“Tell them what I have said”

 Photo: Canva.com

 

Today the first reading is from Ezekiel 2:8-3:4. It is a passage where a voice warns the prophet not to be rebellious. Maybe the voice knew that the prophet did not always do what he was told. No wonder he was called to be a prophet. He tended to have a mind of his own. He didn’t just do whatever those in authority wanted him to do. Anyway, “the voice” went on to say, “Open your mouth and eat what I am about to give you.” This is a very strange demand. It is almost spooky or something like the command given to a spy after he receives a written message. “Chew the paper on which the message is written so that nobody else can find it.” There was a disturbing message of just three words, written on the back and front, “lamentations, wailings, moanings.” So, the prophet ate the scroll and it tasted like honey! Next he is told to “go and tell the House of Israel what I have said.” Obviously, the “voice” is God. But still, it is a weird way of receiving God’s word. Mind you, it is a powerful symbol. It suggests that when you when read God’s word, it is not just something that touches the memory and the imagination; it is also something that has texture, taste and smell.

 

Sometimes I like to watch a good actor quote from Shakespeare. It is like watching someone who has absorbed an ancient 450 year old text and made it his or her own. It is like the text has come alive in someone who has chewed over the text to the extent that the text can speak again to modern audiences as it did 450 years ago. Now, is that not how the word of God, sacred scripture, supposed to effect us, come alive in us and be spoken in a way that it has dramatic impact upon those listening to us? As the psalmist says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good” or, as we read in today’s psalm 118, “your promise is sweeter to my taste than honey in the mouth.” It won’t always be “lamentations, wailings, moanings”. But whatever it is that you are moved to say as you read the word of God, let it be something that you have chewed over, thought deeply about, and something that you feel impelled to tell others. As God says, “tell them what I have said.”