These readings pose a psychological problem that neither theology nor secular ethics has adequately addressed: what does it mean to be responsible for the inner awakening of another person, and how can such responsibility even exist if consciousness itself is not yet born in either party? The following meditation approaches this question from an esoteric and psychological standpoint, treating the scriptural figures — watchman, shepherd, disciple — as inner functions rather than social roles. It is offered not as commentary on any tradition but as an independent exploration of what it might mean, inwardly, to see the multitudes and be moved.
First reading
Ezekiel 3:17-21
Son of man, I have made you a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth, and give them warning from me.
When I say unto the wicked, You shall surely die; and you givest him not warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at your hand.
Yet if you warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.
Again, When a righteous man doth turn from his righteousness, and commit iniquity, and I lay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die: because you have not given him warning, he shall die in his sin, and his righteousness which he hath done shall not be remembered; but his blood will I require at your hand.
Nevertheless if you warn the righteous man, that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned; also you have delivered your soul.
Gospel
Matthew 9:35-10:1
And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.
Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few;
Pray you therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.
— Interpretation —
Let us begin with a peculiar and uncomfortable idea that runs through both of today’s readings like a thread of iron: that one can be held accountable for the inner state of another person. In Ezekiel, God says to the prophet, quite plainly, that if the wicked man dies without warning, “his blood will I require at your hand.” And in Matthew, Christ looks upon the multitudes and sees them “fainted, and scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd” — and his response is not to preach harder himself, but to commission twelve others, giving them power.
Now, taken literally, these passages concern religious leadership — the obligation of prophets and apostles to teach and warn. Taken this way, they become simply an exhortation to clergy. But I think something far more interesting and far more disturbing is being said, and it concerns every person who has ever had even one moment of genuine inner seeing.
Consider the watchman. Ezekiel is told: “I have made you a watchman.” He did not apply for the position. He did not choose it. Something was placed in him — the capacity to hear “the word at my mouth” — and this capacity, once given, carries obligation. This is a remarkable psychological idea. It means that the moment you can see something true about the human condition, you become responsible in a way you were not before. The man who has never awakened, even briefly, from mechanical life cannot be a watchman. He has nothing to watch from. But the one who has received even a fragment of real understanding — who has tasted, however briefly, the difference between sleep and waking — that person now stands on a wall, whether he likes it or not.
And what does the watchman see? He sees two kinds of danger, and both are interior. The wicked man — which is to say, the man identified entirely with his mechanical self, his reactions, his appetites, his vanity — this man will “die in his iniquity.” But notice the second case, which is far more striking: the righteous man who “doth turn from his righteousness.” Here is someone who had reached a certain level of inner development and then fell back. And Ezekiel is told that this falling-back can happen, that it is a genuine danger, and that the righteousness already achieved “shall not be remembered.” It is as though inner progress, once abandoned, leaves no residue. The account is wiped clean. This is a terrifying thought, and one that every serious student of inner work has encountered in practice: that states of consciousness, once lost, do not automatically return. They must be re-earned.
Now turn to the Gospel. Christ sees the multitudes and is moved with compassion — but notice what he sees in them. He does not see wickedness. He sees exhaustion and confusion: “they fainted, and were scattered abroad.” This is the image of humanity in its ordinary mechanical state — not evil, but dispersed, without center, without direction, without anyone inside who is awake enough to gather the scattered parts into a unity. “As sheep having no shepherd.” The shepherd, psychologically, is the part of a man that can observe and direct the other parts. Without it, the inner life is a crowd with no leader, a harvest with no one to gather it.
And this is where the two readings converge in a single, stunning idea. Christ says, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few.” The harvest is there. The possibility of awakening is everywhere, in every person, at every moment. What is lacking is not the material but the workers — the parts of oneself, or the people in one’s life, who are awake enough to do the gathering. And so he calls twelve, and gives them power. Power over “unclean spirits” — which is to say, power over the mechanical, negative, possessive states that keep a person scattered and asleep.
The watchman in Ezekiel and the labourer in Matthew are the same figure seen from two angles. One warns; the other heals. But both require something that cannot be faked: a level of consciousness higher than the sleep they are addressing. You cannot warn a man about sleep while you yourself are dreaming. You cannot gather a harvest while you are yourself scattered abroad.
This is why the prayer is so specific: “Pray the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth labourers.” The labourers are not produced by human effort alone. They are sent. Something higher must act. And yet — and here is the paradox that makes all inner work possible — the asking itself is already a form of waking up.
Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash
Scripture: King James Version
