The Watchman

    After my most recent post, a wise young woman asked a very pertinent question: what is the line between taking a stand and imposing your morality on someone else? What is the difference between being a concerned friend or relative who sees an important person in their life going down the wrong path and someone who is harsh and judgmental? Are we are brother's keeper?

    Of all the prophets in the Bible, the one with the most bizarre ministry is without a doubt Ezekiel. This guy went through some really strange stuff. Ezekiel was an exile to Babylon who prophesied from about 592 B.C. to 570 B.C. (Robert K. Mciver; The Abundant Life Bible Amplifier, Ezekiel). Most of his prophecies were direct either at the Jews living in Babylon or remaining in Jerusalem. Of course all of his prophecies were eventually directed at the Jews in Babylon after Jerusalem was destroyed in 586.

Despite preaching the word of the Lord for years, no one listened to him; or rather no one took him seriously. They people continued to keep on doing the same stupid stuff day after day, year after year. In despair, he watched his people continue foolishly down a path that he knew would lead only to their destruction. Ezekiel got tired of saying unpopular things and having it do no good and he probably wanted to just quit. That is when Yahveh told him about the "watchman" in Ezekiel 33.

A watchmen, Yahveh tells Ezekiel, is responsible for his people's lives. If he sees an enemy army coming, he has a duty to sound the warning trumpet and tell everyone to get inside the walls and prepare for battle. Let us say he does that; anyone who hears that warning trumpet and ignores it, then their blood is on their own heads. They had been warned and ignored the warning; therefore the watchmen cannot be held responsible for that. However, let us say that the watchman sees the army coming and then does nothing. Anyone who is killed, which is likely to be most everyone, those peoples blood is on the head of the watchmen. He takes the blame for their deaths because he did not warn the people. He did not do his job.

"Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel," Yahveh tells Ezekiel. The point is clear: I have a message and a warning for you to give to the people of Israel and you are responsible for it. If you give that message and they ignore you, then that is their choice; you are not responsible for their choices. But if you say nothing and do nothing, then you are also held responsible for their choices because you could have warned them but did not. They might have averted disaster if you had warned them but because of your silence, they came to a ruinous end. This does not excuse the actions of the wicked, but rather does not excuse the messenger from giving his message.

We are all watchmen of each other; this part of what it means to be part of the Kingdom of Heaven. It means that we look out for each other's spiritual lives, as well as the spiritual condition of those that are not in the Kingdom of Heaven. Paul asks how can people believe if they have never been told (Romans 10:14, 15). In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus does admonish us to take the plank out of our own eye, but then tells us to remove the speck from our brother's eye (Matthew 7:3-5). We are not to leave our brother hanging. How many times did Jesus say, "Go and sin no more"? Did Jesus not constantly try to warn, rebuke, and correct the Jewish leaders? How often did the apostles call each other out when they were going astray? Paul tells us that Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. Obviously rebuking and correcting is something that we are to do to each other when we see our brother or sister going down a dangerous path.

As we progress on our journey through the gray fog of ethics to the clarity of Yahveh's morality, right and wrong become more and more apparent. Where others can only see gray, we see black and white. That knowledge carries a responsibility to inform people of the black and white. What they do with it is their choice; some will listen, others scoff, most will probably ignore. No one ever said being a Christian was easy or pleasant. A read through of Pilgrim's Progress should convince you of that. Isaiah was told right at the beginning of his ministry that the vast majority of people would completely ignore him. They would be "Ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving." Truth is their response is not our responsibility; rather ours is to give them a chance to have a response, one way or another.

How is this different than judging? Simple, judgment demands that others reach a certain level of "holiness" before you will accept them. Judging is telling people they are not good enough to make the journey to begin with, as if you were. Warning accepts people and then pushes them to become better; judging demands that you become better to be accepted. Think of the Pharisees: in order to associate with them, you had to be a "good" person. They reviled Jesus because he spent time with "sinners" (Matthew 9:9-13), people they would never be with. Judging sees yourself, intentionally or not, as God. What you understand right and wrong to be is the absolute standard; you leave no room for the possibility that there might be more that you do not understand. It is refusing to admit you are messed up; it is ignoring the "plank" in your own eye. You do not want to help people; you want to exclude them to preserve your own "purity." Judging is standing at the door of the church and filtering the people coming in based on their dress, occupation, type of Bible they carry, state of lucidity, and so on. This does not call people to a better life nor does it warn them of their own wickedness; rather it tells them that salvation is not for them so don't bother. This is the watchman taking a person and throwing them outside the gate.

Jesus accepted everyone, even the Jewish leaders, for who they were. But because he is perfect and he is the law-giver, he knew of the best life possible for people. So he told people about this life in the Kingdom of Heaven, something that was available for everyone. He accepted people where they were at yes, but he also did not leave them there. He told people that he knew of a better life that they could have. Jesus pushed and prodded the people around him to see that they could have so much more than this. Some accepted his message, others did not, some even crucified him for it. That did not (through his disciples) stop him from still being the watchman. While the rejection saddened him, he did not love or accept those people any less. But importantly, he respected it as their choice, not his (see story of rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-30). If the God of the universe who could control men's choice can respect them, then so must we.

We are to tell people about life in the Kingdom of Heaven, which means we warn and rebuke. But it also means that we must let people make their own choices and deal with the consequences. We warn, not control. Yahveh has gifted us with free choice, something we cannot take away from others. Guards we are not. Watchmen we are.