Sermon 11/20/11
Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
This time of year always brings us an interesting
conjunction of church events: today we celebrate Thanksgiving Sunday – it isn’t
really a liturgical holiday – Thanksgiving isn’t on the church calendar
exactly. But it certainly makes sense that we focus on Thanksgiving in worship
– being thankful for all we have is hardly something we do enough of! It is
also the last Sunday of the liturgical year today. As the church calendar goes,
next Sunday is our New Year's Day. Today is then sort of a liturgical New
Year's Eve as far as Sundays go. And on the church calendar, today is Christ the
King or Reign of Christ Sunday. It is a day when we consider how Jesus is King,
how Jesus is ruler of our lives. How is Jesus king? It’s kind of an interesting
question for us to ask about Jesus, who shunned titles like king at every turn
in the accounts of ministry. And yet we call him the King of Kings. There is a
tension there. Not a king, and yet the most high king. On this Sunday, we
explore that tension.
For 21st century Americans, we have to figure
out just what to do with kings anyway. Our own history shapes our views of
course. In our history, people carried out a revolution to end living under the
rule of a king that could make decisions for them without their input. We have
never had a king. We want a say in who leads – not rules us – and how they
lead. And if they don’t do it in a way we appreciate, we want the chance to
elect someone new. This spring we observed with varying degrees of
anticipation, indifference, distaste, or excitement as Prince William married
Kate Middleton. Even in Europe, the royal family has limited power. They don’t rule, not in the absolute ways of days
long past. And we aren’t quite sure what to make of it all, are we? What do we
mean by saying that Jesus is king?
We don’t often focus on readings from Ezekiel. You might
be most familiar with the passage about the valley of the dry bones. But I find
our text today particularly compelling for Reign of Christ Sunday. Ezekiel is
writing in the time of the Babylonians exile. Babylon had invaded and occupied
Israel and the people of Israel were scattered – what Ezekiel calls scattered sheep.
Ezekiel spends the proceeding chapters of his prophecy criticizing the
history of bad royal leadership Israel has had. When humans have tried to be
king, we have done a pretty bad job at it. We are bad at being shepherds,
Ezekiel says, and we aren’t even very good at being sheep. He writes,
ʺYou pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted all the weak
animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide.ʺ Without a good shepherd
to follow, we aren’t even good sheep! In imagery that Jesus will draw on
centuries later when he speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd, Ezekiel speaks
of how God shepherds us.
Here
is what God as shepherd-king does for us, says Ezekiel: I will
seek the lost. I will bring back the strayed. I will bind up the injured. I
will strengthen the weak. I will feed them with justice. This is how God is king. And if God is king by shepherding
us better than any human leaders, God can draw out of us our best sheep-behavior.
We are the flock when we hear God's voice and follow Jesus our shepherd-king. What
would it look like if we partnered in God's work?
God seeks us when we are
lost. How can we help those who feel lost, in the many
ways we can feel lost in this world? I can’t tell you how significant
being a listening ear can be for people. In my years of ministry, some of the
kindest words of thanks I have received are from people who
I visit for one reason or another. I find myself always wishing I had
more time to give, more time to stay, because it clearly means too much
to people. People who are lonely, or depressed, or struggling in some
way – they need to know that someone is with them in the midst of
their pain. We rely on knowing that God is always seeking after us, always calling
to us, always longing to draw us closer in relationship. So in turn, how can we
draw closer to one another in faith, hope, and love?
God brings back the strayed. You might think being lost
and straying away from God are the same thing. To me it is a bit of a nuanced
difference. Being lost is something that usually happens by accident. We feel
lost and alone without knowing how we got there exactly. Straying from God –
well, that is a little more purposeful. Have you ever witnessed or experienced
this: a child is walking quickly and deliberately away from a parent who is yelling
more and more loudly, ʺCome back here!ʺ Or a child is not supposed to walk too
far ahead, ride a bike too far ahead of parents, but keeps pushing the limits, going
just a little farther? That is straying,
and I believe we do that with God. We don’t start out intending to disobey God or
test God. But somehow one small questionable action on our part leads to one
more and one more, and pretty soon we are living in a way that we aren’t proud
of. God brings back the strayed. There is no distance – no distance that you can stray from God that is too far for God to
close the gap. We are not very open in our society to others pointing out when
we seem to be straying from God. And we try to mind our own business when we
see others doing something that we know will be harmful to their spirits. We think
it is between us and God, them and God. While we are called to not judge one another, we are also
supposed to help each other keep from stumbling, and be open to someone else helping
us stay close to God.
God will bind up the injured. I believe God can heal us.
I think we have all witnessed God's healing – physically, emotionally,
spiritually. Some of us may have witnessed miraculous healing. Or we may have
witnessed the slow and steady healing that God works over time. But Jesus was a
healer – he was known far and wide for his healing, and it was the reason why
people flocked to him at first, only to then find their souls were healing along
with their ailments. We are in need of healing, aren’t we? We pray for healing for
ourselves and our loved ones. In fact, prayer is one way we partner with God in
healing. How often is prayer our last resort, instead of a tool of healing that
we use with intention and purpose? I pray for healing for you and me, for our congregation,
for our nation, for our world. We so need it. God binds up our wounded hearts,
and makes us whole
God strengthens
the weak and feeds them with justice. God is not into survival of the fittest. God
is into the thriving lives of each precious child in creation. This week we
focus on giving thanks, but we also might spend a lot of time focusing on what
food we will have on Thursday (and Friday and Saturday), right? I have been
part of very few Thanksgiving meals where we didn’t indulge and indulge some
more. God says we will be fed with justice.
What an image! In the scriptures, justice and poverty, concern for those who
are weak or low in society often go hand in hand, as the prophets envision God's
world as a place where all have enough and no one suffers at the expense of others.
We can certainly be partners with God in feeding justice as we reach out in
mission. Last night I had the true privilege of handing out food baskets to
folks in need in our community. I cannot tell you how much I enjoy seeing the
expressions of shock on people’s faces when they realize how much we will be
able to give them. And it is just one way, one part of what we can do. It is to
our human shame that we throw away about 50 million tons of food each year when
900 million people are hungry. We know something is wrong and needs to be
corrected, brought to right. That is what God means by justice – bringing things
to rights. How will you partner with God to feed justice until all are filled?
This
Jesus, God on earth, come to us, we celebrate as a king. But he is a king like
no other – a king who seeks the lost, who protects, who returns strays to the right
path, who heals, who strengthens the weak, who feeds us with justice. This is a
leader worth following. Let us give thanks, today and always. Amen.
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