This city is an iron pot, but the victims of your injustice are the pieces of meat. And you are not safe, for I will soon drag you from the city. Ezekiel 11:7 (NLT)
Ezekiel was, essentially, a street preacher for those who became exiled in Babylon. He was a priest, but he went out to the people to deliver God’s messages to them. He started preaching before Babylon took Jerusalem.
Being a leader is a dangerous position. Sometimes a person is gifted with the ability to lead others. Charisma, charm, and the ability to connect dots can lead a person to think that they know what’s going on when sometimes there’s a missing dot in the connections. People can gather around leaders, building them up and telling them how wise they are, until the leaders stop looking at the reality of the world and only listen to the reality that is being told to them.
Ezekiel went to a group of leaders in Jerusalem who were talking about what a great time this was to build houses. Jerusalem was like an iron pot where meat could be stored in safety. God told Ezekiel to let them know that they had ruled the city long enough and had filled the streets with victims of injustice. These victims would be held in safety in the iron pot of Jerusalem; but the leaders would not be safe.
When we’re surrounded by fancy parties, elegant clothes, gourmet foods, and people who shine with power, it can be intoxicating. We don’t ask for the recipes for the food, we ask for the names of the companies who can provide the food. We don’t ask for the patterns to create our own clothes; we ask for the designers’ names. We tend to stop doing for ourselves. Sadly, we can also tend to dismiss those who do the work for us.
It’s easy to listen to voices that we’ve heard for a long time – those voices who tell us about the crazy ideas held by “others” who aren’t as aware of the reality of a situation because they haven’t been there long enough to know who is “in charge.”
Mark Twain wrote The Prince and the Pauper about a king’s son and the boy hired as the son’s whipping boy. It seems that the children of royalty were never to be struck so a whipping boy was found, about the same age as the child and, when the prince misbehaved, the whipping boy would be punished in his stead. In Twain’s story, the boys looked like each other so they traded places. The prince went out into the world away from the palace and discovered a truth he wasn’t learning in his exalted position. It might not be a bad idea for some leaders to leave their fancy houses and their gracious living to live among the ordinary and the every-day of the people they want to lead.
It’s a thought!
Becky Gillette is a former teacher, newspaper reporter, and preacher who seeks to take an original approach to life’s lessons. She has recently published her first book, Jessie’s Corner: Something To Think About, which is now available for purchase. Based on several lesser-known scriptures from the Bible, this is a collection of articles which she wrote for a weekly newspaper.
