16 The word of the Lord came to me: ² “Son of man, confront Jerusalem with her detestable practices ³ and say, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says to Jerusalem: Your ancestry and birth were in the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. ⁴ On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. ⁵ No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.

⁶ “‘Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!” ⁷ I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew and developed and entered puberty. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, yet you were stark naked.

⁸ “‘Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your naked body. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign Lord, and you became mine.

⁹ “‘I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. ¹⁰ I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put sandals of fine leather on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. ¹¹ I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, ¹² and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. ¹³ So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was honey, olive oil and the finest flour. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. ¹⁴ And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign Lord.

¹⁵ “‘But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute. You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his. ¹⁶ You took some of your garments to make gaudy high places, where you carried on your prostitution. You went to him, and he possessed your beauty. ¹⁷ You also took the fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them. ¹⁸ And you took your embroidered clothes to put on them, and you offered my oil and incense before them. ¹⁹ Also the food I provided for you—the flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat—you offered as fragrant incense before them. That is what happened, declares the Sovereign Lord.

Ezekiel 16:1-19

Dear God, it is always interesting to see you in lament. I mean, I have plenty of times that I lament. But the fact that you lament over us is striking. I read this passage yesterday while attending mass with my wife, and the blatant expression of pain and anger by you, the sense of betrayal you show in this passage, is really quite something.

I was listening to a sermon today where the preacher was asking, “What does winning look like?” He started talking about how Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, would go into a depression the day after an Olympic Games was over. Then he compared it to Elijah the day after he called on you and experienced the great victory of Baal and the Israelites turned back to you, only to end up hiding from the Queen and King and asking you to kill him. He experienced that letdown of the post-victory. I’m bringing this around to this passage because the preacher then talked about a couple who asked themselves what success as parents looked like and they decided that success was children who would want to come home and visit them as adults. It surprised me that he used that as an example, because by that measure, you are a failure as our parent in so many ways. I am a failure as well.

So you experience pain when I’m not with you. When I take you for granted. When I go my own way. That’s amazing. And then you still want us back. You still want me back:

⁵⁹ “‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will deal with you as you deserve, because you have despised my oath by breaking the covenant. ⁶⁰ Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. ⁶¹ Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you receive your sisters, both those who are older than you and those who are younger. I will give them to you as daughters, but not on the basis of my covenant with you. ⁶² So I will establish my covenant with you, and you will know that I am the Lord. ⁶³ Then, when I make atonement for you for all you have done, you will remember and be ashamed and never again open your mouth because of your humiliation, declares the Sovereign Lord.’”

Ezekiel 16:59-63

Father, I am ashamed when I walk away from you. I am grateful for the atonement you made for me. I am humbled by it. I know this specific word isn’t for me specifically. It was for Israel. I get that. And I don’t pretend to be Israel in your eyes. I don’t pretend that the United States, where I am a citizen, is Israel in your eyes. But I know that through your love for all of us that I have the capacity to hurt you just as the Israelites hurt you. And I do not want that. For you because I love you so much. But I’m also self-aware enough to know that I need you for my sake. What does “winning” in life look like for me? That was the question the preacher asked. For me, winning looks like having your peace as I live in you and you use me. If I’ve hit my peak. If my most influential actions are behind me or still to come, that doesn’t mean you don’t still have meaningful things for me to do. For Elijah, you still had a couple of kings and a prophet for him to anoint. His work wasn’t done. So I give you this day. Help me to be what you need my wife, my children, and my friends to have from me.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen