyes and your ears open, but keep your hearts safe.” I knew these were important words Bishop Haddad was sharing with us, though, at that point in our travels, I did not know why.
Keep your hearts safe. I think these words capture the Lord’s message to Ezekiel in Ezekiel 18. The prophet Ezekiel, together with all the other leaders living in exile in Babylon, was blaming everyone but themselves, including their ancestors, for the dire situation in which they now found themselves. The Lord, however, is not impressed with Ezekiel’s blame game. Instead of pointing the blame at others, the Lord commands God’s people to look into their own hearts, calling them to repentance. “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, all of you according to your ways, says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions; otherwise iniquity will be your ruin” (18:30).
Living in captivity in a foreign land, nearly everything was outside of the control of God’s people. The one thing, however, that was under their control was their hearts. The one thing that was under their control was how they responded to the events around them. The one thing that was under their control was whether they remained faithful even in the midst of a seemingly impossible situation. Interestingly, it is this one thing over which God’s people had control — their hearts — about which the Lord is most concerned.
There is so much that seems outside of our control these days — life in our world, life in our nation, life in our churches, even life in our own families. In the midst of so much that lies beyond our control, it is all too tempting to play the blame game. When things seem out of our control, it is all too easy to blame the other political party or certain groups of people or “the ELCA” or even those we once considered friends and family. And yet, in doing so, we fail to look inside our own hearts. We fail to see how our own words and actions have contributed to broken relationships and unjust systems. We fail to keep our hearts safe, choosing judgment over grace, condemnation over understanding, hate over love.
In his classic work The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it this way: “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.” The key to keeping our hearts safe is love, a love that is only made possible when we are honest with ourselves and with God, turning from our own sinful words and actions so that we might live in the freedom of God’s grace in Christ Jesus, a grace that is for us and for all. The key to keeping our hearts safe is confessing the evil that lives in us so that we can love all people with the same love with which God in Christ first loves us.
This life of confession and forgiveness is the life to which we are called in baptism. Having been freed from the powers of sin, death, and the devil through the water and Word of baptism, we are freed to daily return to these baptismal waters, boldly confessing our sin and brokenness and receiving anew the gift of God’s forgiveness. It is the reason that before we do anything else in worship—before the worship leaders process into the sanctuary, before we sing the gathering hymn, before we hear the Word and share the Meal — we confess together, “We are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves,” and hear the good news, “God forgives you all your sins.” Simply put, it is how we keep our hearts safe.
By the time we left Palestine, I had begun to understand, at least in part, Bishop Haddad’s warning to us. Everywhere we went, we witnessed first-hand the indescribable suffering of the Palestinian people. When so much seems out of our control, it is easy to choose hate. Christ, however, calls us to love, even those who may consider us to be their enemies. As we enter these fall months, may each of us look deep into our hearts, confessing all that needs to be confessed so that we might be freed once again by God’s grace to love all our neighbors.
Called in baptism +
Bishop Greg