Monday of the 20th Week of Ordinary Time
Also the Lord's word came to me, saying, "Son of man, behold, I will take away from you the desire of your eyes with one stroke; yet you shall neither mourn nor weep, neither shall your tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud. Make no mourning for the dead. Bind your headdress on you, and put your sandals on your feet. Don't cover your lips, and don't eat mourner's bread."
So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died. So I did in the morning as I was commanded.
The people asked me, "Won't you tell us what these things mean to us, that you act like this?"
Then I said to them, "The Lord's word came to me, saying, 'Speak to the house of Israel, "The Lord God says: 'Behold, I will profane my sanctuary, the pride of your power, the desire of your eyes, and that which your soul pities; and your sons and your daughters whom you have left behind will fall by the sword. You will do as I have done. You won't cover your lips or eat mourner's bread. Your turbans will be on your heads, and your sandals on your feet. You won't mourn or weep; but you will pine away in your iniquities, and moan one toward another.
Of the Rock who became your father, you are unmindful, And have forgotten God who gave you birth. The Lord saw and abhorred, Because of the provocation of his sons and his daughters.
He said, "I will hide my face from them. I will see what their end will be; For they are a very perverse generation, Children in whom is no faithfulness.
They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.
Behold, one came to him and said, "Good teacher, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?"
He said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but one, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments."
He said to him, "Which ones?"
Jesus said, "'You shall not murder.' 'You shall not commit adultery.' 'You shall not steal.' 'You shall not offer testimony.' 'Honor your father and your mother.' And, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'"
The young man said to him, "All these things I have observed from my youth. What do I still lack?"
Jesus said to him, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he was one who had great possessions.
There's a kind of grief that has no outlet. Ezekiel knows this. God asks something almost unbearable of him: his wife dies, and he is commanded not to mourn. No torn garments, no wailing, no communal bread shared with neighbors who come to sit with him in his loss. In ancient Israelite culture, mourning was a full-body, communal affair — you covered your face, you ate food brought by others, you let the whole village hold your sorrow with you. Ezekiel gets none of that. He gets silence, and sandals, and a turban on his head, and the morning after her death, he goes out and does his work.
What emerges from this wrenching scene is not cruelty on God's part, but a kind of prophetic solidarity. Ezekiel's silent grief *is* the message. He becomes, in his own body, what Israel will soon experience — a loss so enormous that ordinary mourning won't cover it.
And then there's the rich young man. He comes running, earnest, genuinely good by every external measure. Notice how Jesus looks at him with love — the text implies it even when we rush past it. The invitation Jesus extends isn't a rebuke. It's an opening. *Come further in.* But the young man's possessions possess him, and he walks away sad.
The thread connecting these readings is attachment — what we cling to when God asks us to go deeper. For Ezekiel, it's grief itself, the very human need to process loss on our own terms. For the young man, it's wealth. For us, it might be comfort, control, reputation, routine.
The question worth sitting with today: what is the thing we're holding that keeps us from taking the next step?
What do we treat as non-negotiable that God might be gently loosening? And what would it feel like to trust that what lies ahead is worth the letting go?