VII.
As you spend time with this text today consider –
“[God] … will gather them from every quarter and bring them to their own land…. and they shall all have one shepherd.”
VIII.
Ezekiel 37:21-28 (NRSVue)
… then say to them, “Thus says the Lord God: I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone and will gather them from every quarter and bring them to their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king over them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms. They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.
“My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall follow my ordinances and be careful to observe my statutes. They shall live in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your ancestors lived; they and their children and their children’s children shall live there forever, and my servant David shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them, and I will bless them and multiply them and will set my sanctuary among them forevermore. My dwelling place shall be over them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations shall know that I the Lord sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary is among them forevermore.”
IX.
It seems the text suggests God will bring the covenant people together to the place God has for them.
How often do we follow that path and allow God to draw us to the community (or communities) God creates for us?
I wonder, if more often, we pick the community (communities) to which we want to belong?
If God is to be our one shepherd, maybe we should spend time discerning the place God draws us to.
What community (communities) do you belong to? Why?
charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}