Would You Eat a Scroll? - May 14

Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 85, 86; PM Psalm 91, 92; Ezek. 1:28-3:3; Heb. 4:14-5:6; Luke 9:28-36

Today’s Reflection

Paper—it’s not really something we think of as meant for eating. I mean, even teething babies and toddlers don’t usually try to put paper into their mouths—though when my daughters were young I do remember a few of those thick board books getting gnawed on quite on a bit!

So, it strikes me as unexpected to read in Ezekiel today of the voice of God telling Ezekiel to “open your mouth and eat what I give you. I looked, and a hand was stretched out to me, and a written scroll was in it.” And not only that, but he is being told to eat a scroll that was filled, front and back, with “words of lamentation and mourning and woe.” But why? What could be the meaning or purpose in this strange command?

I decided to see what my study Bible’s commentary had to say about the Book of Ezekiel, because frankly we didn’t spend much time on it in seminary beyond the “dry bones” passage that we hear every year as part of the Easter Vigil (another passage with much strange, unexpected imagery). First off, I am reminded by the commentary that “Ezekiel is one of the most complex books in the Bible.” So, on reading this I feel a little relief that it’s not just me who is finding this a difficult read. Then we are told to keep in mind that, “much of the book consists of visionary writing, which transports readers to a world of the imagination where the rules of reality are obviously suspended in favor of highly unusual visions. To understand and relish the book of Ezekiel, readers often need to abandon expectations of realism.” Check—makes total sense after reading today’s Ezekiel passage. Also helpful to keep in mind, according to the notes I read, is that Ezekiel uses something called “symbolic reality, which occurs when a writer consistently transports the reader to a world of visionary experience where the most important ingredients are symbols—symbols like a vine, a boiling pot, or a valley full of dry bones” (ESV Study Bible 1498). To this list we can definitely add today’s “edible scroll.”

So, if we follow the advice of the commentary I read to make sense of Ezekiel, the best thing we can do is to accept “the sheer strangeness of what is presented” and expect “extravagant visions” and a “kaleidoscope of details, always shifting and never in focus for very long.” Returning to Ezekiel and the scroll, this passage can best be understood as a symbolic vision in which Ezekiel is being given a prophetic message from God that he is supposed to internalize (symbolized by eating the scroll) and then he is told to go to the house of Israel and share the message that he has “receive[d] in your heart and hear[d] with your ears … whether they hear or refuse to hear” (3:10-11). So, in this passage, eating the scroll is the vision Ezekiel receives that is meant to convey that he needs to receive God’s word and internalize the message so that he can then speak it with authority to those whom God sends him to declare it.

In a different way, maybe we, too, can think of ourselves as consuming and digesting the Word. Our Holy Scriptures are life-giving in a way not unlike food gives us the energy we need to keep living and keep moving. In a tradition in which Holy Eucharist is given a prime place in our liturgy, we can get so focused on sharing the bread and the wine that we may forget that the Liturgy of the Word is equally a way that God feeds us with “spiritual food” (as we pray in our Post-Communion Prayer). In Holy Eucharist, we are fed first through the Liturgy of the Word: Old Testament scriptures, a Psalm, New Testament scriptures, the Gospel, and a sermon. Only after we share in this feast of God’s Word are we fully prepared to share together the bread and the cup, the Body and Blood of Christ, in Holy Communion.

Beginning last March, though, many churches around the Episcopal Church suddenly stopped sharing Holy Communion together. Some churches decided to still use the Holy Eucharist liturgy, but only the first half, the Liturgy of the Word (my church in Texas went this route). But many more Episcopal churches, including Saint Stephen’s, decided to revert to what was for a very long time the chief service of our Anglican tradition: Morning Prayer.

In Morning Prayer, which we have shared together throughout the week on Facebook and on Sundays in our livestream service, we have a beautiful liturgy whose sole purpose is sharing Holy Scripture and prayer together. As Andy Doyle (bishop of Texas) put it, the pandemic required us to fast from the bread and the cup but also allowed us a time when we could instead “feast on the Word.” And looking back over the past 15 months of feasting on the Word, what a feast it has been! The pandemic has called us to greater devotion to prayer and the study of scripture, a feasting on the Word that has been life-giving and sustaining for many during these most unusual times.

This Sunday’s 11:15 livestream service will be the last one for the time being in which we share Morning Prayer together on a Sunday morning, as the 11:15 livestream service will become a hybrid Holy Eucharist service on Pentecost (May 23). But the good news is that we will continue to feast on God’s Word in our Liturgy of the Word in that service—and we will continue to feast on God’s Word as we continue our Daily Offices of Morning Prayer and Noonday Prayer throughout the week. I pray that we will continue to be fed by the Word and, like Ezekiel, find it to be “as sweet as honey.”

—Becky+

Questions for Self-Reflection

How has your experience of corporate worship changed through the experience of sharing Morning Prayer rather than Holy Eucharist together for much of these past 15 months? How has leaning into worship focused solely on scripture and prayer impacted your sense of connection with God and with your fellow Christ-followers?

Daily Challenge

Commit to keep joining us (or start joining us) for Morning Prayer or Noonday Prayer during the week by clicking here (you can also find it through our Facebook page). And consider connecting with us for our last Sunday morning service of Morning Prayer this Sunday.