Through Ezekiel here are the themes we have looked at. Ezekiel had lots of visions of doom for the Israelites - despite the exile they thought they could carry on as normal, but Ezekiel was telling them that worse was yet to come, for God was doing a total reset!
There are many chapters of doom, but promise of restoration is woven in to it, leading to chapter 37 with the amazing vision showing that God can bring even dead bones back to life to be His army of people. Chapters 38 & 39 then have a kind of cosmic battle, but through all that 3 things are shown: God's glory; His people will know Him; His people will have His Spirit.
That takes us to chapter 40 onwards, which is a long detailed vision about restoration starting with the temple. It covers the temple, aspects of holiness, sacrifices & festivals, and division of land. It includes the 'glory of God' returning to the temple (reversing the departure in chapter 10). However, despite the wholescale restoration there is a sense that things won't be exactly the same as they were before.
So there is a parallel with us in our time: a sense of 'reset', but that things shouldn't return to exactly as they were before the pandemic.
In chapter 47 Ezekiel is shown further in the temple ... but there seems to be a water leak! Water coming from the innermost place, flowing out as a trickle towards the east. Yet it is peculiar: starting as a small stream the further away the deeper it gets - ankle ... knee ... waist high ... to the point where you would have to be a good swimmer to cross it. It is a flow of God's blessing, flowing into a dead region (the Arabah), salty and infertile, but this water makes it fresh and fertile. So much so that it swarms with fish - there are fishermen, trees growing, fruit in all seasons and leaves growing on the trees for healing.
Some of us will remember this passage from our church weekend away in 2017, where we looked at the blessing of God flowing from the temple and bringing transformation in our communities. We learnt that as you go further out it gets deeper, and the more vigorous transforming/blessing activity is further away from the temple! It is therefore a call to look outwards, not to simply look in to a temple / church building, but outwards to where God is at work.
For Jewish thought it is counter-intuitive: the temple is where the glory of God resides. Yet for us, we now understand that we are temples of the Holy Spirit, so we can learn to confidently witness and speak life out there, for God will be present with us.
None of this is new to us. For some years we have used a picture of a resourcing base fuelling our discipleship out there in the periphery. The base is the central resources of building, leadership team, finances and so forth.We can even think of our building as 'The Countess Free Church Resource Centre'! Yes it contains a 'sanctuary area' - that is a place that we make special by physically meeting, bringing the overflow of our worship and being in God's presence with each other. That is important to us - but it is a component of our discipleship rhythm and diet.
A concept for us now to grasp is that we ... gather to scatter! Our gathering (be it live or zoom) is not simply about cramming more and more people into a space for a blessed time. It is about us being a body (church) together ... from which we then scatter outwards, being the temple of the Holy Spirit , the place of God's glory, wherever we go - scattering outwards in our micro-initiatives, doing discipleship in mission in diverse ways.
Here is an interesting thing: we gather to scatter, yet through our initiatives we do in fact gather other people!! We gather them first and foremost to Jesus, ushering them towards Jesus and His Kingdom. We gather people into small groupings - places where they can experience positive community and explore the Christian faith. We also of course gather people to be part of the whole church body, inviting them to our whole church gatherings. Remember though the goal is to take people to Jesus, not simple 'to church'! We bring people into our gatherings, but it is about introducing them to Jesus.
A side-note here: maybe the smaller gatherings are actually a better and easier initial invite point that the large whole church ones? The smaller is arguably less intimidating, and will have a lower 'cultural gap' for a complete newcomer.
So with chapter 47 we have been able to talk about reset, restoring but not just back to how things were. We have seen the glory of God at work, transforming salt to fresh, brining life ... but doing it out there, deeper the further out you go. That fits with our model of church as a resourcing base plus discipleship in mission, with our scattered micro-initiatives. In fact lockdown has forced us to be in a scattered mode, doing more stuff out in smaller ways across the city. So what if, in our post lockdown vaccinated world, we don't simply return to how it was? What if we keep the focus on resourcing micro-initiatives scattered across the city? What if we physically gather (for that is important), but do that embracing the 'gather to scatter' concept? Maybe then we would find ourselves out in the deep, but in the fulfilment of the wonderful vision of the river that Ezekiel had and we read as chapter 47!
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