Then Ezra withdrew from before the house of God and went to the room of Jehohanan son of Eliashib. While he was there, he ate no food and drank no water, because he continued to mourn over the unfaithfulness of the exiles. – Ezra 10:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 22, 2017): Ezra 10

As threats of racial violence continues to reverberate in many areas of our world, the question that is left is really “what do we do next?” And maybe central to the question is this one – do we even understand why racism and racial violence is wrong. I am not sure that the answer to the question of our understanding of wrong in this area is yes. Deep down there seems to be a racial chasm that we have no idea how to cross.

About a week ago I watched the talking heads on CNN discuss the question of racism in the United States. Unfortunately, the CNN conversation seemed to huddle around the question of political history and who did what when. There is no doubt that all of the political parties have had their racial moments. But at some point we have to be able to flip the switch and say clearly to the world “yes, we have messed up in the past. But in the future we have decided to move in a different direction. We want to change the past; to make a break with it. Who we were yesterday is not the legacy that we want to leave for the future.” But maybe that is easier said than done. We still have the racial chasm that we have to build a bridge over. The blame has to end. We have to decide what kind of a society we are wanting to build, and then build it.

Ezra knew that Israel needed a change. It was time to move the nation in a different direction. And so the first thing he does is get alone and fast as he contemplates the nation’s change of direction into the future. As the leader of the nation, he mourns the unfaithfulness of the people and takes the blame for their failure on himself before his God. And maybe that is what we miss. The blame does not begin with others. It starts with us. We have to mourn what has gone wrong – be willing to weep over it and understand our part in the failure of the past. Only then can we move into the future with a new idea of what needs to happen next.

By the way, I am not convinced that Ezra got it right. The problem was that foreigners, the racial bias that is present in this passage, brought with them foreign gods. Marrying a foreigner didn’t just introduce a foreign god into the culture, it brought it into the home. The real question behind Ezra’s problem as Israel started off on fresh footing was this – regardless of your nationality, are you willing to follow the God of Israel from this moment forward. If you are, then everything is okay, even if you were not a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But if you are not willing to follow the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob into this new adventure, then you cannot stay. You must go – even if you were born a citizen of Jacob’s Nation. There is no room for you in the new national dream, and national direction on which we are ready to embark.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Nehemiah 1