Reconciliation Lectionary: Ezekiel 36:23-28

In a preview of the Easter Vigil reading many of you probably won’t hear, let’s look at that strange prophet Ezekiel. I confess I found this man intimidating. Fiery wheels in the sky. Eating sweet lemon scrolls. Cutting off his hair and doing weird symbolic things with it. Ezekiel is the kind of guy you don’t want to cross. But he has a tender moment in chapter 36, the last of the seven Easter Vigil Old Testament readings. It also appears in the Rite of Penance, number 125:

Thus says the LORD:
I will prove the holiness of my great name,
profaned among the nations,
in whose midst you have profaned it.
Thus the nations shall know that I am the LORD, says the Lord GOD,
when in their sight I prove my holiness through you.
For I will take you away from among the nations,
gather you from all the foreign lands,
and bring you back to your own land.
I will sprinkle clean water upon you
to cleanse you from all your impurities,
and from all your idols I will cleanse you.
I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you,
taking from your bodies your stony hearts
and giving you natural hearts.
I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes,
careful to observe my decrees.
You shall live in the land I gave your (ancestors);
you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

A person in sin is a person in exile. This exile was known to Ezekiel–this was the Big One: Babylon. Like his major prophet brothers (Isaiah and Jeremiah) Ezekiel offers us a “section” of consolation, which Scripture scholars identify as chapters 33 through 39. This passage lands in the middle of it.

Whatever idols to which we have succumbed, whatever wanderings we have indulged, God is prepared to receive us. Ezekiel points the way in this passage. It’s not a mistake this concludes the Old Testament readings of the Easter Vigil. We may think of Creation and Exodus as the cornerstones of the Liturgy of the Word. But in many ways, Ezekiel prepares the way for the Risen Christ. We are promised not only a new life in our homeland, but also a physical rejuvenation from stone to flesh. Not unlike the transformation from death to life.

Reconciliation offers the Christian a promise. Sacramental reconciliation offers a bit more: the presence of the real Christ. That presence is proof of the holiness …

 

Reconciliation Lectionary: Hosea 14:2-10

As we progress through the season of Lent, many of the readings proclaimed are also found in the Rite of Penance. Tomorrow’s first reading is one of them.

Some prophets were too young, one was branded on the lips, and one was urged to a very unusual dining experience. Hosea’s experience was also unusual. His marriage and family life were symbolic of his mission. He married an unfaithful woman. He gave his three children names suggesting a deepening divide in the northern kingdom’s relationship with God. Hosea was no nine-to-five prophet. He was for God 24/7.

The final chapter of the book of Hosea offers words of consolation (see Isaiah 40ff, Jeremiah 30-31), and the formula for renewal is fairly explicit.

Thus says the LORD:
Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God;
you have collapsed through your guilt.
Take with you words,
and return to the LORD;

The formula is still good today:

Forgive all iniquity, and receive what is good …

This is a formula for the scrutinization of the Elect this Lent: eradicating the weak, and drawing out and building up what is good.

Hosea also suggests renouncing what we Christians have come to know as pelagianism, the sense we can accomplish things by our own abilities:

Assyria will not save us,
nor shall we have horses to mount;
We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’
to the work of our hands;
for in you the orphan finds compassion.

What do we receive in return for turning back to God? Simply this: healing and love.

I will heal their defection, says the LORD,
I will love them freely;
for my wrath is turned away from them.
I will be like the dew for Israel:
he shall blossom like the lily;
He shall strike root like the Lebanon cedar,
and put forth his shoots.
His splendor shall be like the olive tree
and his fragrance like the Lebanon cedar.
Again they shall dwell in his shade
and raise grain;
They shall blossom like the vine,
and his fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

I love verses 6-8, above. It recalls the great reverence of Saint Hildegard for viriditas, a vitality/greenness/holiness to be found in God’s boundless generosity. We see it in nature’s plenty. We experience it in moments when we turn ourselves over, body and soul, to our loving God. Very fitting for this time of year, even as much of the north languishes with winter snow and barren landscapes.

Hildegard may well have drawn on these prophetic images of plenty for her writings and music. (See Isaiah here, and here, and here, among other places, for the connection between viriditas and human redemption.) Hildegard’s composition (performed on this disc by Sequentia):

O nobilissima viriditas,
quae radicas in sole,
et quae in candida serenitate luces in rota,
quam nulla terrena excellentia comprehendis …

(O noblest viriditas,
who rooted in the sun,
and who, in dazzling serenity, shine in a sphere
that no earthly excellence can fully know …)

But when God graces us with it, we can perceive. And we can know the fruits of reconciliation, as promised to Ephraim:

Ephraim! What more has he to do with idols?
I have humbled him, but I will prosper him.
“I am like a verdant cypress tree”–
Because of me you bear fruit!

The last word from Hosea, advocating not knowledge exactly, but wisdom and prudence.

Let (those who are) wise understand these things;
let (those who are) prudent know them.
Straight are the paths of the LORD,
in them the just walk,
but sinners stumble in them.

This summation skips over a good deal of richness in the whole passage, and indeed, in the entire book. “Walk with God” is an easy thing to say and counsel. But the actual journey includes many missteps as well as many wonders. Reconciliation with God is far more than an intellectual assent to virtue. It requires a commitment to a whole lifestyle, in which we reorient ourselves to the viriditas, the life and grace around us. We don’t just attend to it when we become aware of sin. We can realize that we have many blindspots. We can recognize that a continual orientation to God and renewal in Christ will help us when we have wandered and gotten lost and are not even aware of it.

Hosea brought home his experience of God. He didn’t leave behind his prophetic vocation when it was time to punch his timecard. Modern Christian believers, too, can see that our calling is also meant to permeate our families, our work, our school, our social lives–very much like Hildegard’s experience of the rich, insistent greenery she found in God’s grace. May we all find such grace.

 

Reconciliation Lectionary: Micah 7:2-7, 18-20

Number 131 of the Rite of Penance, gives us something of a Jekyll-and-Hyde reading. The first six verses are one of the most powerful laments in the Old Testament. The prophet Micah has really hit bottom, hasn’t he? Everyone is under suspicion: political leaders, friends, wives and children.

The faithful are gone from the earth,
among (people) the upright are no more!
They all lie in wait to shed blood,
each one ensnares the other.
Their hands succeed at evil;
the prince makes demands,
The judge is had for a price,
the great man speaks as he pleases,
The best of them is like a brier,
the most upright like a thorn hedge.

The day announced by your watch!
your punishment has come;
now is the time of your confusion.

Put no trust in a friend,
have no confidence in a companion;
Against her who lies in your bosom
guard the portals of your mouth.
For the son dishonors his father,
the daughter rises up against her mother,
The daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law
and a (person’s) enemies are those of (their) household.

But as for me, I will look to the Lord,
I will put my trust in God my savior;
my God will hear me!

A long litany of mistrust is punctuated twice. A warning at verse 4cde: punishment and confusion. The prophet concludes his litany with an acclamation of trust. Micah looks to God–and no other.

We might ask why this litany is included. Is it an examination of conscience, and are we to see ourselves among corrupt leaders and unfaithful family members? Are ordinary sins so gross and exaggerated? Or is it more likely we see ourselves, with Micah, as victims beset by people who don’t care, don’t understand, and don’t love us? My own sense is that this passage has a broader footprint. Didn’t the Lord allude to verse 6 in his warning of divisions in the household?

The Saturday of the second week of Lent has a commonality with the Reconciliation Lectionary, namely the following three verses, which are appended to the ones above:

Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt
and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance;
Who does not persist in anger forever,
but delights rather in clemency,
And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our guilt?
You will cast into the depths of the sea all our sins;
You will show faithfulness to Jacob,
and grace to Abraham,
As you have sworn to our fathers
from days of old.

When I work with people preparing liturgy–engaged couples, mourners, or youth–I observe that we can take one of three approaches. We can find Scripture that is suggestive of a person, perhaps like the worthy wife of Proverbs 31 (a wedding selection) or the enthusiastic Zacchaeus (Rite of Penance 194).

We might look for a reading that illustrates a holy principle, like love or the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.

We can also engage a text that describes God. And this is what we have in Micah 7:18-20, the last three verses of this prophetic book. This short passage, placed in context of a well-celebrated reconciliation, is as compassionate and tender as the previous verses are harsh and skeptical. Perhaps God has reason to be harsh and skeptical of many of his believers. We are the sons and daughters who stray, who betray the principles and honor of the Christian household.

But we have a God who not only forgives us, but who actually “delights” in showing us mercy. What a concept! As enthusiastically as we might hold grudges against a leader, a neighbor, or even the one who shares our marital bed, God feels the same way about forgiving us.

On second thought, perhaps that litany of verses 2-7 is needed. It places raw human evil in perspective. Perhaps it raises a hint of guilt in us. Perhaps it raises more. However much we bring to the Lord in the Sacrament of Penance, we will encounter a God who will like nothing more than to take the grossest of our sins and toss it into the ocean depths.