Ezekiel 18 : 1-32 Matthew 21 : 23-32 Sermon "The person who sins shall die" Ezekiel chapter 18 verse 4. I wonder if any of you have heard a sermon on this text before. Well let me tell you - you are going to hear one this morning. Perhaps I should ask the ushers to lock the doors at this point to make sure no-one can escape! "The person who sins shall die" This sounds as if it should be a great antidote to all that soft peace and love stuff that we get so used to. This sounds like it should be the sort of text that will allow me to send you all away feeling suitably guilty and afraid. And perhaps it will. Yet contrary to what we might assume this is a message which is presented as good news. The prophet is not writing to instil fear into his hearers but relief. Perhaps we might think, if that is the good news we would hate to hear the bad news. But stick with me for good news is, I believe, exactly what you will discover. "The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." That is the proverb which the prophet didn t want to hear used again. Let s hope he isn t listening because I ve just used it! Even if we have never eaten a sour grape in our lives we will still get the gist of the saying. It is an expression of the belief that children suffer the consequences of their parents' actions, that one generation will be blessed, or indeed punished, depending on what their forefathers have done. It was probably uttered a good deal during the years when the people were in exile, a way of saying that this sad state of affairs was not their fault. Their misery was caused by what their ancestors had done, it was God's judgement on their nation, and consequently there was nothing that they could do about it. It was a way of saying that they had no choice but to shrug their shoulders and feel sorry for themselves. And the prophet wanted no more of it. In one sense it is hard to argue against the logic of the proverb. One generation very often does suffer from the mistakes of previous ones. We can look at the financial world of debt, or the environmental issues of greenhouse gasses, or the slow build up of resentment that leads to war, and we see that actions certainly do have consequences which cross the
boundaries of the generations. None of us are born into a blank book. We are all joining in a story which is already well under way, in which the plot and the characters are already well developed. Yet the prophet insists that he doesn't want to hear anyone talk like that again. He is going to insist that God is much fairer in his dealings with them than they had imagined that he will judge each of them on the choices they make and not the situations they have inherited. His teaching is that our human lives are not controlled forces out with our control. We are responsible for our own lives and we are to take responsibility for our own living. His message to his people is the outcome of your life has not been settled by the actions of someone else, you are not doomed because of someone else s sin, rather it is the person who sins that shall die. Indeed a slightly fuller reading of the quote makes the point abundantly clear it is only the person who sins that shall die. The thought that God would judge us on our own actions and not on the behaviour of our nation or our ancestors may seem more obvious to us than to them, but it remains a powerful message. We are not simply victims of fate. We are not simply victims of circumstance. The outcome of our lives is not pre-defined by our DNA. What happens to us, what becomes of us, is up to us. We are people with freedom, people with choices. That is meant to be heard as good news. That is meant to be heard with a sigh of relief. In case we miss the point the prophet goes on to be even more blunt, even more clear about personal choices and consequences. When the righteous turn away from their righteousness and commit iniquity, they shall die for it; for the iniquity that they have committed they shall die. And if that still doesn t sound very much like good news, then the prophet continues: Again, when the wicked turn away from the wickedness they have committed and do what is lawful and right, they shall save their life. Because they considered and turned away from all the transgressions that they had committed, they shall surely live; they shall not die. Yes we are all victims of forces that are beyond our control, just as we are all blessed by forces which are not under our control, that has been true of every human born on the face of the earth. But that does not mean that we
are not significant, that our decisions do not matter, that our lives are unimportant. We are going to answer for our own actions, or the lack of them, not any one else s. The message is that we are not doomed to inevitable outcome. We do not need to be defined by what we have inherited. We do not need to be defined by what has happened in the past. The option for us to stop doing what is wrong and to start doing what is right is always there. What matters is not by who we have been or what we have been, or by what we have said, but by what we decide to actually do today and tomorrow. That is, if we choose to hear it that way, a message of total liberation. It is also of course echoed in gospel. Jesus faces questions by people who want to define him by his words and condemn him for is opinions. He responds with a story in which people would be judged not by what they had said, nor by what conclusions they may have come to in the past, but simply by what they actually do in terms of obeying God. His story even makes it clear that what we might have said, or wanted, or intended in the past is not what matters, but the decisions we make, and the actions we take, today and tomorrow. So we cannot say: It is fate. It is just the way I am. It is the society I live in that makes me like this. Of course there is truth in all of that, but not the crucial truth, none of these things have total control over us none of these things have the final say. In the end we have the freedom to choose, to do what we want to do. Free to turn away from what we know is good and to do what we know is wrong and to face the consequences of that choice. Free also to turn away from what is wrong and to do what is right, trusting in the consequences of that. Whatever we choose to do is what we choose to do, and the consequences will be what we have chosen. So the message which I said was presented as good news is that God is enormously fair with each one of us, that he gives us great freedom and great responsibility. We might want to go on blaming our parents, or our teachers, or our environment, or our political leaders, or even our church, but in the end we will be judged on what we have done to serve God in his world, not on the quality or quantity of our excuses. That may not have sounded like good news for the religious leaders who
thought they were fine because the status they had inherited from their ancestors, or to those who thought that they were fine because of the positions they held in the Temple and in the state. But for those who felt condemned and judged and rejected because of their past - it was good news indeed. For those who knew they had made mistakes and taken wrong options and failed to do what was right - it was good news indeed. And for us, when we are honest enough to know what we are really like, and to see what we have really done, and when we are brave enough to admit it and to want to do things differently, this is good news indeed. So the word of God as spoken by the prophet concludes with the recommendation, Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Our seeking to do that is exactly what our faith in Jesus Christ is all about. We are told that he did not sin but that he did die, taking the place of those of those who had failed to live as they should. Taking the place of all of us have failed to live as we should. We are told that before he left his small band of followers he promised that he would not leave them alone, but would send the Holy Spirit to change their hearts, to change them from the inside, to give them a new heart and a new spirit. Even if obedience to God has not been the way of living we have inherited, even if that has not been the way of living we have practised, we should be clear that what matters is what we chose to go and do, today and tomorrow. Even if our lives up to this point have been swept along in the great tide of materialism and ambition and greed and selfishness that characterises our society, we should be clear that what matters is what we choose to do and who you choose to trust, today and tomorrow. Even if we feel so confused and mixed up and messed up by all the different messages we hear and all the different pressures we feel that we are not sure we can ever get it right, we should be clear that in the end what matters is what God does for us, and all we are asked to do is trust and receive and follow. It is only the person who sins who shall die. Only the one who chooses what is wrong. Only the person who turns away from what is right. Only the person who prefers other things. As for us, may we know the call of God and the promise of God. May we
trust in Christ, and with his help, live as we ought, today, and tomorrow.