For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because you have clapped your hands and stamped your feet, rejoicing with all the malice of your heart against the land of Israel ... Ezekiel 25:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (June 14, 2020): Ezekiel 25

We are guilty as a people of cheering at the struggles of those we oppose. Maybe it is the struggle of China or the United States, depending on your political beliefs, with the COVID-19 pandemic, or some other disaster that is present in the lives of those who are unlike us. I am not sure what it is inside of us that is elevated by the problems of others, but there is no question that such feelings live within us. And that response to struggle is undeniable and one of which we need to be aware.

Our innate desire to celebrate at someone else’s struggle is also at the heart of Jesus’s parable about the goats and the sheep.  The moral of the parable is presented in two comments; one from the positive side of the story and the other from the negative. Jesus states the positive first.  “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’’’ (Matthew 25:40). But just in case you might think that doing nothing is a neutral response, he rephrases the parable into a second version of the same teaching. And the second version concludes it with another piece of moral advice; “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me” (Matthew 25:45). The lesson seems to be clear. We will be judged by how it is that we react to those going through tough times.

Of course, we have a pushback. What if what is happening to the other is their own fault? It is another old argument, one that seems to extend back to the days of Job, and maybe even earlier. The evil that people suffer is because of the way that they live. The story of Job brings that assessment into question. But Ezekiel’s words bring it even more into focus; if you celebrate because of someone else’s misfortune, then the evil is not in them or just in them; it is also inside of you.

It is the reality of the nations that existed around the Kingdom of Judah. Judah had fallen. The people of the neighboring countries reacted by clapping their hands, celebrating the occurrence, and glad for the demise of their enemy. But God was not amused. Because even if our eventual destruction is our own fault, that is a reason to mourn and not celebrate.

But the unfortunate reality of life is that none of us are more than a couple of steps away from that kind of a disaster, and to celebrate it when it strikes someone else is to believe that such an occurrence could never happen to us. And that is just not true, as Ezekiel is about to tell the nations.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 52