Religion Game
“‘In you are people who accept bribes to shed blood; you take interest and make a profit from the poor. You extort unjust gain from your neighbors. And you have forgotten me, declares the Sovereign LORD.’”
Today’s Text: Ezekiel 22:1-16 (Living Life Daily Devotional)
God is just. And the judgment on Israel was just. God waited patiently for their repentance that never came and never would. But because of God’s covenant promises, He would not completely wipe out the nation of Judah.
The LORD itemizes all the ways in which His people had violated their covenant with Him, and the list concludes on verse 12. In many ways, our society has committed the crimes that the LORD points out concerning Israel. In particular, our greedy society has lost any sense of remorse when it comes to profiteering off of the poor and taking advantage of one another in our community.
Not many seem to care until the profiteering starts to impact us personally. Not many seem to care until our own streets where we live and work are found to be in shambles.
We see homeless people everywhere, and the narrative in our heads about how they got there is so self-justifying and self-exonerating. Not that any of us are directly responsible for the plight of the homeless, but somehow all of us are indirectly responsible for the plight of the homeless. We are in some way responsible because of our collusion with rampant, unchecked profiteering.
In fact, many (maybe most) people in the middle class have promoted rampant, unchecked profiteering because it has resulted in a booming stock market. And our retirement plans depend on a growing stock market. And who cares by what means it grows, as long as it grows. Who cares if the filthy rich get filthier richer as long as my retirement is secure.
The erosion of a society into complete, no-turning-back corruption begins when people just stop caring about others and strangers in their neighborhood.
And the point is not to advocate socialism, either. Legislation is never the solution for anything beyond the basic ethical guidelines given to us in the word of God. A personal and communal relationship with Jesus Christ is always the solution.
But Israel reached its point of no return because, as the LORD says, “you have forgotten me.” Are we reaching that point in this American society?
I see so much hope in the next generation (Gen Z). I find that they are so hungry for the Lord—not just here, but in the ROK too. But that phenomenon is nothing new. It happened with the Boomers. It happened with the Millennials. Maybe even with the Gen Xers.
What I fear, though, and what I see glimpses of, is churches raising up the next generation with the same kind of manufactured spirituality that is “me” focused, entertainment and performance and numbers driven, and us-versus-them oriented. That is the kind of manufactured spirituality that has driven the next generation away from the church in the first place (in every generation) and made the church as a whole pretty impotent in our world.
All I ever see is the church trying solve the problem of the next generation with the same solutions and strategies that created the problem in the first place.
But what do I know? All I have is the word of God to guide me. And what I see over and over again, especially in the Old Testament, is that if we don’t focus our efforts on building up a church that has empathy and compassion for the “other” and has a community-focused concern, instead of a “me”-focused concern, the “me” focused, entertainment and performance and numbers driven, and us-versus-them oriented disciples will stay. But all the others will be driven away. And eventually, we’re also going to reach the point of no return.
So then, what is it that I must do? I must teach and preach and, especially, model biblical love with humility and prayer. And I will continue to pray for a BASIC community.
Father, You know all things. You know us inside and out. You have given us Your word to reveal Your heart to us and to reveal how we always stumble. Help us LORD to be the church You have called us to be—a church that loves everyone according to Your word, not just those who know and perpetuate the game of religion. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
