09/06/2026
POINTS TO PONDER for Sunday, September 6, 2026
Commentary on Ezekiel 33.7-20 with Ruminations by Wendell Berry
“The freedom of affluence opposes and contradicts the freedom of community life.”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
33.7 So you, human being, I have made you to stand watch for the House of Israel (i.e., the government and the people). Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you must give them warning from me. 8 If I say to the wicked, “O wicked ones, you will surely die for your sins,” and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked will die in their iniquity, but for their death I will hold you responsible. 9 But if you warn the wicked to turn from their ways and they do not turn from their ways, the wicked will die in their iniquity, but you will have saved your life.
— Ezekiel 33.7-9
We are to be sentinels for the church, city, state, nation, and world we live within. We are to call out any injustices we see, no matter who is doing them. This is the Biblical tradition. It is the prophetic task of every person. We are all responsible for one another. And this task is a sacred one given to us by God. Its importance is necessary for the proper functioning of our entire society.
And notice the dire warning for those who remain silent: who see what is going on but refuse to speak out against injustices. We are not only responsible to ourselves, but to one another. This is what a covenantal relationship entails of us. When we wickedness of any kind going on, we are honor bound because of our covenant with God and with one another to speak against it, warn those who are doing it to turn from their unjust ways, and let the society itself be aware of what is going on.
To see wrong-doing and say nothing is as condemnatory as doing the wrong-doing. Those who are complicit with evil are as responsible as those committing the evil.
Those in our own society who justify not speaking and acting against the evils we see rampant in this fascist regime of government and oligarchs as being too political or not their responsibility hear in this passage, and many others, that we are indeed accountable to one another and our entire society to speak up and act on behalf of the common good. To let anyone suffer injustice without giving warning to those oppressing them, to declare to the oppressors that they will die (spiritually, if not also physically) for their sins is to shun our own responsibility to create and sustain the better world we are called to build and keep. We cannot be responsible for the choices of others when we warn them of the error of their ways, but we are indeed responsible for warning them and trying to convince them to change their ways for the sake of God’s will and of justice between us.
How should real Christians be acting and speaking out in these days of authoritarianism, and when Christian Nationalists, Zionists, racists, sexists, and religious bigots are in power and are committing atrocities and evils that God would never condone? If we are silent as we see these things happening, why wouldn’t we think that we, too, should receive the same outcomes as those who are actively committing crimes against humanity and God?
— Bret S. Myers, 9/2/2026
“We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all — by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians — be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to p**s in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who p**s in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us. How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing.”
― Wendell Berry
10 Now you, human being, say to the house of Israel: ‘You have said: “Our crimes and our sins are weighing us down, and we waste away because of them; how then can we stay alive?”’ 11 Say to them: ‘As I live, says the Virtuous God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather am pleased when the wicked turn from their wicked ways and live. So repent! Turn completely from your evil ways. For why should you die by sin, O House of Israel?’
— Ezekiel 33.10-11
How bizarre that anyone would complain that their crimes and sins are weighing them down! If they are, then stop them!
Of course, Ezekiel is pointing out what they would never admit themselves – that their actions, practices, and behavior they do that are themselves crimes and sinful. Too often people in the wrong try to justify their policies and deeds as good. When people claim that they are being punished for their actions that harm others, they try to draw the sympathy of the righteous to care for them despite their evil actions. They want to feel justified for what they do, whether or not it is the right thing.
We hear the Trump Regime and their MAGA followers complain incessantly about being judged by others for their behaviors. Whether or not they actually know they are doing evil, they want others to legitimize their kidnappings of Black and Brown people, their building of concentrations where they now hold more people than were held in N**i concentration camps in 1939, their torture of people in those camps with not only unsanitary conditions but physical assaults, and the deaths they cause in those camps. When they take away USAID, healthcare, and social uplift programs and then give all that money to billionaires, they want us to see it as good and right. They don’t care who they hurt, as long as they are filling their own pockets. It is abominable what they are doing.
But how many of us are speaking out and telling them to repent? How many are willing to act against their systemic injustices and hold them accountable? Unfortunately, far too few. But this is what God calls us to do, and Ezekiel makes it crystal clear to us. We turn an apathetic ear to our own risk.
How often have we heard evil being justified because it creates jobs? Loggers clear cut forests…bankers make loans at interest…big ag creates hybrids dependent upon herbicides and pesticides…prison companies create concentration camps…insurance companies, rather than doctors, determine how you can be treated if you can be treated at all, and the list goes on, of those claiming they are creating jobs when those jobs oppress our environment, our society, and we individually. Creating jobs is not a moral justification when the job is a moral abomination.
When we see how others are abusing creation itself, human beings, and other species and hear them justify their actions, we need to speak up and act against them. This is God’s way. And it is to be our way if we follow God. We are not to let the wicked justify and get away with their wickedness. We are to tell them to change their ways, or else suffer the consequences.
Refusing to remain quiet about injustices in this world is not persecuting the wicked; it is giving them a warning to stop what they are doing and change their ways so that they stop their cruelty to others and perhaps stop their own demise. We help others when we insist for them to become more just and good in how they behave. We aren’t acting against them, but rather their evil practices. We are asking them to repent and become better people – which is in their best interest, as well as the best interests of others.
Notice that God doesn’t want to punish evildoers if they repent and change their ways. God wants them to do right by others. But God won’t tolerate them remaining in their wickedness. Whether one adopts a theology of God actively punishing them, or one where God allows their evil deeds to result in their own demise and death, it is clear that God will hold us all accountable for what we do and refuse to do.
— Bret S. Myers, 9/2/2026
“We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. ... We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us. . . We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.”
― Wendell Berry, The Long-Legged House
12 And you, human being, say to your people: The past righteousness of the righteous will not rescue them when they turn to vice. And as for the wickedness of the wicked, their past will not make them stumble when they turn from their wickedness. The righteous will not be able to live by virtue of their former righteousness when they begin sinning. 13 So if, after I say to the righteous that they will surely live, they trust in their former righteousness and start committing iniquity, then none of their righteous deeds will be remembered; but rather in the iniquity that they start committing they will die.
— Ezekiel 33.12-13
The command to speak truth to our people, all of them, whether in positions of power or not, is made explicit. Every one of us has a duty to one another, and to God, to correct unjust and wicked behavior.
Moreover, we can’t allow ourselves or others to justify our present actions based on past actions. However righteous we may have been in the past, it doesn’t excuse current vice. Character helps us to remain righteous if we have been righteous, or wicked if we were wicked; but even character can be changed, either for the good or the evil, if we change our actions and practices. The past does not acquit the present for God. Who someone was is not how we are to judge who they are now. Those who lived by virtue cannot start sinning without putting their souls at risk. Likewise, those who lived by vice will change their outcomes if they begin and continue to cultivate virtues. It is our deeds, not our beliefs, that will be remembered and judged. Who we are is who we choose to be here and now.
Are we who we want to be? Are we who God wants us to be? Are we willing to put our physical bodies at risk in order not to put our spiritual selves at risk? What are our priorities as seen through our words, deeds, and practices?
— Bret S. Myers, 9/2/2026
“A proper community, we should remember also, is a commonwealth: a place, a resource, an economy. It answers the needs, practical as well as social and spiritual, of its members - among them the need to need one another. The answer to the present alignment of political power with wealth is the restoration of the identity of community and economy. (pg. 63, "Racism and the Economy")”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
14 Likewise, if after I say to the wicked, “You will surely die for your sins,” yet if they then turn from their sin and do what is just and right— 15 if the wicked restore equity, give back what they have taken by usuary and theft, and walk in the life-giving virtues, committing no iniquity—then they will surely live; they will not die. 16 None of the sins that they have committed will be remembered against them. They have transformed to do what is just and right; so they will surely live.
— Ezekiel 33.14-16
God’s judgement is contingent upon our choices and practices. God wants us to warn one another of evils we commit, and to hear the threat of our spiritual deaths if we choose a life of injustice. But even when we have lived a life of wickedness and sin, if we hear that warning, take it seriously, and change our ways, then we may (if we have sufficient time to change course) change our spiritual destiny. God does not seek to punish us or take vengeance on us for the evils of our past, but prefers we learn to live equitably, justly, restoratively, and virtuously with one another.
Of course, changing our character from bad to good is no easy task. There is no such thing as deathbed conversions when it comes to character. We might in a moment change our intent, or even our actions; but it takes years, even decades, to change one’s character. Old habits die hard, whether they are good or evil. But if we have the time to change for the better, then we can indeed make the changes. Woe to those who think they can change at the last moment, and all will be forgiven. God judges our character, not our last moment wishes.
It takes time to restore equity, to give back what has been stolen through usuary and systemic theft, to change from death-giving vices to life-giving virtues, and to no longer be tempted to commit iniquity of any kind – such as wanting better for yourself than you want for others. Only when we are fully transformed to always do what is just and right are we guaranteed the life that God wants for us. This is a life-long process; and it is our character, revealed through years of words and deeds, that will determine whether we have lived for righteousness or wickedness.
— Bret S. Myers, 9/2/2026
“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope.”
― Wendell Berry
17 Yet your people say, “The way of God is not just,” when it is their own way that is not just. 18 When the righteous turn from their righteousness and commit iniquities, they will die for them. 19 And when the wicked turn from their wickedness and do practices that are just and right, they will live by them. 20 Yet you say, “The way of God is not just.” I will judge all of you according to your ways, O House of Israel!
— Ezekiel 33.17-20
Ezekiel sees the hypocrisy of those who claim that it is God who is not just rather than themselves. It is an unfortunate trait of wicked and evil people that they see themselves as in the right no matter what. When their iniquities are pointed out when people warn them to change their ways, they tend to attack the one trying to help them change their ways for the better rather than look at themselves and see the error of their ways. This is why it is so difficult for those who live by vices rather than virtues to change their character for the better. They hate the prophet rather than learning from the prophet. They disdain the encourager of living a better life rather than changing their thoughts, motives, and deeds in order to have a more ethical life.
Sometimes those who have lived virtuously change their ways from goodness to iniquity. But the path of iniquity, even for the formerly virtuous, is the path of death – spiritually, if not in other ways. Sometimes, too, the wicked turn from their evil ways and do what is just and right. And if they do this for sufficient time to change their character, then they will find themselves on the path of life – spiritually, if not in other ways.
Those who claim God is not just in order to justify themselves are on the path of death, not life. When we blame God for our own actions, practices, and deeds, we are not taking responsibility for ourselves. When we turn an indifferent eye towards the oppressors of others by not calling them out, or when we respond with apathy to the oppressed because it has not happened to us, we side with injustices rather than justice. God always calls us to side with justice, egalitarian and restorative justice, that liberates not only ourselves, but others, into righteous and virtuous living. We are all judged by our actions, not our beliefs, not our intentions, but by our actual practices in how we treat others as we ourselves would want to be treated.
May we each take responsibility in living by the virtues that would have us to live in love, compassion, justice, peace, generosity, and gentleness with one another and all creation.
— Bret S. Myers, 9/2/2026
We have become blind to the alternatives to violence. This involves us in a sort of official madness, in which, while following what seems to be a perfect logic of self-defense and deterrence, we commit one absurdity after another: We seek to preserve peace by fighting a war, or to advance freedom by subsidizing dictatorships, or to “win the hearts and minds of the people” by poisoning their crops and burning their villages and confining them in concentration camps; we seek to uphold the “truth” of our cause with lies, or to answer conscientious dissent with threats and slurs and intimidations. […] All this is made frighteningly clear, in Vietnam, in our inability to control the swiftly widening discrepancy between what we are doing and what we say we are doing.
— Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Speech (1968-02-10), “A Statement Against the War in Vietnam,” Kentucky Conference on the War and the Draft, University of Kentucky (Source) Collected in The Long-Legged House, Part 2 (1969).
