When I read about the passage of Our Dear Leader’s “big, beautiful” budget bill, passed in the House in the middle of the night (the favored shade for workers of deceit) and with the narrowest of margins, a vision came to me. Well, not exactly to me, but the memory of a more ancient vision, granted to that quixotic character of Holy Writ, Ezekiel, visited by the riled-up Voice from the highest reaches of Heaven.
Here’s an approximate translation (minus the more irreverent and vile expressions):
“The word of the LORD came to me:
‘You feckless, fretful mortal, are you going to publicly indict the blood-smeared hands of this land or not? Grow a spine and do it! Face the nation with all its outrageous obscenities.
Say aloud: You are murderous to the core. Your elected officials compete in criminality.
You abuse the indigent, steal food from children’s mouths, and sacrifice the health of the many for the sake of the few. Your rapacious greed is utterly shameful. You extort the poor to keep the rich fat and happy.
Your endless stream of Molochs and Ba’als—your Deceivers, Mammonists and MAGAfiers—all these and more pronounce blessings on your leaders’ sale of the poor for a pair of Italian leather shoes and bigger-still yachts and larger-still barns.
They equate empathy with frailty; substitute arrogance for humility; declare meekness a virtue only for suckers and assorted sympathizers. Where truth is a check on power, shameless lies are convenient substitutes.
The bankrolled among you are like roaring lions tearing the prey; they have devoured the vulnerable; you have taken treasure and precious things; you have made many widows.
Your reverends have done violence to my teaching. Your legislators are like wolves eviscerating the defenseless, disembowlers all, destroying lives to get dishonest gain.
Your bloviators have smeared whitewash on their behalf, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, ‘This is godliness, the Reign of Capital, the Rule of the Market, Who decides between those who eat and those who shall be eaten.’ This land is dominated by those who practice extortion and commit robbery; they have oppressed the poor and needy, and have tyrannized the migrant.
I sought for anyone among them who would repair the wall of public safety and stand in the breach before me on behalf of the land’s security, so that I would not destroy it; but their voices are faint and reticent. Many more are fearful of being ‘political,’ as if silence in the face of torturous villainy is not itself an abomination.
Therefore, I shall pour out my indignation upon these people. I’ll blow on them with the scorching fire of my anger. They shall be the laughing stock of the nations.
The Day of the Lord will come upon them as terror in the night rather than benefaction in the light. Maybe then they will recognize I am the Maker of Heaven and Earth, the plumb line of holiness, the destroyer of every violator’s lair, the sponsor of reparation and guarantor of resurrection.”
—Excerpts from Ezekiel 22-23, from The Message rendition, adapted by this humble, more-mildly-mannered scribe
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Curator of prayerandpolitiks.org, an online journal at the intersection of spiritual formation and prophetic action, and author of, most recently, In the Land of the Willing: Litanies, Prayers, Poems, and Benedictions. He was the founding director of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America and founding co-pastor of Circle of Mercy Congregation in Asheville, North Carolina.
