(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on November 20, 2016, Reign of Christ Sunday)
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How God Shepherds Us
Today’s scripture is overrun by shepherds: bad shepherds, good shepherds, and most importantly God, who is also a shepherd. It reminds me of a hall of mirrors. Some mirrors are distorted or dirtied or cracked. These are the bad shepherds. Other mirrors are relatively proportionate and clean. These are the good shepherds. And then there is the one shepherd who is not a reflection. This is God.
According to Jeremiah—and contrary to common sense—God does not see the world from a God’s-eye perspective. God does not see the world through the eyes of an impartial judge or a cold, calculating scientist. Instead, God looks tenderly on the world as a shepherd looks over his or her flock. Listen to the way God talks about the people of Israel: “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock…and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply” (23:3). Centuries later, Jesus will compare God to a shepherd who leaves the flock of 99 in order to seek out the one lost sheep. In both cases, God cares for the world—especially the lost and the hurting—as a shepherd cares for his sheep.
But Jeremiah isn’t naïve. God may be the shepherd of the world, but that doesn’t mean that God shepherds the world with a supernatural staff in the way that Zeus rules the world with thunder and lightning bolts. God shepherds the world not as a puppeteer who pulls strings or as a magician who simply waves his wrist and presto! Instead, God shepherds the world…through people. According to Jeremiah, the divine shepherd raises up “shepherds” among us, good shepherds, shepherds who gather us together and encourage us (cf. 23:4). I think what Jeremiah is trying to say, then, is that God’s shepherding takes on our flesh.
What We’re Saying When We Say “Thank You”
And so I wonder: “Through whom has God shepherded me? Who has gathered me in and brought me back to the fold, who has multiplied the life within me, who has gently overseen and encouraged me?”
With Thanksgiving just around the corner, my mind is spilling with memories of that special day when much of the family was “brought back to [the] fold,” when dishes “multiplied” on the table, when “fear” was the furthest thing from my mind; when life felt for a moment like a complete puzzle, like everything was in its right place (cf. 23:3-4). I’ve never thought about all of this as an experience of being shepherded. But I wonder now if my parents and other family were not shepherds of a sort, mirrored reflections of a Shepherd whose love takes the shape of gathering, nourishing, and encouraging.
I recognize, of course, that not everyone’s Thanksgiving memories are the same as mine. And chances are, whatever your memories are, Thanksgiving this year will not feel the way I described. You may feel instead rushed or anxious or simply exhausted. Perhaps that’s because you are doing a bit of shepherding yourself.
In any case, today’s scripture offers us a timely suggestion. If Thanksgiving is all about saying “thank you” not for the life that we think we’ve earned or achieved, but rather for the life that we’ve received as a gift, then perhaps Thanksgiving is really a day of gratitude for the ways we have been shepherded. When we say “thank you” to no one in particular, when we say it as a reflex, impulsively, filled with gratitude for what we’ve received, to whom are we speaking? What are we really saying? Perhaps at its root, our gratitude is nothing other than a profession of faith, because our gratitude does not really stop at the personal shepherds around us but extends to the Shepherd of whom they are a reflection. Perhaps saying, “Thank you,” is just another way of saying, “Yes—the Lord is my shepherd.”
We Are Not Proclaiming the Superiority of God’s Power
Today is not only the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It is also the last Sunday in the church year: the Reign of Christ Sunday, when we declare that Jesus is Lord.
That declaration by itself is earth-shattering. In ancient Rome, the slogan of the day was “Caesar is lord.” To say “Jesus is Lord,” as the early Christ-followers did, was a revolutionary pledge of allegiance, a way to say, “Caesar is not Lord.” It’s no different today. When we say, “Jesus is Lord,” we’re also saying that the free market is not lord, the constitution is not lord, the president is not lord, Hollywood is not lord.
To declare our allegiance to Jesus is revolutionary enough. But today’s scripture makes it even more subversive. Because when we say, “The Lord is my shepherd,” we are not proclaiming the superiority of God’s power. We are proclaiming that God’s power is completely different from the powers of this world. We are proclaiming an altogether upside-down reign, a reign unlike the reign of princes and presidents, power and prestige.
We are proclaiming the reign of a shepherd. According to Jeremiah, leadership does not take the shape of rulers with iron fists, but shepherds with tender hands. In other words, Jeremiah redefines leadership as servanthood. A good leader is like a good shepherd who attends to the flock to the very last sheep, especially if it’s lost.
Does this sound familiar? To me, it sounds a lot like Jesus, who said, “I am the good shepherd [who] lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11; cf. 10:14-15). It sounds a lot like our savior, who said, “Whoever wants to be first must be…servant of all” (Mark 9:35).
A Shepherd’s Power
In our first scripture today, Luke’s account of the crucifixion (Luke 23:33-43), we see just what the world thinks of Jesus’ powerless power, his upside-down reign. First the leaders mock him, “Let him save himself if he is the anointed one” (Luke 23:35). Then the soldiers mock him, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself” (Luke 23:36-37). Finally one of the criminals mocks him, saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” (Luke 23:39).
I wonder if these mockers had read the prophecy of Jeremiah that we read today. On the one hand, they would have read the grand promise of a future king in whose days “Judah [would] be saved” (Jer 23:6). Perhaps they were justified to expect some saving, to anticipate a king who would deliver himself and the whole nation with a strong fist. On the other hand, if they had read Jeremiah, they would have also read that the reign of God is the reign of a shepherd. And a shepherd cares for his flock, tending to the least, the last, and the littlest, as Jesus did. A shepherd’s power takes the shape of not a sword but a staff.
Thanksgiving and a New Way of Living
“The Lord is my shepherd.” Maybe we’ll say these words this Thanksgiving. For it is our Shepherd whom we have to thank for being gathered together, for being nourished, and for being encouraged.
But within these words—“the Lord is my shepherd”—there also echo the anarchic tones of revolution. For to proclaim, “The Lord is my shepherd,” is to declare, “Jesus is Lord.” It is to declare allegiance not to the dollar bill or to the silver screen or to the flag but to a homeless Jew in whom God’s love took on flesh most fully. It is to exchange the sword for the staff, to give up the love of power for the power of love.
To utter the words, “The Lord is my shepherd,” is to declare that the kingdom of God is not only coming. It is here already, where our thanksgiving is one and the same with a new way of living.
Prayer
Christ our leader,
Who cares for the lost
And lays down his life
For the least and the littlest:
Thank you for gathering us together,
For nourishing us and encouraging us.
You are our shepherd,
And we delight in your reign.
Amen.
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