{"id":34,"date":"2005-08-18T14:23:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-18T20:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephenbarkley.com\/blog\/?p=34"},"modified":"2009-12-03T23:38:13","modified_gmt":"2009-12-04T03:38:13","slug":"ezekiel-1114-16-spatially-challenged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephenbarkley.com\/2005\/08\/18\/ezekiel-1114-16-spatially-challenged\/","title":{"rendered":"Ezekiel 11:14-16: Spatially Challenged"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cAre we on God’s side?\u201d
\nhas always been a better question than
\n\u201cIs God on ours?\u201d
\n\u2014 Jim \tWallis (God’s Politics<\/em>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Pelatiah died, as we read earlier, Ezekiel cried out in grief to God, “will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel” (11:13, NRSV)?<\/p>\n

The last time Ezekiel blurted out his emotions before God, God reaffirmed his resolve to judge without mercy (9:8-10). Ezekiel had no reason to believe anything had changed, yet once more he dares to question God.\u00a0 This time, God’s response was different. His resolve to judge those in Jerusalem had not changed one bit. Ezekiel made the mistake of assuming that the remnant of Israel were those still living in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

We already saw what had happened back in Jerusalem.\u00a0 The powerful and affluent were taken into exile.\u00a0 This left a bunch of underlings who lept up the social ladder to fill the vacuum. They saw themselves as the blessed of God: the choice cuts of meat, or in our parlance, the “cream of the crop”.<\/p>\n

Their main problem was that they mistook silence and circumstance for divine favor.\u00a0 They were no different from those who were deported, but pride led them to believe that God had chosen them to be the remnant of Israel.\u00a0 After all, Yahweh lived in Jerusalem, right?<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Ezekiel suffered from this same misunderstanding of God’s presence.\u00a0 He would have formerly assumed that God lived in the temple.\u00a0 Therefore, those still in physical proximity to the temple had to be the remnant of Israel.\u00a0 God disagreed.<\/p>\n

God told Ezekiel the truth: he <\/em>was the sanctuary for the exiled Israelites.\u00a0 Symbolically, God’s glory was in the process of leaving the ark of the covenant in Jerusalem.\u00a0 In reality, God had already been with the exiles in the foreign lands.\u00a0 The remnant of Israel were not those living in Jerusalem, they were those in exile\u2014like Ezekiel.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

There is so much truth here for us.\u00a0 God lives where we are.\u00a0 God lives within us.\u00a0 Our heart is his temple.\u00a0 We would also be right to say that he is our sanctuary wherever we are.\u00a0 Physical proximity to a “place of worship” means little, if anything, to God.<\/p>\n

So, do we act like God is with us always\u2014or do we behave like we leave him behind every Sunday afternoon in the church building?\u00a0 When we disobey God and receive no punishment, do we assume God didn’t see, or that somehow God just decided to overlook our sin?<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Lord God, let us never mistake your silence for approval, or your patience for ignorance.\u00a0 In Jesus’ name, Amen.<\/p>\n

< Ezekiel 11:1-13 | People Stew<\/a><\/p>\n

Ezekiel 11:17-18 | Three Verbs ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAre we on God’s side?\u201d has always been a better question than \u201cIs God on ours?\u201d \u2014 Jim Wallis (God’s Politics) When Pelatiah died, as we read earlier, Ezekiel cried out in grief to God, “will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel” (11:13, NRSV)? The last time Ezekiel blurted out his emotions before God, God reaffirmed his resolve to judge without mercy (9:8-10). Ezekiel had no reason to believe anything had changed, yet once more he dares to question God.\u00a0 This time, God’s response was different. His resolve to judge those in Jerusalem had not changed one bit. Ezekiel made the mistake of assuming that the remnant of Israel were those still living in Jerusalem. . . . We already saw what had happened back in Jerusalem.\u00a0 The powerful and affluent were taken into exile.\u00a0 This left a bunch of underlings who lept up the social […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[344,348,347],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ezekiel","tag-presence","tag-remnant","tag-silence"],"yoast_head":"\nEzekiel 11:14-16: Spatially Challenged - Stephen Barkley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/stephenbarkley.com\/2005\/08\/18\/ezekiel-1114-16-spatially-challenged\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ezekiel 11:14-16: Spatially Challenged - Stephen Barkley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cAre we on God’s side?\u201d has always been a better question than \u201cIs God on ours?\u201d \u2014 Jim Wallis (God’s Politics) When Pelatiah died, as we read earlier, Ezekiel cried out in grief to God, “will you make a full end of the remnant of Israel” (11:13, NRSV)? The last time Ezekiel blurted out his emotions before God, God reaffirmed his resolve to judge without mercy (9:8-10). Ezekiel had no reason to believe anything had changed, yet once more he dares to question God.\u00a0 This time, God’s response was different. His resolve to judge those in Jerusalem had not changed one bit. Ezekiel made the mistake of assuming that the remnant of Israel were those still living in Jerusalem. . . . 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