Daily Devotional • June 6
A Reading from Ezekiel 34:17-31
17 As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God: I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats: 18 Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? 19 And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet and drink what you have fouled with your feet?
20 Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21 Because you pushed with flank and shoulder and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, 22 I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged, and I will judge between sheep and sheep.
23 I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them; he shall feed them and be their shepherd. 24 And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I the Lord have spoken.
25 I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild animals from the land, so that they may live in the wild and sleep in the woods securely. 26 I will make them and the region around my hill a blessing, and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing. 27 The trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase. They shall be secure on their soil, and they shall know that I am the Lord when I break the bars of their yoke and save them from the hands of those who enslaved them. 28 They shall no more be plunder for the nations, nor shall the animals of the land devour them; they shall live in safety, and no one shall make them afraid. 29 I will provide for them a splendid vegetation so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land and no longer suffer the insults of the nations. 30 They shall know that I, the Lord their God, am with them and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, says the Lord God. 31 You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, says the Lord God.
Meditation
Yesterday, we considered the eternal priesthood of Christ; today we consider God as the eternal shepherd of God’s people. And just as temporal priests attempt to emulate Christ’s eternal priesthood (by seeking to mediate the presence of God to the people), so too ought good temporal shepherds (which includes, but is not limited to, professional ministers) emulate God’s role as a shepherd.
This work is not for the faint of heart. Just as we’ve read elsewhere in Ezekiel how God has called the prophet to discerning distinctions between wicked and righteous—those who heed the warnings and those who do not—so now we hear of a judgment “between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats”… “between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.” The observations are gathered from the brutality of animal greediness, but the point is to observe how we human sheep are not too different from our animal neighbors. We like to imagine that we have gotten beyond “survival of the fittest” but, in the human world too, we see that the strong survive often by trampling upon the weak.
God’s judgment is not just one of discerning the moral quality of these sheep. God intercedes on behalf of the weak sheep, protecting them from those who would diminish their resources. God likewise calls those who take up the role of the shepherd (again, not limited to professional ministers–there are many who work in the shepherding role in our world!) to take such a call to discernment seriously. Sometimes there are individuals within a flock who trample the others: one cannot simply let that go on unheeded! Ultimately, God sets up Jesus as the chief shepherd, just as God has set up Jesus as the eternal priest. This work of shepherding is just one more facet of how we are called to reflect upon God and God’s values.
Ian Edward Caveny serves as pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Alton in south-central Illinois and as an occasional lecturer for the John Martinson Honors Program at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
All Souls’ Church, Oklahoma City
The Diocese of Muhabura – The Church of the Province of Uganda
