Between Sheep and Sheep

Ezekiel 34: 17-22 – As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God: I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet and drink what you have fouled with your feet? Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep. (NRSV)

This passage from the prophet Ezekiel takes on a new significance as we listen to the news about the climate change conference going on in Italy last week. As the media report on those conversations, they make careful distinctions between the bigger, developed nations and the less powerful, under-developed countries. Climate change is exacerbated by conveniences we take for granted as part of our “civilized” modern lifestyles. And the folks in those less-developed nations would like to have everything we have. But they are already paying the price for our excessive use of fossil fuels. If everyone on earth consumed like Americans, we’d need about 6 more planets!

So who are the fat sheep and the lean sheep in that picture? So often when we confess our sins, we make it very personal. We’re sorry for saying something hurtful to our spouse, or being impatient with our kids, or harboring jealous thoughts about our neighbor’s home. But what about the people we’ve hurt without even realizing it? Those “lean sheep” who are suffering just because we like to drive everywhere we go and have air conditioned homes?

Corporate, societal sin is a difficult problem to process as an individual person of faith. Each of us has to make our own decisions about our lifestyle and how our decisions about consumption affect God’s people throughout the earth. Wading through all the options can be overwhelming, and we sometimes just get paralyzed, feeling like there’s nothing we can do but feel bad about it. But as my college advisor said, “The poor cannot eat guilt.”

That’s why being part of a community of faith is so important. Together, we can confess our complicity with the global systems that make some sheep fat and some lean. Together, we can try to figure out how to make life more equitable for all God’s people. Together, we can support one another in finding more just ways of living.

Collect for the Week: Loving, Creator God, whose mercy makes life possible, grant that we might see the ways in which our lives make life difficult for others and repent, that we might be beacons of your justice and peace for a broken and unfair world. Through Jesus Christ our Redeemer and the Sustaining Holy Spirit, Amen.