Keeping Your Conscience Awake

Set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.

Ezekiel 9:4

Read Ezekiel 9 and 10. Focus on Ezekiel 9:3 through 8 and 10:18 through 22. At first, a cruel joke bothers you. Later, you smile to avoid being difficult. Eventually, you repeat it yourself. The change may happen so gradually that the loss of concern feels like becoming easier to get along with. Ezekiel 9 presents an unsettling vision of judgment in Jerusalem. Before it proceeds, a mark distinguishes people who grieve the evil around them. They have not become comfortable with what the community has learned to practice. The mark belongs to this prophetic vision. It is not a physical sign Christians must reproduce or a basis for classifying people around us as targets of judgment. The important distinction in the scene concerns their response to wrongdoing. They mourn it instead of accepting it as normal. The violence of the chapter should not become an occasion for enjoying imagined punishment. Ezekiel himself falls facedown and cries out over what is happening. His response carries anguish rather than satisfaction. Chapter 10 returns to the glorious presence seen earlier in the book. Now that glory moves from the temple. The sanctuary's condition cannot be judged by its impressive appearance alone. What the people have tolerated has serious consequences for their life before the Lord. For us, the practical concern is the condition of our conscience. Repeated exposure can make harmful conduct feel ordinary. We begin using phrases such as “That is just how things work” or “Everybody does it.” These explanations may tell us that we have adapted, not that the conduct has improved. Concern does not require constant outrage. Outrage can become another habit that leaves us less able to think or help. A tender conscience is capable of specific grief, honest judgment, and proportionate action. It notices who is being harmed and considers what response might actually protect them. Ask what no longer troubles you that once deserved attention. Have you become more understanding of human weakness, or merely less willing to resist something wrong? Those are different kinds of change. God's holiness invites us to remain morally awake without becoming self righteous. We can acknowledge our own failures and still refuse to laugh at another person's degradation. Sometimes the first faithful act is recovering the ability to say, quietly and clearly, that something should not be treated as acceptable. Put It into Practice Decline one small participation in conduct that harms or degrades someone. Where a serious concern exists, seek an appropriate way to address it rather than merely expressing outrage.

What have you begun accepting mainly because objecting would interrupt your place in the group?

Holy God, keep familiarity with wrongdoing from dulling my concern. Give me a tender conscience without a superior spirit. Help me grieve what harms people and choose a response that is truthful, measured, and useful. Amen.