Ezekiel 36 (Part I) let the rain come down

I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them."

"I will take you out of the nations."

"I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land."

"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean;"

"I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols."

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;"

"I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

"I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." 

- Ezekiel 36:23-27

Promises from Ezekiel 36 were shared with us recently as a congregation in a teaching given by a guest among us.  They are quite poignant and touch the very core of the struggle that I imagine many victims of sexual abuse share.  

I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them." 

Profanity.  It seems like a constant struggle for me that grates at the very core of sexual sin and abuse. As my sons pick up words that reference sexuality in vulgar terminology, and use them as throw-aways; something rises up in me, like a cobra, ready to strike.  There is a way in which our wrong understanding of God profanes his name in a much subtler form than simply yelling out obscenities.  God seems to be about correcting my own distorted views of who He/She is and this blog, my reading, the therapy issues that I am delving into seem to be a part of that.   Beyond a personal level, God's name has been profaned on a global level, not by the "infidels" or the atheists but by those who claim Christianity as their battle cry and banner as they go about oppressing the poor.  Is there a way in which our American wealth, when coupled by a call to missions, profanes God's name by implying that our way of life is an attainable and desirable goal?  I recently overheard the youth at our church talking about how it would take 7 earths to sustain the "American way of life" if all were to enjoy (be enslaved by) it.  God promises to show the holiness of His/Her name.  Who will be privy to this revelation?  Does this happen in small ways throughout history?  Or is this a greater showing yet to come? 

"I will take you out of the nations."

"I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land."

I am reminded of my own journey and life story in the first few lines here, how I was brought back to the land of my birth after 13 years abroad.  I really resist the idea that "this land is my land".  Many of us world citizens grow in our cultural adaptations to the point that we no longer feel completely at home anywhere.  I struggle with the idea of commitment to a geographical location over the long haul though there have definitely been relationships in my life that feel like home.  This same feeling leads to life partnership for some when that feeling of home is discovered in another, not previously known.  The way of life that our church has chosen is one expression of lifelong partnership, not with a person, but with a people. It involves commitment to a particular place, in our case, th mission district of San Francisco.   What did this promise mean to Israel, in exile due to their own choices and the sins of others?  This sense of home seems to be a deep human need, indeed, the right to belong is framed as a right to "nationality" in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  

"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean;"

"I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols."

There are a few lines from an Amy Grant song, dating back to my high school CCM days, that I've never been able to shake:

You see, she's his little rag, nothing more than just a waif.  He is mopping up his need.  She is tired and afraid.  Maybe she'll find a way through these awful years to disappear.

The song goes on to talk about hope and the new life God is bringing to this particular victim as the an answer to the question "Do I think there is a God?" But these are the words I have carried with me.  In fact, I had forgotten the rest of the song entirely.  Maybe there is no need to articulate further.  We don't often talk about the process of cleaning out the rags we use to clean the bathroom.  But God is promising, I would hope, more than just a rag clean enough to do the next dirty job.  He is talking about cleansing and purifying whole people.  The image is refreshing, especially as raindrops begin to fall outside my window this morning - and I am reminded of the process I am wading into, the newness I feel when I emerge from the water (specifically natural bodies of water) after a good, long, work out.  The funny thing is, there is often residue (phyto-plankton) clinging to my face, or in the case of lake water, the lingering odor of boat fumes - but the cleanness I feel is on the inside.  A healthier body, oxygen flowing in my veins.  This is the type of cleansing I am looking for, and experiencing, little by little, as I delve into this process.

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you;"

"I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

"I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." 

I am reminded of a poem I saw in the hallways of 14 long at UCSF during Mom's last hospital stay:

Stone

by Charles Simic

Go inside a stone.

That would be my way.

Let somebody else become a dove

Or gnash with a tiger's tooth.

I am happy to be a stone.

From the outside a stone is a riddle.

No one knows how to answer it

Yet within, it must be cool and quiet

Even though a cow steps on it full weight,

Even though a child throws it in a river;

The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed

To the river bottom

Where the fishes come to knock on it 

And listen.

I have seen sparks fly out

When two stones are rubbed,

So perhaps it is not dark inside after all;

Perhaps there is a moon shining

From somewhere as though behind a hill - 

Just enough light to make out

The strange writings, the star charts

On the inner walls.

Perhaps it is the human connection that is needed to turn our hearts of stone to hearts of flesh - to release the moonlight that shines within.  Basically God is promising renewal, inner healing, the presence of His/Her Spirit that will be coupled with a walking in the path of obedience.  Well, I seem to be on the road, as I have recently been invited, with sadness and joy, to join this quest for perspective.

Jeremiah chapter 1

"I am with you and will rescue (protect) you."  - Jeremiah 1:8

" . . . I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled (and I will certainly carry out all my plans)"  - Jeremiah 1:12

"I will pronounce my judgements on my people because of their wickedness in forsaking me, in burning incense to other gods and in worshiping what their hands have made." - Jeremiah 1:16

"Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them." - Jeremiah 1:17

"I am with you and will rescue you (I will take care of you)." - Jeremiah 1:19

*The above quotes are primarily from the TNIV (Today's New International Version) with some variation in parentheses from the NLT (New Living Translation).

Sometimes I am a bit of a stickler for sequence.  Maybe it is simply the predictability that makes me comfortable, allows me to be in control and yet strangely detached from responsibility in a laissez-faire, come-what-may sort of way.  Perhaps this is also why my promises study has stagnated.  I had not allowed myself to note (and even more notably, feel) the promises I encountered outside of the structured sequence I had imposed upon my own study.

But last week in my readings of the lectionary passages, there were too many promises in the first chapter of Jeremiah, too many "I will" statements to ignore.  They also seem to speak so directly to a recent discovery I have made about my own journey. 

My recent reading in Dan Allender's The Wounded Heart provided a phrase that really stood out to me in pointing to, perhaps, a "why" for my promises study:  

"My experience seems to directly contradict God's promise to provide for and protect my soul . . ."

Sticking to the "I will" phrases is another restrictive tendency of mine, that I have used to limit the scope of my study, but here it seems foolish to ignore the "I am" statements - as they are promises of presence (I am with you) and continuity as reflected in the present continuous verb tense (I am watching).

So, even the very first promise in Jeremiah smacks as I seek to process my own childhood trauma.    

I am with you and will protect/rescue you.   

Does this mean you were with me, God?  'Cause it sure didn't seem like you protected me.  Maybe I can swallow the idea that you rescued me because I am no longer in that situation . . . and yet, in my head and my heart I am right back there from time to time, realizing in a whole new way how much these events have shaped my life.  

I have been reluctant to own these questions for myself.  And yet, God's felt presence with me seems to be a constant in my life.  I once answered a question about my own "duty" to God with the idea that for me, it is similar to my "duty" to breathe.  It seems counter-intuitive to question God's presence in my life.  So perhaps, it is His/Her goodness that actually comes into question.  The idea of protection (keeping from harm or injury).  I am no Hebrew scholar, but the internet is a curious tool that allows us, perhaps, a deeper look into the semantics of a word.  This word protect-rescue-deliver (as it is translated in various versions in English) is the Hebrew word natsal  and we are offered the following understandings of the word, which do seem helpful to me:   to take away, snatch away, to rescue, recover, to deliver (from enemies or troubles or death), to deliver from sin and guilt.

So it seems that the translation "protect" is not helpful to me here.  It seems that here God is promising Jeremiah not that he will be kept from harm, but that he will not be left there.  I am especially intrigued by the last phrase, God's promise to deliver from sin and guilt as it relates to the sinful outcomes in my own life that stem back to the sin of others enacted upon me.  It is helpful to know that we can recognize the sinful actions of a child in reaction/response to abuse - without throwing blame.  As Allender points out:  "formative events in our lives shape the raw material of sin to defend against the horror of a sinful, fallen world and to claim some dimension of Eden we intuitively know we were meant to enjoy."

In exploring my own rebellion, I've pinpointed the sin of suppression as something that I would be delivered from.  "If we are given over to suppression, our eyes will be blinded, and we will become morally and relationally deceived."  (Allender)  This suppression leads to a distorted view of God and choices not to trust him.  "The abuse victim's fundamental enemy then, is sin:  the fearful refusal to trust a God about whom she is deceived.  The Spirit of God is hard at work in her to reveal God's true nature and confront her fear and mistrust, but His work is a battle that requires her cooperation."  This is the work to which I am considering committing myself.  Indeed, I have waded in but am letting my feet get adjusted to the water.  It's really not all that unlike swimming in the bay - and the needle like sensations of the cold water when it first touches my skin.  But if I stand still too long my feet will just get cold again even once they have adjusted.  I seem to be running in place at the moment, chewing on what I have read and am discovering, trying to keep my feet from getting too cold before I commit more fully to the process. 

Following are a few more thoughts from Allender that have been helpful to me in chewing on the concept of my own sin in relation to the abuse I suffered as a child.

"We cannot fail to trust God without turning our trust to something that becomes a new god for us." - I am still trying to figure out what it is I have put my trust in that is not God.  I have some inklings, perhaps, but cannot yet articulate them.

" . . . trivializes trust to manageable, dutiful levels . . ." - maybe not so much dutiful for me, but definitely manageable. I find the practices of my faith to be life-sustaining and am mainly exploring the belief behind the practices.  There is that piece of belief that seems involuntary to me.  When we choose to "believe" something - it is like we don't really feel it in our gut, our head, or our heart.  Saying that "I'm not really sure what I believe about God" is my attempt to be honest with my struggle - and I don't know that I will ever really be sure.  Which is ok with me.  It just really grates against that phrase I hear reverberating in my mind and heard in church growing up that we should "know that we know that we know that we know . . . " - some kind of attempt to describe the "assurance of our salvation".  Assurance is just something that eludes me at the moment.

" . . . sinful energy to trust what is not worthy of her heart. . ." - again, I'm not sure what the "what" is, but this phrase definitely brings tears to my eyes.

"Until they confront the choices they have made in response to their abuse, neither their duty nor their desperation will lead them to genuine passion for the God who actually exists." - This is definitely missing from my life, but I'm not completely sure that I want nor am I yet completely convinced that I need to fix this just yet.

"They have cut off their heart from a passion for God's glory." (see above)

So God,  you are watching to see that your plans are fulfilled.  I suppose that is comforting.  I don't even really need to know what those plans are.  I think to the Isaiah passage, plans for good and not for harm.  What are those judgements you will pronounce? Perhaps that is what I am experiencing even now.  The judgement is not so much punishment, but your anger that things are not the way they should be.  That we are not living out the design you have made for us.  You are a parent who loves us and corrects us - and sometimes that correction seems harsh, but as a parent I actually feel like I understand this.  All those judgement passages don't really scare me.  I would rather be terrified by you than the rest of this world - though the rest of the world deeply disturbs me.  There is a part of me that trusts you deeply - but there is a part of me that is deeply afraid that you are no different than this fallen world you have made and that you will fail me/us just like we fail each other.  I guess I am just waiting to see, will you really rescue and take care of me, of us?  These words were to Jeremiah.  I am confused about how to apply that to myself, to us as the body of Christ, the church, the people you are forming.