Jeremiah 23:1-6; Colossians 1:11-20
November 20, 2016
The kids down at Camp Hanover
are awfully fond of a song that I find just awful. Goes kinda like this, “I
just wanna be a sheep, bah, bah, bah, bah / / pray the Lord my soul to keep,
yeah, yeah …” It goes through a set of counter narratives – hypocrites,
Sadducees, Pharisees – and concludes that we don’t want to be like them.
Instead, we just want to be the sheep.
The problem – well, beyond the
utterly inane music – the problem is, I don’t want to be a sheep. Sheep are
stupid. Seriously, they appear to me to be among the dumbest of God’s
creatures. I do not want to be like that.
In fact, if we take remotely
seriously the notion that we are somehow created in the image of God, I’ll go
so far as to say that if we want to be like sheep we dishonor the intelligent,
loving, and wildly creative God who made us. No, sir, I do not want to be a
sheep. Blah, blah, blah, blah.
On the other hand, perhaps there
is a secret life of sheep of which I am ignorant. Our kids were little during a
golden age for children’s film, and we all grew inordinately fond of the movie Babe. It’s the tale of a pig who thinks
he’s a sheepdog, the sheep who come to accept him as such, and the shepherd who
is willing to consider seriously something that only he notices.
Even when everyone else thinks
he’s crazy and hallucinating, the good shepherd acts on what he has taken note
of and enters Babe, the pig, in a sheepdog contest. It’s a kids’ movie, so,
naturally, Babe wins. But he does so only when the sheep come to his rescue.
Beneath their docile and, well,
stupid appearance, the sheep turn out to be both wise and wily. If I have to be
a sheep, let me be one like that, and let me come under the care of a shepherd
who does not destroy and scatter, who does not drive away the flock nor neglect
it, but, rather, one who looks for the best in everyone under his care, and
creatively draws it forth from them.
We need such a shepherd these
days. More than that, we need to become such for each other these days.
The election, and, especially,
the long and hideous campaign that preceded it, have loosed a great deal of
ugliness and ignorance in our society. Racism, sexism, heterosexism, and
xenophobia have found vile expression. The nation is riven into factions that
speak at and across each other rather than with one another. And there are a
whole host of folks who are acting dumber than sheep out there these days.
The prejudices are, of course,
nothing new under the sun. But the rancor tearing the fabric of our society has
taken on a tenor that feels different.
If we say that we are followers
of Jesus – the Good Shepherd, the one whose sheep know him, recognize his
voice, and follow him – we have some particular responsibilities these days.
The text from Jeremiah this
morning, along with the rest of that prophetic word, serves to remind us of a
few of them. Jeremiah insists that God demands justice and righteousness of
those in powerful positions. Jeremiah sees the hand of God scattering the sheep
because the shepherd has not attended to justice. Jeremiah understands that the
collapse of the social order results from injustice, and that those in power
have a particular responsibility to act with righteousness for the sake of
justice on behalf of the marginalized, the widows and orphans, the powerless
and the outcast.
Our responsibility, then, is to
remain vigilant, to call out injustice whenever we see it, and to resist it
with all of our wisdom and wile.
We sheep of the Presbyterian
flock have an additional responsibility in the present moment. The
president-elect has called himself one of us. While there is considerable doubt
about his membership in any congregation of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.),
I’m willing to take him at his word on this, because, if he is a member of our
church, he is bound to us in a relationship of mutual responsibility and
accountability.
We Presbyterians are heirs to
the tradition of John Calvin, and it is tempting to say something about the
doctrine of total depravity being proved by our politics, or to quote Calvin,
who wrote in the Institutes of the
Christian Religion that “those who domineer unjustly and tyrannically are
raised up by [God] to punish the people for their iniquity.”
In other words, perhaps the
sheep, themselves, deserve the shepherd they got because they failed to attend to justice; that is to say, we failed.
Indeed, it’s not difficult at
all to create a litany of such failures over recent years: we have,
collectively, failed to attend to the fact that our economy serves the
interests of the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the poor; we have,
collectively, failed to attend to the fact that families are being torn apart
by our immigration policies and enforcement procedures; we have, collectively,
failed to attend to the fact that we are carrying out endless war in the midst
of mindless entertainments. We could go on and on, but I’ll cut to the chase
and say, simply, that we have, collectively, failed to do justice, love
kindness, and walk humbly with our God.
Maybe we really are just sheep
in need of a good shepherd.
Confession song
So, where’s the good news in all
of this?
Well, it is the final Sunday on
the liturgical calendar, the Sunday traditionally designated as Christ the King
Sunday. That’s why we began with Crown
Him With Many Crowns this morning. We recall, today, the reign of Christ,
the good shepherd, and proclaim the very good news that, in Jesus, we see that
God does reign in sovereign love. In the midst of all the ugliness around us,
sovereign love is surely good news.
The other news these days is, to
be sure, challenging and frightening. Lots of folks across the country,
including more than a few in this room, are quite fearful – both of what has
happened and of what may.
One of my favorite verses in all
of scripture says simple, “perfect love casts out all fear.” God reigns in
perfect love.
Because God acts in the world
through the power of love, this sovereign love invites us to respond to the
world in kind – that is to say, with love. Love is fundamental relational, and
thus, when Jesus says, “follow me,” he is inviting us to participate in the
reign of love; he is inviting us into relationship. When all else fails, resort
to love.
Good news has power. It is, as
Paul wrote to the Colossians, “glorious power” for it is the power to lift us
up, to draw us together, and to sustain us.
As we are lifted up we are
empowered to lift others, so just in the past week eight of us went to West
Virginia to help folks whose homes were devastated by floods last summer.
Another dozen of us went down to AFAC yesterday to support the annual turkey distribution
to our neighbors in need.
As we are drawn together we are
empowered to draw others together as well. We do this, in part, through
creating safe and beautiful spaces. We fill them with song, trusting that
Dostoevsky was on to something important when he wrote, “beauty will save the
world.” So we do things such as invite the GenOUT Chorus to share their songs
with us today and join our voices with an interfaith choir next Sunday in a
concert for hope on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. We do things such as
explore what it would entail to become a “sanctuary congregation.” We do things
such as enact our prayers with light and color. Beauty draws us together and it
honors the author of creation’s vast beauty.
As we are sustained, we are
empowered to sustain others. We do this in part by resisting all that stands
against the values of the gospel: hospitality, welcome to strangers,
compassion, peace, justice, and love.
Together, as the church, we hold
on to one another in a circle of love as a shepherd holds together the flock. I
may not want to be a sheep, but I do want to stand within the circle of love.
They say that the shepherd knows
his sheep and they know him.
I don’t know much of anything
about flocks of sheep, but I do know my tribe. It’s a tribe known by love. In
my tribe, these things are true:
