There are times when the best response a person can make to a given situation is to be quiet. The moment may be too profound for words, or the moment may be one where what is needed above all else is for someone to listen, or the moment may be one where has been caught in the wrong and there is nothing to do but take it.

Apparently, this last instance is the one that Ezekiel proclaims in this passage from his prophecy. God comes to Ezekiel to tell the prophet that Israel has been caught in her sin. Israel has abandoned the ways of God and is lost. Israel is to be still and accept what comes. However, there is a twist to this story. It is not wrath that God unleashes, but instead grace.

Well, now, shut my mouth, as one old Statesville friend would say to anything surprising. This story has done an audacious thing--it has mixed together all the reasons for someone to fall silent and when something does not play out strictly according to expectations it surprises us.

A woman was driving home from work one afternoon when she became aware that a police car lurked right behind her. She grew more and more paranoid as the officer seemed to be taking deeper and deeper interest in her car. She found herself becoming positively a Pharisee behind the wheel, obeying every traffic law she could possibly remember. But then despite all her care, the police car’s lights flipped on and the officer motioned for her to pull over. She pulled into a parking lot and rolled the window down. She reached for her purse and suddenly realized she had no idea where it was. She was still frantically searching her car for her bag when the officer came to her window--

”Ma’am,” he began, “I followed you for a while but couldn’t get your attention.”

“Yes, sir?” she asked, still giving side glances to try and spot her purse.

The officer reached up and handed the woman her bag. “This has been on the roof for I don’t know how long. You be careful on the way home, all right?”

“Yes, sir,” she almost gushed.

She drove away lost in a momentary wonder.

Too often, we think we know what to expect within our lives, and some of us tend to battle with dark assumptions--the woman assumed she was going to get a ticket. We assume the die have been cast and we will only be left to pick up the pieces. We assume we are locked into a particular state of being and there will be nothing we can do about it.

For instance, give a person a box of crayons and a few sheets of paper and watch what happens. If it is an adult, there is a chance the person will never get beyond the fact that they are an adult and have far outgrown crayons and paper. They will sit there and stare blankly at the paper and never touch the crayons. If it is a child, there is a chance they will sit there and do nothing, as well, scared to death they will look silly or reveal that they cannot draw a blue sky without making a mistake. They have forgotten that all one has to do is make a mark on the paper with a crayon. Doing that they have fulfilled the purpose of both the crayon and the paper. No one needs to say they can’t draw, and even though a Rembrandt is indeed a rarity as genius always is, drawing is never more than making marks on paper. Doing that is all that need be done for someone to draw.

Ah, but what about the life of faith? That’s far harder than drawing and the stakes are monumentally higher. If we fail, we fail not only ourselves, but God as well. If we ignore the dictums of justice and righteousness, we hurt ourselves and those around us. We make the world darker. We empty our lives of meaning.

Wow! Who knew we had that sort of power?

But here is where the surprise that met Ezekiel meets us as well. While it is true that try as we might we cannot and will not avoid sin (we’re human--it goes with the territory), it is not true that we can fall away from God. What God tells Ezekiel is that God abides. God stays with us. God continues to be our God. In that comes redeeming grace, grace that has the power to overcome our faults and missteps. It has the power to make us what it is we are to be. It allows us to be surprised by the knowledge that we are accepted instead of rejected. It is the grand realization that God is not out for vengeance but for redemption.

What wondrous good news!

The further good news is that like a dedicated art teacher, God will continue to teach and instruct us in the ways we are to lead our lives of faith, matching our service with our skills and abilities. We can’t all preach like Peter, but proclamation comes in a myriad of forms, some that require no words whatsoever. We can’t all pray like Paul, but prayer comes through many, many avenues, some forms that are simply talking with another human being, some that are simply sighs too deep for words. In all of these ways, we preach Jesus and how he is there for us all.

The key is knowing when to be quiet, to fall still, and know that the Lord is God, as the psalm reminds us.

May we have the courage to do so.