Ezekiel is told that if he keeps quiet, the blood of the wicked man will be required at his hand. Six centuries later Jesus tells his disciples to go and tell a brother his fault, alone, before anybody else hears a word about it. The lectionary pairs the two on purpose, and Augustine made the same pairing himself, preaching Ezekiel’s watchman at his own people and telling them that silence leaves the bystander worse off than the sinner. What follows works through all four readings, with Jerome, Chrysostom, Aquinas, and the Catechism on the duty, the shame, and the single paragraph of Leviticus that stands behind both Matthew and Romans.

The Readings

First Reading: Ezekiel 33:7-9

“So you, son of man, I have made a watchman 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 man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way; he shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life.

Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9

O come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

O come, let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would hearken to his voice!

Harden not your hearts, as at Mer’ibah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tested me, and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.

Second Reading: Romans 13:8-10

Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Gospel: Matthew 18:15-20

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

Scriptural Analysis

Ezekiel 33:7-9: The Watchman Who Cannot Keep Quiet

Chapter 33 is the hinge of the whole book, and a preacher should know that before he opens his mouth. Daniel Keating reads it as the seam between the two halves: it gathers the themes of chapters 1 through 32, closes the first part with the announcement that Jerusalem has fallen, and starts a new season of God’s action to restore his people.[1] Navarre puts the same turn in the prophet’s biography. After the destruction of the city in 587, the tone changes, threats disappear from the rest of the book, and Ezekiel speaks only about hope and the life the Lord will pour into his people; even the literary style shifts.[2] Sunday’s three verses are the doorway into that consolation.

The three verses are also the second half of a pair. Verses 1 through 6 give the watchman as a general figure, a man the people themselves appoint, who sees the sword coming and blows the trumpet; only then does the Lord renew the call to Ezekiel personally in verse 7. Keating notices what that repetition does. Ezekiel first heard “I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel” at the very start of his ministry (3:17), and the same words return at the end of the judgment oracles, so the two watchman-words work like bookends around everything between. By revisiting the call at the exact moment the city falls, the Lord is also quietly commending him. The people did not turn, the city is rubble, and the watchman who sounded is not answerable for their blood.[3] Navarre adds a detail worth preaching: in chapter 3 the duty was to counsel everyone, the just along with the wicked, while here only the wicked need admonishing.[4]

The Fathers focused on the danger of saying nothing, and they said it to bishops. Augustine asked his congregation flatly whether they saw how dangerous it is to keep silent, since the sinner dies justly in his own wickedness and the watchman appointed for that very purpose “will be justly condemned.” Gregory of Nazianzus, defending his flight from ordination, read Ezekiel as forbidding watchmen to keep silence about vice and the sword hanging over it. Caesarius of Arles heard this chapter read at Mass and told his people the burden it describes is his, and that unless the One who imposed it carries it with him, he fails.[5] Jerome then draws the line the reading needs: the watchman of the house of Israel can be a king or a prophet, while the watchman of the church is the bishop or presbyter chosen by the people, who in the reading of the Scriptures recognizes what is coming, proclaims it, and corrects what is wrong.[6] Any cleric preaching this text is preaching his own job description out loud.