And, in a vision, he gives that prophet an allegory to pass on.

That allegory
involves an all too familiar scene
to the people of that age.

A sentinel is appointed
to stand on the wall and warn people of coming horsemen
He is to blow the trumpet
and give enough notice
that the people might react
and live.

The consequences of not listening to the sentinel are dire.

So, in this reading from the 33rd chapter of Ezekiel
we have God appointing that man
to be a sentinel
to worn the people of danger.

"I appoint you a sentinel -0 a prophet
for the house of Israel," he says.

"When the people are in danger
because of the self-centered way they think and live
and when they neglect their God and their neighbor,
warn them that they, thereby, are denying
the possibilities of life I have given them."

If you do not warn them,
you are accountable.
If they do not take heed,
they will die.

Such is the natural consequence of sin.

And the passage ends
with God's impassioned plea to Israel,
"Do not die on me, o my children!"

There is a timeless truth to these words.
It can be seen even, or perhaps especially
in our own day
when we try to deny that our choices matter.

We try to remove the natural consequences
of our attitudes, thoughts, norms, and actions
from the equation of life,
in the name of love, and ease, and pleasure.

Or, perhaps
we do not believe in consequences in the first place,
because the individual has become
the center of the universe,

so, norms are no longer God's norms
and consequences accrue only to other people,

until death,
or, until something happens,
or a sentinel with recognizable authenticity speaks
to break through denial
and bring us into a sense of belonging to -
and being responsible to God

Some denominations speak of conversion experiences
and, if we indeed see the world
and much of our own decisions
as self-indulgent paganism
that language makes some sense.

Here is a story
about a man who had the gift
of a new beginning.

Henry is an attorney,
- a partner in a New York Law firm.

He is played very credibly by Harrison Ford
in the motion picture titled, "Regarding Henry."

The opening scene is one of coldness and snow
in the winter-bound city.

We follow the camera's eye
up the gray stone steps and into a courtroom
where Henry is delivering his closing argument.

In a cold manner and dispassionate voice,
he paints a picture to the jury,
a picture which he knows is false,
but which effectively leaves
a large hospital free of responsibility
and a patient crippled forever without recompense

In the party that follows
and in the family scenes when he arrives
at his palatial apartment
he is rude, profane, and agitated.

He clearly wants little to do with his wife
and he is unjust and tyrannical with his 10 year old daughter.

By the standards of the world he has adopted
he is a magnificent success,
but he is a miserable human being.

Then, one day
in fit of profane impatience
he goes down to a convenience store on the block,
and walks into a hold up.

True to form, he refuses to cooperate with the robber
and receives a bullet in the forehead
as a result.

He is paralyzed for a time
and is patiently and lovingly coached
by a black physical therapist,
whose career-ending football injury
instead of ending his life
opened the door
for the passion of his life:
helping other people to walk.

When he goes back to his apartment,
everyone discovers
that Henry has lost his memory.
He no longer remembers his family or profession.
He cannot even read.

His young daughter is home for a time
and, as mom works,
takes dad under her wing,
accepting him, as he is,
teaching him to read again,
telling him stories
talking about life.

Because of his new vulnerability
He is re-formed by these people,
the physical therapist, who is patient with him
his wife, who is beginning to like him for a change,
his daughter who brings the simple goodness of a child.

The vulnerable moment,
was identified and acted on
by a loving community
so that
In stead of being trapped by the expectations
and circumstances and success
of what had been,

Henry is able to be that which his new self,
seeing through new eyes
through an unclouded heart and spirit,
perceives as good

After a time
he goes back to the law office.

He sits at his big desk
in his spacious office with a corner view
and wonders what he does for a living.

So he begins to read the files on his desk.
They are the case folders of his most recent cases.

As he reads, he becomes agitated.
He is judging his previous actions
with a different heart.

He sees that he and his clients
and his firm
had become wealthy on lies
and abuse of power.

Their success is built on the pain
of powerless people.

When he tells his partners what he has discovered,
they say, "Beautiful, isn't it?"

After a while, he can no longer stay there.

He copies evidence from his files
of lies that he had presented as truth
and delivers them to the aggrieved party
who lost the case in the opening scene.

"Take that to your attorney," he says.
Then he goes back to the firm and resigns.

At that time,
he comes across evidence
that his wife had long ago
had an affair with one of his partners.

His sense of justice is offended, and he is deeply hurt.

His wife has now come to love him
and is terrified when he leaves
to check into a downtown hotel.

A woman lawyer from his firm follows him there
and tells him,
in a moment of courage,
that he and she were having an affair
at the time of his injury.

Henry realizes that he had long ago
cast off his wife and family
and had been the cause of the dehumanization
of those closest to him.

He has learned forgiveness:
the last piece of his new self.

He and his wife,
arm in arm,
travel to the stiff, upper-crust boarding school
in which they had placed their daughter
so as to have her become a carbon copy
of what he had been.

They walk into an assembly
and collect her,
give her a big hug,

and depart to their new, simple, house
and into the springtime of their lives.

They build a new life together
based on a very different set of values and expectations.
made possible by the love of a few people
acting at a time
of vulnerability.

Speaking of expectations,
look for just a moment at Paul's list from Romans
which we read this morning

Hold fast that which is good
love one another
show honor
serve the lord
rejoice in hope
curse no one
live in harmony
and so forth.

These are not the dues one pays to be good
or a check list for becoming a Christian.

We are already Christians. - Christ has made us so.

What this is
is a list of the joyful attributes
of the abundant life.

Sometimes we need sentinels
to call us to notice things.
to repeat to us God's plea
to remind us of Christ Jesus
whose life, death, and resurrection
grasp our very souls with passion,
get our attention
and call us to forget what we were
and become what God is,

Sometimes we need
to be sentinels for one another.

That is the meaning of Jesus' teaching
in today's Gospel reading
about confronting one another -
when the norms of Christian living are threatened
and one is forgetful of God.

In one sense,
that is the purpose the little community served for Henry,
and new life abounded.

It is important that we be no less of a community.

It is important
because God created us for better things
than we mostly pursue.

and offers us more life
than we can possibly imagine.

"Turn back, o Israel," says God
"for I
would have
you live."