By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
November 26, 2023
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Ezekiel 34:11–16 (ESV)
11 “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13 And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14 I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. 16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.
Ezekiel 34:20–24 (ESV)
20 “Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: Behold, I, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21 Because you push with side and shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns, till you have scattered them abroad, 22 I will rescue my flock; they shall no longer be a prey. And I will judge between sheep and sheep. 23 And 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 am the Lord; I have spoken.
This week my mind has been going every way but Sunday. We all have moments like this. The stresses of this world seem to be building up within us and we just seem to have no way to let it out.
Last week you all know my grandfather had a stroke, and I thank David and everyone for graciously allowing me to go be with him for a while. This Friday he passed through the veil of life. My grandpa was my place of comfort. He had this quiet yet deep and strong faith. He did not say a great deal and yet his eyes and his smile could preach sermons I only wish I could give. Many have asked me as I have ministered why I tend to prefer hymns over contemporary music, the greatest reason is I hear grandpa singing them. He had this rhythm of life, he worked hard all through the week. Harder than anyone I know, but the only Sundays he would not be sitting at Mt Ayr Friends church were Sundays that he happened to be visiting my aunt in Denver. He was always at church, always rocking from heel to toe, quietly humming with his eyes closed or singing the base line through the chorus.
Grandpa was a rock of faith. He rarely if ever spoke of his faith and yet I knew. The only time I really remember him speaking about his faith was before I left to board a plane heading to Ukraine, that day he gave me a hug and said, “you are going to the land of the enemy, I will be praying for you.”
I had never seen my grandpa worried. I had rarely seen him express any emotion other than joy, yet I saw something that day. I saw the depth of his faith and where his strength and hope were found.
My mind has been wondering these past few weeks. Focus on everything but Sunday. I looked at this week’s scripture reading, the passage that Vicky confirmed with me over a month ago and like every week, it is exactly the words I personally needed to hear.
Ezekiel is a book I rarely read. I admit that I do not like it. Yes, there are some very good parts that we all remember, but there are other parts that make me uncomfortable even as an adult. The fact that I would find comfort in the words of Ezekiel this week of all weeks speaks not of the book but the God that inspired the words the prophet wrote.
Ezekiel was one of those prophets that emerged around the time of Jerusalem’s troubles. It is believed that Ezekiel was among those that were exiled to Babylon prior to the destruction of the city, so unlike Jeremiah he did not suffer through the impending war. Instead, he lamented the prospect.
Most of us know little about Ezekiel. We mainly know about the vision he had of the throne of God where he describes the beasts and the wheels within wheels with eyes all around. There are vast interpretations of that vision, from helicopters to aliens, but it was a vision of God’s throne. It is a wheeled throne surrounded by throne guardians. Angelic beings that were shining like polished metals. These are terrifying and yet awe-inspiring visions. And his vision gives us a glimpse into the reality described in the fall of humanity. What we often read as snake in scripture, could be seen as one of these beings, also known as the shining ones, because the word for shining like polished bronze and burning as in snake venom is similar. We get snake in Genesis but throne guardian in Ezekiel.
After the vision of God’s throne, the only other story from Ezekiel we all relate to is the store of the dry bones. God meets Ezekiel once again in a vision where he sees the sun-bleached bones of the fallen in the wilderness. The vision is one of desolation, of hopelessness. We can sense the despair in the words. God commands the prophet to speak to these bones, to prophesy over the bones. What is the point there is nothing, no hope, why even bother? Yet God insists, and Ezekiel is obedient. The bones rise, they come together, are reanimated, and restored to life once again. Ezekiel, in the sorrows of judgment and exile sees a vision of hope through hopelessness.
With such amazing visions this should be one of our favorites in all scripture. The problem is Ezekiel does not hold back, he is vile and crude in his descriptions. Most of what he says I do not want to explain or even say out loud because…well if we are honest the books that people are seeking to ban today are less graphic.
The last thing we might know about Ezekiel, we can find in the frozen department of the grocery store. There within those frosty doors you can find a bread boasting to be the healthiest of all the breads, called Ezekiel 4:9. This bread is straight from the pages of scripture so you would think it fly off the shelf. But every time I had to stock it while I worked in the grocery department I would laugh and wonder if they baked it according to the scripture as well as using the ingredients mentioned on their packaging. Just so you know the bread in all its wholesome goodness would render the prophet unclean to worship, because it was to be cooked over excrement.
Ezekiel was likely among those great men taken into exile to serve in the courts of Babylon. We know them as Daniel, and the trio Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They each were taken to serve in this foreign nation, a nation they despised and would use to describe the very essence of evil. And it was here in Babylon Ezekiel the prophet and priest would teach. He would describe the nation of God’s people as being worse than Babylon. He would pronounce judgement over the people in graphic detail, leaving no one to question just why God was upset. And then after all of that, he would speak some of the most beautiful words of hope and grace.
Israel and Judah were adulterous nations, they left their God and they entertained the gods of the world. Ezekiel would describe Sodom in a better light than the God’s chosen nation. I want us to consider that for a moment. We all have our opinions about what Sodom’s sin was, what caused them to be so detestable that God would say that not a single person was worthy of redemption in that land that deserved destruction by fire. And yet Ezekiel said that Sodom would blush at the description of Israel.
My mind was going every way but Sunday all week. I found that I had to force myself to come to the meetinghouse, I had to leave my blue chair so I could contemplate and pray as I prepared for today. You see that is the point of Ezekiel’s message. We can become distracted. At first it does not seem like we have drifted, but day after day, week upon week, month after month and year over year, we drift. As the cycles of time move forward, we find that we have drifted just a bit further away. To the point we are no longer able to recognize the difference between the people of God and those of the world.
A few years ago, my grandpa asked me about this. He knew I was an elder, and he asked me once to send him a faith and practice because he wondered if what was written there, what we claimed to believe, was what he once knew. I could see the spiritual pain in his eyes that day, and I felt a tremble in the rock. It only lasted a moment, but that slight tremble in the foundations of my life caused me to search. It prompted me to wonder about my faith, and if I lived what I said I believed.
The words of my grandfather. The words of a quiet man of faith that had been my inspiration for so many years, prompted one of the most soul-searching eras of my spiritual journey once again.
Who are we? What are we called to do?
Most of my life there has been a struggle for identity. What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be an American? Are these one in the same or is there a difference?
I have examined my faith over the past few years. I have looked at the things I once embraced and have examined them in light of scripture. This has often been difficult because I began to see just how hypocritical I have been, and how there were times I led those within my care in a direction that we probably should not have gone. Ezekiel’s words hit me hard. And yet I have continued to seek.
“Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.”
In the sorrow that I have been feeling this past week. And in the encouragement that I received from my grandfather. I can see hope forward. We are often scattered. Scatter brained in my case. We feel this deep within our bones. We look at the world in which we live, and we wonder. Things are not what they once were. I say this not out of some nostalgic view of the past. I would much rather live today than generations past. But there are some things that have changed.
“And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and will bring them into their own land. And I will fee them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down., declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.”
When we look into the past, we see many things. We might look at the discrimination and persecution during World War 2 and say we have come a long way. We might look at the civil rights movement here in America and it might seem like ancient history. The labor movements spurred dramatic improvements within our nation. All these things are profound, but where are they today?
The pendulum swings. Labor once fought for the greater good, but then there was an overreach, and the communities began to pull away. There are cycles of change. Two steps forward, followed by a step back, because we feel as if we might have gone too far. This is what Ezekiel means by fat and strong. We make progress in an area, people involved in that movement gain power and influence and eventually they themselves begin to use that influence in a manner resembling those they once fought against. This is why Jesus said, “the poor will always be with you.” Jesus does not condemn wealth outright; he instead condemns what wealth can become and often what is done to obtain wealth.
Ezekiel continues, “Behold, I, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you push with side and shoulder, and thrust at all the weak with your horns, till you have scattered them abroad, I will rescue my flock; they shall no longer be a prey. And I will judge between sheep and sheep.”
We have recently celebrated Armistice Day, today we call it Veteran’s Day. I personally prefer Armistice Day because it was to remember the great war to end all wars, and what that war cost. The great war, or World War 1, was a battle between German, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire against England, Russia, France, and eventually the United States. That war was the most heinous war the world had ever seen to that point.
Germany was seen as the ultimate villain in that conflict, and I understand this. They invaded France and they inflicted great harm to the British. And the allied forces wanted to make sure that Germany paid for their violence, so they were charge reparations. Before the war German was lauded as the greatest economy of the world, but all that changed after the war. The fees charged to Germany continued to hinder the people of Germany they plead for some relief from the sanctions, but this fell on deaf ears.
At the close of the war, Germany made reforms that should have led them into peaceful future. Armistice should have made all the nations of the world equal, but weak and strong, the malnourished and the fat. Sheep and Sheep together, nations of the world. The once oppressed became an oppressor and the once strong became weak. This does not sit well with people. When injustice occurs violence often follows. We either need to beat down the violence with greater violence or find another way. The reparations applied to Germany can be seen as a factor that ushered in the politics that prompted war to again break out just a couple of decades after the war to end wars.
We cannot simply win; we all must change for lasting peace. We push with side and shoulder, we thrust at the weak with our horns and we scatter them abroad. Russia invades Ukraine, Syria engages in a civil war, Hamas terrorizes the civilians of Israel. What is the result? Folgers and Monsanto go into Latin America to promote the growing of their crops, the governments of those nations remove people from farms to obtain greater profits for themselves. What are the results? In both cases people flee, they are scattered across the world, they seek refuge in places that they see hope. The immigration problem we see in Europe and here is a sign of injustice. We cannot merely close the borders because that does not promote justice. We need real change, and not weak and fat.
I said that over the past few years I have examined my faith, and I have lamented my own hypocrisy. I have been excited about an area of injustice that I could assist only to see the organizations grow and become instruments of injustice themselves. They like so many get distracted. They sought to do good, and they did great work, but as they rose in power and influence, they became fat, and they began to prod with their horns.
My mind has strayed every way but Sunday all week. I have pled, and I have mourned. I have sought distraction and comfort. I looked at this passage and I was reminded of something profound. In my mind my grandpa was a great man, the greatest of men. But his greatness was different. He was patient and kind. He was joyful and encouraging. He inspired and with a slight change in expression promotes a reexamination of actions. He embodied the testimony of St. Francis, to “preach the gospel always and when necessary, use words.”
My grandfather showed me faith. That faith became the bedrock of my own faith. My grandfather taught me kindness and I hope that I have lived into his example. I grandfather gave me hope, but not in him, he gave me hope in God. We are often distracted; our minds can often be taken every way but Sunday and when that happens, we can often find ourselves in the very places we were seeking to eliminate. We end up in that place when we forget to love God, embrace the Holy Spirit, and live the love of Christ with others. We often get distracted, but God will draw his people back to him. He draws us back himself and he binds our wounds and strengthens our weaknesses. He will show us our own errors and again point us to justice. Let us pray that we will listen to his voice and not become like the rebellious nation described throughout the pages of Ezekiel.
Previous Messages:
The Mind of Christ
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church March 29, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Query 3: Do you attend regularly the services of your church and participate in them actively? Do you prayerfully endeavor to minister, under the guidance of the Holy…
Walk as Children of Light
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church March 15, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Ephesians 5:8–14 (ESV) 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit…
Your Kingdom Come
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church February 22, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Romans 5:12–19 (ESV) 12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all…
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