Scriptures:
Ezekiel 18:1-10, 13b, 30-32
Matthew 19:13-15
Reflection:
What we do with our lives really does matter. How we live each day truly is of ultimate significance, because the cumulative effect of our daily behavior will reveal whether we chose the path to life or the path to death.
In today’s first reading, God, speaking through his prophet, Ezechiel, tells the Israelites that they “shall surely live” if they do “what is right and just,” if they “oppress no one,” if they “give food to the hungry and clothes the naked,” if they do “not lend at interest nor exact usury,” “commit no robbery,” and “if they hold off from evildoing.” At first glance, the prophet’s words might leave us with a relaxed and easy conscience—after all, how many of us have the power to oppress anyone? And yet, isn’t it true that we can “oppress” others by the attitudes we have towards them (if we are biased, judgmental, or prejudiced); by how we talk to them or treat them (if we are mean, harsh, petty, or malicious); and by what we refuse to do for them (if we withhold kindness, love, or forgiveness)? Similarly, we may not literally “lend at interest nor exact usury,” but do we often try to gain an advantage over others by putting our needs first or by making sure everything turns out well for us? And even if it never even entered our minds to commit a robbery, have we ever gone through life grabbing as much as we could for ourselves, never once wondering if we had more than we needed and, therefore, “robbing” others who had little or nothing at all? If we are not to stray from the path to life, we must “hold off from evildoing” in all its forms.
Today’s first reading is sobering. But it is also suffused with hope, because when Ezechiel concludes, “Turn and be converted from all your crimes…and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit,” God assures us that it is never too late to change, never too late to start over. And if that doesn’t stir hope in our hearts, these final words surely will: “Why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, says the Lord God. Return and live!”
Paul J. Wadell is Professor Emeritus of Theology & Religious Studies at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, and a member of the Passionist Family of Holy Cross Province.