What are we to make of Ezra? Last Sunday I’d warned that we’d be reading about something he does that we’ll probably disagree with. We’ll remember from last Sunday that Ezra was a skilled scribe who was deeply devoted to the religious laws. We were told that, “…the hand of the Lord his God was upon him.” Ezra led a group of Jews from Babylon to resettle in Jerusalem. It was a long and perilous journey but it went smoothly. Ezra and the group he led arrived in Jerusalem.
Somehow, we are not told how, (for the book of Ezra jumps and skips around a lot) once in Jerusalem Ezra rises to a position of power and leadership. He is informed that certain Jews have broken the law by marrying non-Jews. Ezra feels that this makes the whole of the Jewish people guilty by this breaking of the religious laws. It is not just those who did it who are guilty. A group of other officials propose to Ezra that all the foreign wives have to be divorced from their husbands and the children they have together also be separated and sent away. Ezra decides to follow through with their advice.
Biblical scholar David Clines notes this, “It is hard to fault the desire of the beleaguered postexilic community to maintain its own distinctive way of life, its religion, and its language, but it is harder still for modern readers to sympathize with the drastic solution proposed in this narrative. Hints of opposition, in the presence of non-Jewish persons even in noble families in subsequent generations,… suggest that Ezra’s decision was regarded as extreme even within the postexilic community itself.” (Harper Collins Study Bible, 1993, Pg. 714-5)
Indeed, this action of Ezra’s is problematic at many levels. Perhaps there is something inside ourselves that is racist and secretly feels it is wrong for people of different races to marry. But even if that is the case, these people are all of the same race! That can’t be Ezra’s motive.
The officials who approach Ezra with the problem cite the law about staying separate from other peoples of the region. They list: the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. They are, at least in some way, correct. Deuteronomy 7:1-4 does tell them not to marry people of these nations. The reason given is that intermarriage will draw the Jewish people away from following God alone. The problem is that most all of these nations no longer exist in Ezra’s time. Their foreign religions, which were apparently active centuries before, had gone. It seems most likely that in Ezra’s time the whole area – both Jews and non-Jews were worshipping with at least some form of God that the Jews would recognize as valid.
Then there is another problem. King David – the great King David to whom God had promised a lineage of Jewish leadership forever – had at least one of his grandmothers from this list of forbidden people. In other words, according to Ezra’s decree, David would have had to have been thrown out.
This whole thing is problematic. Ezra’s actions are cruel, based on warped theology, and based on a selective reading of history.
Some of the biblical scholars I read in preparation for today point out that there may be political and social dynamics at work behind the scenes that pressured Ezra into this action. That’s possible. The book of Ezra appears to be a disjointed cobbled together account of the time period. Even if this is so, Ezra’s decision still sits wrong on many levels.
It is a sad scene indeed when all the people are commanded by Ezra to assemble in Jerusalem for the announcement of his decision. The Bible tells us the people sat in the open square in front of the temple, trembling because of the heavy rain. Scholars’ best guess is that the date is December 18, 397 B.C.E. (Interpreter’s Bible, Volume 3, Pg. 655)
People were forced to sit outside in a heavy cold December rain! Remember, they were commanded to assemble upon penalty of having all their property forfeited and they themselves banned from the community. They had no choice. Do you remember from what we read last week that before the people set out on their long journey on foot to Jerusalem from Babylon Ezra had them fast for three days! Wouldn’t you want to pack yourself full of food before you set out on a 900+ mile walk instead of half starving yourself? What kind of a person was this Ezra?!?
Inasmuch as the book of Ezra records an important part of Jewish history that is nowhere else recorded, Ezra truly has value. But as an example of leadership and faith, Ezra himself appears to be a dangerous religious fanatic. He crosses the line from strict orthodoxy to cruelty.
Perhaps it is good that the Bible gives us this example of faith. It is worth noting that nowhere in the Bible is Ezra praised or raised as an example to live by. Maybe he is a warning to us – that faith, fanatically followed and wrongly applied, can hurt a lot of people.
Again, for Ezra to reach his conclusion that all marriages to a foreigner must be ended and the spouses and children be cast out, he’s pulling the religious laws out of context and selectively choosing bits of history.
We have a significant political election coming up in a couple of weeks. If you’re like me you’re being bombarded with political ads. They’re on TV. They’re on the internet. I get phone calls and text messages. There are signs lining the roads everywhere you go. I had to go to Zion Lutheran Church in Cohocton last week. It’s on Dansville St. in Cohocton. Dansville St. is a dead end street not even a half mile long. There might be ten houses on it at most. And, sure enough, there were political signs along the road! Who’s going to see them?!?
How much of what the ads are saying, regardless of the party that they support, is only part of the truth? They feel like Ezra with his selective use of history and warped sense of the law.
Almost everything is negative. These ads are not created by accident. You know well enough that the parties have political strategists working behind the scenes to come up with whatever will work best. It appears that attacks and negativity are the strategy of the day. Even when a candidate’s ad says what he or she will do, it’s still framed in the context of making the opponent look like an imbecile.
It is always dangerous to selectively use facts to support your point of view, and to ignore those that do not support your point of view. The world is immensely complex and messy. Leadership should always make its decisions based upon the fullest and best evidence available. Indeed, when it comes to laws and putting them into action someone almost always benefits and someone gets hurt. That’s unavoidable. But it doesn’t reach the level of cruelty that widely destroys lives.
Earlier this year we read pretty much all of Matthew’s gospel during Sunday worship. We saw that Jesus took the religious laws and interpreted them in a way that made them even more stringent than they were originally. Does that make Jesus even harsher than Ezra?
That’s the contrast that teaches our faith and informs our lives. Jesus did indeed say things like, “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’… but I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister you will be liable to judgment…” (Matthew 5:21-22) But Jesus’ intentions were quite different than Ezra’s. Jesus’ intention was to drive all people to recognize their need for God’s grace. Jesus was pointing out that the human way of thinking pretty much always leads to harm and destruction. But someone who recognizes this tendency, and accepts the need for God’s unearnable favor (God’s grace), has a sense of humility that brings about restraint.
That is where I take issue with Ezra. His religious devotion is commendable. But he used it to give himself the moral high ground and bluntly attacked all who disagreed.
Regardless of the outcome of the upcoming elections, and regardless of our nation’s laws and policies, our devotion is to the way Jesus calls us to live. That is to first recognize our own limitations, flaws, and weaknesses; and then humbly work constructively from there. That is a way of life that is unlikely to make us rich or make us powerful, but it is the way God’s love is made real in this world.
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