Sermon — November 20, 2022
The Rev. Greg Johnston
When I was a kid, we spent a fair amount of time in the car, for New Englanders: five-hour drives to visit my grandparents in New Jersey, sitting in traffic on I-95 North for summer vacations, a continuous stream of errands and activities driving around the suburbs. And as the younger of two children, I soon became familiar with some of the phrases traditionally used by parents driving a car:
1) “No, we’re not there yet.”
2) “I will turn this car around.” and
3) “Don’t make me come back there!”
If you’ve ever been a child or, heaven forbid, a parent, you may have heard or said one or two of these things yourself, especially the last one. You’ve got two or three or five kids loaded in the back of the car, and they’re hitting each other and yelling at each other and you’re more than a little focused on not getting rammed by some guy crossing all three lanes of traffic at Sullivan Square and you shout over your shoulder: “Don’t make me come back there!” As in, “if you can’t work this fight out, I’m going to have to come break it up myself, and then you’ll be sorry. As will I.”
If you ever find yourself in this situation, it may be some comfort to know that God knows exactly how you feel. The driver of a car full of children may shout, “Don’t make me come back there!” And the god of world full of adults is sometimes has to say, “Don’t make me come down there!”
This is the whole point, after all, of our reading this morning from the prophet Jeremiah. “Woe to the shepherds,” says the Lord, “who destroy and scatter my sheep!” (Jer. 23:1) He’s not talking about actual shepherds, of course. And he’s not talking about religious leaders, pastors, the spiritual shepherds of spiritual sheep. “Shepherd,” in fact, was a traditional ancient image for a king.
The god or gods of the city are the owners of the flock. The king is the shepherd, the hired hand who leads and guides the people on their behalf, tending to those entrusted to him and caring for them… or not. And it’s the “or not” with which God is concerned this morning. “Woe to the shepherds who shepherd my people!” They “have not attended to” my flock. (23:2) They have not, it seems, “execute[d] justice and righteousness in the land.” (23:5) And so, God says to these kings, “I will attend to you for your evil doings.” (23:2)
“I myself will gather the remnant of my flock… and I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them.” (23:3, 4) Like all prophecies, it’s one part prediction and one part warning: this is what’s going to happen if they don’t change their ways. “The days are surely coming, says the Lord…” (23:5) and if you don’t get your act together, God tells the kings of the people, “I myself” will come to take charge of the sheep.
“Don’t make me come down there!”
But they did. And so he did.
This morning we observe the “Last Sunday after Pentecost,” the day sometimes known as “Christ the King.” It’s a kind of hinge between two seasons, between the long season of “Ordinary Time” after Pentecost and the short run-up through Advent to Christmas. And if you look at it in this context, you might think of “Christ the King” as one answer to the question, “Why Christmas?” In other words, “Why was Jesus born? Why did God choose to become human?”
There are many answers to this question, and each one pulls out a different facet of who Jesus was and what he was there to do. Did Jesus come to teach us a new way of love? Yes, and… Did Jesus come to heal our fragile and fallible human nature? Yes, and… Did Jesus come so could finally become King; because the shepherds of the people were letting them down, and God Godself needed to take charge? Yes, that too!
Because if Jeremiah’s prophecy was supposed to be a warning—“Don’t make me come down there!”—then when we read it five weeks before Christmas, it should be clear that it failed. We did not change our ways. We did make God come down here to set things right, and thank God he did.
Because it’s the way God came down here that really changed the world. You can easily imagine things turning out differently. Imagine that the shepherds and kings of the people had practiced evil instead of righteousness, and God was mad. God warned them to mend their ways, or God would come down. And they did not change their ways, and God came down with a punishing wrath, God came down with an army of avenging angels and destroyed those who had exploited the people, casting them into the fires of hell and establishing his throne for ever and ever, Amen.
That’s not what happened. Look at our Gospel reading today.
God came down, not to dispense violence, but to endure it. God came down, not to mete out justice at the end of the sword, but to face injustice and a crown of thorns. God came down to reign as Christ the King, not from a jewel-encrusted throne but on the hard wood of the cross.
God came down and absorbed all the violence and injustice of the rulers of this world—of Roman governors and mocking soldiers and even Death itself—and broke their power over us. God came down not to destroy us, but to be destroyed by us, and in so doing to destroy death for us. God came down to do what our shepherds could never do, and to lead us into greener pastures than we could ever imagine, to “reconcile us” to God, “by making peace through the blood of his cross.” (Col. 1:20) And this is the upside-down kingdom of Christ, in which the good shepherd lay down his life for the sheep.
God came down to where we were, and for a moment our little fists wailed on God, instead of on one another, but God was too big and too calm and too strong to be hurt by us, and God’s love transformed our anger, and showed us a new way of love. It wasn’t a permanent fix. God knows we’ve been violent since, Christians certainly included. But the power of a calm and patient love, in the face of a violent and impatient world, began to show us the way of another kingdom. And God is inviting us to follow that way of self-giving love that Jesus laid out, and to live as though his law of love was the law of our land, as if Jesus truly were our rightful King, as if God really had “rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son.” (Col. 1:12)
If you ever feel like that child melting down; if you ever feel the need to rage at God, or throw a punch; if you ever feel the guilt of having whacked your sibling over the head with a toy, and you’re ashamed, or you’re afraid—take heart. Remember that God will come down here, not in anger, but in love. God will come down here, and hold it all for you. God will take whatever you throw at her in prayer, because she is patient with you when all your patience has run out, and then some. God will absorb it all, and, in time, transform it all, for you.
So as you prepare yourself, in this coming season of Advent, to celebrate the birth of our newborn God and king, I pray with Paul that the Holy Spirit may continue to fill you with God’s love. “May you be made strong with all the strength that comes from his glorious power, and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience… joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the light.” (Col. 1:11-12)
Amen.