Today's passage is Ezra 10:18-44, which is mostly a list of those who had intermarried with pagans.
In yesterday's passage Ezra confessed, wept, prayed and threw himself on the ground in front of the Temple, gathering a crowd of men, women and children who wept bitterly with him.
Shecaniah said they would make a covenant with the Lord to divorce their pagan wives and send away their children.
Ezra went inside but continued his fast. All of the exiles in Jerusalem and Judah gathered to hear Ezra tell them they had sinned and to separate themselves from the people of the land and the pagan women.
Most agreed but a few didn't. It took three months to get it all done. The Book of Ezra ends with the list of those had intermarried, 111.
This is one of the very few lists of sinners in the Bible.
It balances the longer list of exiles returning from Babylon in Ezra 2 and Ezra 8.
But it's the list of sinners that ends Ezra, not the building of the temple which takes up most of the book. In order to finish my temple, I have to separate myself from my sins.
How am I doing in that regard? Not nearly as well as I wish.
When I first read Chapter 10, I felt sorry for the pagan wives and children.
"That's not fair!" I said to myself.
My reaction showed me just how steeped I am in humanist, worldly attitudes.
I wanted a compromise for them.
I was just like Jonathan, Jahzeiah, Meshullam and Shabbethai in verse 15, who opposed the divorce and separation.
I had to chastize myself and remind myself to read the passage according to redemption history and interpet myself in ligh to it.
It was a moment of shock for me to realize I had sinned in the way I read the Bible!
I was appalled at myself, at how small the progress was in building my temple.
I couldn't even separate myself from a humanist point of view!
How was I ever going to build my temple if I was constantly compromising God's redemptive word for me?
The shock of how I read Chapter 10 made me reflect on the 15 year denial of my first wife's alcoholism.
In the long denial, I was not separating myself from her alcoholism, her addiction to alcohol. By not separating myself from it, I became part of it.
I became an addict too, but my addiction was to my denial.
That's what Ezra understood.
Unless the exiles separated themselves, they would become just like those they were wedded to, slaves to sin.
And because I was included in my first wife's alcoholism, unwilling to stand apart from it, I could not help her separate herself from her addiction.
I was worse than she was.
There is no compromise with God.
Jesus tells me that over and over.
I cannot serve God and Money too.
I need to sell everything and buy the pearl of great price.
I need to forgive not once, not seven times but seven times seventy-seven times!
Love of God is not love of man. It's different.
They are at odds with each other.
Jesus tells us that we cannot love father, mother, siblings, children or spouse more than him.
In Today's passage Ezra says the same thing. Distinguish. Separate.
Lord, I pray that I can see my world with your eyes so that I will see my sins and separate myself from them.
Let me not compromise with my sins and endanger my salvation.
Forgive me the long denial of my first wife's alcoholism.
Keep me separate from the world. Make me holy, I pray, in Jesus' name.
