Word to the Wise
Saturday, August 18, 2012 - Saturday in the 19th Week in Ordinary Time
[Ezek 18:1-10, 13b, 30-32 and Matt 19:13-15]Why should you die, O House of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, says the Lord God. Return and live!
Today Ezekiel takes aim at a common belief in his time that guilt for misdeeds was inherited by generations so that the sins of the parents would be punished in their children. This belief is summed up in the proverb that Ezekiel quotes at the beginning of the passage: "Fathers have eaten green grapes, thus their children's teeth are set on edge!" Ezekiel rejects this proverb on the part of God and asserts that each person is responsible for his or her own actions. He then provides a list of things that would characterize a virtuous person and another list of actions that he considers evil. It is an interesting glimpse of the fundamental way of virtuous living in those days. Ezekiel also rejects the idea that God might take pleasure in destroying the guilty! It is the wrongful way of life that brings punishment, not a capricious God!
I sense that once in awhile the idea of a younger generation paying for the sins of the older generation takes hold in our society. At least we hear of it in the political debates about the national debt! Parent-child relationships are also an area where one might feel that one suffers because one's parents did or did not do something. It is comforting that at least God is not going to hold us responsible for what our ancestors did! However, do we find ourselves thinking that the proverb is true? Maybe we should listen more closely to Ezekiel and change our way of living! AMEN
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