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 (July 27, 2026): Ezekiel 3

A while back, I read an article by Brian McLaren about our responsibility to creation. McLaren starts off the article by describing where he was. 

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 (Brian McLaren)

At that time, McLaren had been part of a volunteer team for a couple of days each year that studied and tried to protect the North American Bog Turtle, the rarest turtle in our part of the world. But as he tells his story of his search for the turtle, he also begins to describe his own disappointment in a Christian Church that does not seem to care about protecting the ecology of our world. In fact, he openly points to Christians as part of the problem. Unfortunately, he is right. We have become enamored with an escapist theology that preaches that this world will one day be thrown into 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 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 I received (from a retired Pastor and Missionary) was that I would now dedicate my life to things 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 removal from areas where I was gifted 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 God's disposable creation.

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 travel to Nineveh to speak to the foreigners; I am sending you to your own people, those who speak the same language 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 need you to use your passion for them as you deliver the message I am giving you.

Ezekiel is a strange book filled with strange images. But part of that arises from Ezekiel's passions, passions that God was able to use because he was willing to submit them to God. We all have passions, but sometimes we refuse to see them as opportunities for mission. 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 accused of pushing it). I am thankful for the passions God has given each 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 that when the end comes, the earth will be restored rather than 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