You are not being sent to a people of obscure speech and strange language, but to the people of Israel— Ezekiel 3:5.

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 26, 2014): Ezekiel 3

I recently read an article written by Brian McLaren with regard to our responsibility to creation. McLaren starts off the article by describing where he is. “RIGHT NOW, I'M thigh-deep in muck. Clad in hip waders, I'm slogging through a spring-fed bog in northern Maryland. I'm surrounded by tussock sedge, alder, jewelweed, skunk cabbage, and swamp rose. And I'm having a great time.” McLaren, for a couple of days every year for the past number of years has been part of a volunteer team that studies and tries to protect the North American Bog Turtle – the rarest of Turtles in our part of the world. But as he tells his story about his search for the turtle, he also begins to describe his own disappointment in a Christian Church which does not seem to care about the protection of the ecology of our world. In fact, he openly points to Christians as part of the problem. And, unfortunately, he is right. We have become enamored with an escapist theology that preaches that this world will one day be thrown on to the trash pile and we will simply escape to somewhere else. Yet, in Genesis 1 God looked at creation and called it good – and in the end he called it very good. Why would he want to throw all of it away when time has been completed?

Baby Bog Turtle

And it is not just our ecology that is taking the brunt of our negligence. Evangelically we have carried the same carelessness into our practices – often going all over the world to talk about the “love of Jesus” but ignoring the ones who are closest to us – the ones who live around the place where we live, Mission has become something that we do somewhere else. The idea of following your passions and searching for Bog Turtles close to home as part of our mission often seems to be considered to be absurd.

Yet, it might be the most important part of our mission. When I first became a Pastor, one of the earliest pieces of advice that I received (this came from a retired Pastor and Missionary) was that now I would dedicate my life to things that I did not want to do. My days were now to be spent on things that I was not gifted for rather than the things for which I possessed a talent. This was the life of a Pastor. It was like he was saying that God had gifted me, he had given me a set of talents and passions and had helped me to develop them; all so that one day I could become a pastor and throw all of the gifts that he had given to me away. My gifts become just a part of the disposable creation of God.

For me, this is the passion of this passage. God speaks to Ezekiel and says, I am not sending you to speak to a foreign people. I am not calling you to be a Jonah and to travel to speak to the foreigners at Ninevah, I am sending you to your own people – the ones who speak that same language that you do. And not only am I sending you to them, but I also know that you have a passion for them. I am the author of that passion and now I want you to use your passion for them as you give them the message I am giving to you.

To be honest, Ezekiel is a strange book filled with strange images. But part of that arises from the passions of Ezekiel – passions that God was able to use because Ezekiel was willing to submit them to him. We all have passions, but sometimes we refuse to see them as mission opportunities. McLaren as he searches for Bog Turtles in Maryland is every bit as much of a missionary as someone who chases all over Africa in search of the heathen (Maybe more, but I might be pushing it.) I am thankful for the passions that God has given to each one of us. Passions for people and things – even a passion for this world that God created. Because I have a sneaking suspicion that the earth is part of our mission, and when the end comes that earth will be restored and not destroyed. God’s message to each of us is that when we are chasing our passions (even our passion for turtles) we are chasing after him. And that is precisely where we want to be.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 4