ChristtheKingSundayA, Sullivan Park
Care Center, November23, 2014 by Sr Annette Fricke, OP
The texts
for today are a reminder that despite the injustices of the world, God seeks
complete and abiding peace for all. God
always seeks to correct that which is out of sync with God’s will. That correctness is what we find in the work
that God has done in Jesus Christ which makes us right with God, righteous in
God’s sight. Like sheep, we are
dependent on God, our shepherd, to steer us in the way we should go: to help us
find green pasture, to seek us out when we have gone astray away from God, when
we are simply lost, when we have been injured in any way, when we have become
weak. Most of all, God promises to feed
us with justice.
When I was a
young student in seminary and it was our team’s turn to lead for the weekly
Wednesday chapel, I volunteered to read the gospel lesson. The gospel lesson was this, “…yet I tell you
even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.” I looked at the notation at the bottom of the
page in my Bible and saw that the parallel was in I Kings. I Kings Chapter 10 explains what exactly
Solomon and his glory were all about.
One of my professors piped up with the technical term for that type of
pairing of the texts which instantly went over my head. It seemed to me a more logical text to be
matched with the gospel than the one appointed by a committee of the Church’s
clergy on the textual committee, only a couple of whom I’d even met. And here I come to that juncture again. Why not pair this particular text with Jesus’
parable of the lost sheep and how the shepherd leaves the 99 to search for the
1 lost sheep? It seems to me that it
would more clearly make the point as to how the sheep story in Ezekiel, a book
in the Old Testament is sharply contrasted with the New Testament version. The Ezekiel passage is one of exclusivity,
the New Testament is one of inclusivity.
In Ezekiel, God will do away with the fat and the strong. Who are the fat and the strong? If we look at this from the perspective of
attitudes and behaviors as in last Sunday’s gospel, the fat and the strong
could be the bullies of our society.
Recent history has identified even children who display this type of
behavior and attitude. There are
children who identify and pick on people who are weaker than themselves. They make it their mission to seek them out,
to intimidate them and overpower them with their remarks and threats of
violence. Other times it does become an
actual fist fight. It can escalate even
further, getting teachers, school counselors, and parents involved. Later in life, these bullies, without proper
and strong intervention, can become those who bend and break the rules of
society simply to be on top of companies and organizations or scheming
professional crooks. They think about
themselves first, at the expense of others.
The Ezekiel text paints us a picture that is the exact opposite. In this text, God the shepherd rescues the
weak, the injured, the strayed, and the lost.
This is God’s way of doing justice in the world. One more thing: if you read the uncut
version, reinserting the verses of chapter 34 that are missing from our reading,
you will see a very violent image of what God will do to the bullies of the
world. It seems that the reason those
verses were taken out of today’s reading is because with Jesus’ interpretation
of what God wants, this is not what God actually does because it is not
inclusive of God’s love for God’s people, it is exclusive. God’s nature is not to destroy, but to show
mercy. And that is why I’d rather see a
pairing with the gospel about the search of the shepherd for the 1 sheep that
is lost. The function of the priests and
prophets of Israel was not solely to predict and deliver judgment as we may
sometimes imagine. It was to guide and
nourish the people in the way of God.
God’s way is mercy; therefore God’s people also are to show mercy. The problem comes when the definition of
God’s people becomes more and more narrowed to become exclusive and God’s
chosen people are the ones who follow this particular set of rules that seek to
help you follow God’s law. Whenever
someone tells you that you must do this or you must believe that, consider
carefully what that person is saying to you. It could be that that person has a
personal agenda because God clearly loves all people, even those we perceive to
be our enemies.
The end will
come for all of us, so we need to pay attention to ensure that we are not led
astray or become lost. We can be tested
every day to go another direction. We
can choose to give up. There are many
references in the gospel according to Matthew about the lost sheep of
Israel. We are all capable of becoming
lost and going astray and we pray that God will always be able to find us and
rescue us from going so far down the road that we ignore God’s presence and
readiness to help us along our life’s journey.
A shepherd
is a common image used in the Bible to describe the function of a community
leader. A community leader is to seek out
even the lowliest person. There is a
difference between God and humans although we are called to imitate God. In the parable about the lost sheep, one of
ninety-nine would be rare though because most of the other sheep tend to follow
the one who goes through the fence first.
Because the parable speaks about one sheep, it should be interpreted to
mean that God actually loves us so much that God will seek after every single
person who wanders away from the flock. We
need reminders time and time again that God is not like us. God does not hold grudges, have favorites, or
prejudices because we are all part of God’s family. We are God’s sheep and God is our
shepherd. Psalm 100 points out that God
made us, we are his, we are his people and the sheep of his pasture therefore we
should enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. We should do these things because the Lord is
good his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all
generations.
This is our
heritage as Christians who adopted aspects of the Jewish faith and chose to
follow the teachings of one of their prophets, Jesus. God always seeks to
correct that which is out of sync with God’s will. That correctness is what we find in the work
that God has done in Jesus Christ which makes us right with God, righteous in
God’s sight. As Isaiah 53:6 states, “All
we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way.” Because of this, it was necessary to find a
way for God to bring us all back into the flock, Jews and Gentiles together in
one big family as well as all the peoples of the earth. Like sheep, we are
dependent on God, our shepherd, to steer us in the way we should go: to help us
find green pasture, to seek us out when we have gone astray away from God, when
we are simply lost, when we have been injured in any way, when we have become
weak. God promises justice for all
people, but especially the weak and vulnerable of our society. God created us and will make all things
right. God will restore all people and
all of the created order to the way it was always intended from the
beginning. To God be the glory as it was
in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.
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