Ezekiel 33:7-11 (NRSV)
So you, mortal, I have made a sentinel for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them warning from me. If I say to the wicked, “O wicked ones, you shall surely die,” and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but their blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from their ways, and they do not turn from their ways, the wicked shall die in their iniquity, but you will have saved your life. Now you, mortal, say to the house of Israel, Thus you have said: “Our transgressions and our sins weigh upon us, and we waste away because of them; how then can we live?” Say to them, “As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?”
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The most obvious fact in this reading is that God does not wish for the death or suffering of sinners but rather that we all repent. That is a wonderful point to raise.
But the wonder is that God uses us as instruments of that repentance, and places an accountability on us. We are the ones through whom God calls others to repentance and faithfulness. We are accountable before God for that invitation to grace and forgiveness. The results of that accountability are such that if we do not share the Word of God with others, and thus they have no opportunity to repent, we carry the burden of their sins. If we do share, and they press on without repentance, the sin continues with them. The desire of God is that the sin should be born by neither. God wishes all to be reconciled to himself and to one another.
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