Rev Fran

Sunday, August 12, 2018

"Sharing in the Life of Christ." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

"Sharing in the Life of Christ"

John 6:35, 41-51

We’ve been spending some time in the sixth chapter of John’s gospel. A few weeks ago, we heard the story of how thousands were gathered to hear Jesus teach. The people in the multitude were hungry, and the disciples told Jesus they needed to care for them. All they could come up with was a little boy with five loaves and two fish. It must have been an amazing sight as Jesus took that little bit of food, gave thanks, and everybody gathered there had enough to eat, with baskets of food left over. It was such an amazing thing that people wanted to make Jesus their king.

Jesus had provided for the people beyond belief. So, they went looking for him. When they found them, Jesus told them that the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

The people said, “Give us this bread always.”

That’s when Jesus declared to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

The people in the crowds who had made such efforts to find Jesus after he’d crossed the lake began to grumble about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

They said, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I came down from heaven’?”

Jesus answered them: “Stop grumbling among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day. It is written in the Prophets: ‘They will all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me.

The people in the crowd don’t get it. They were trying to fit Jesus into their frame of reference. The crowd’s misunderstanding is understandable enough if they thought of Jesus as the prophet like Moses. There was a popular belief that God would provide manna again in the final days. This was connected with the hopes of a second Exodus. Many people thought that the messiah would come on Passover, and that manna would begin to fall again.

The people in the crowd are stuck in their faith development. They have hopes, based on their traditions, and they want Jesus to give them what they want: manna from heaven, and a political leader to overthrow the Roman oppressors in a new Exodus.

In the first six chapters of John’s gospel, Jesus has encounters with several people and groups. Needy, troubled people come to Jesus, and they fail to comprehend. Nicodemus thought Jesus was talking about being born again from his mother’s womb, when Jesus was talking about spiritual rebirth, being born from above.”

The woman at the well thought Jesus was talking about a drink of water from the deep well, when Jesus was talking about his presence that fills a thirst no earthly water can quench.

The man by the pool thought Jesus was talking about healing that would come from bubbling water stirred up by an angel, when Jesus was telling about healing that would come from him.

Jesus’ detractors think because they know who Jesus’ father, Joseph, was and where he came from, that he couldn’t be bread from heaven or give life to the world.

The crowd that followed Jesus regarded him as a teacher. They witnessed his miracles. They also knew him as one of their own, a man from the old neighborhood. Some of them had watched him play as a child and learn his trade. In other words, they know him. He’s a lot like them, so they can’t see how he can be all that special. They can’t believe he could be the one God sent to redeem them.

Now, when we read about people in Scripture behaving badly or failing to act faithfully, our first impulse may be to judge them. We tend not to identify with them. We’d like to think that we would have known better than they did…that we would have done better.

And yet, consider the audacious claim that Jesus is making. Who ever heard of a God having anything to do with the ordinary, the mundane. If we believe in an all-powerful God who lives up in the clouds, it’s hard to believe in a God who is willing to suffer the pains and problems, the humiliations of human life. No wonder the crowd grumbles against Jesus’ words.

No wonder the leaders of the Jewish religious establishment was offended. To them, Jesus was making an audacious claim. Claiming that he was the source of eternal life? They thought that was blasphemous. Claiming to be living bread that came down from heaven? Ridiculous! They can’t understand how he can make these kings of audacious claims about himself any more than they can understand why anybody would believe him.

Can we relate to any of this?

I hope we’ll ponder this prayerfully: can we be bold enough, audacious enough, perhaps even foolish enough, to confess that God uses ordinary people and ordinary things to accomplish God’s will and to bring the world to God’s amazing love and God’s justice?

The bread Jesus is talking about is God’s gift. But we can only be nourished if we accept the bread that is offered.

Like the people in today's gospel story, we have a decision to make. We can decide to follow Jesus and let God's presence and power direct our lives... or we can ignore Jesus and spend our lives on other things.

We make this decision in big ways at confirmation... or when we decide to join the church. But we also make it every day in lots of little ways.

We make a choice every time we decide to listen to God's voice or ignore it when it tells us that we're special... God's beloved children… called as partners in Christ’s service. We make a choice every time we hear God's voice calling us to love everyone---those who are close to us…and even strangers... even our enemies.

Throughout the sixth chapter of John, in all the talk about bread, something has been said over and over which is the real offense behind all the other offenses. In fact, it's the offense of the Gospel: we have life by grace. The bread God gives from heaven gives life to the world.

The conflict of the gospel is in how we choose to respond to God's gift. The question we have to answer is this: Do we determine our own lives... or does God?

In every paragraph of this chapter of John, it's clear that the people around Jesus want to be in charge. They demand that Jesus do what Moses did. They demand signs. They want proofs so that they'll have adequate reasons to decide that Jesus is really from God. They want Jesus to be king-- the kind of king they wanted.

But, over and over again, Jesus keeps saying one thing: life from heaven is a gift. Trust this, and life is yours.

The message of the gospel really isn't so hard to understand. It's hard to accept, because it cuts across all the calculations and achievements that we want to do to earn our salvation.

Every day, we need to choose. Standing before God's amazing grace, how do we respond?

The good news in the gospel story is about grace... about God's gift to us. The bread in the wilderness was a gift. The bread as word from heaven is a gift.

From the very beginning, God has been giving us of God’s self and inviting us to take this sustenance and use it as a source of being the light of the world on behalf of God’s kingdom. God calls us to go out from our gatherings of prayer and praise to work in partnership with Christ to feed a hungry, hurting world. There are so many who are hungry…many who are hurting… many who are searching.

May we become a people that begin to extend life eternal… a people who live out the meaning of sharing in the life of Jesus to a hungry world.

May it be so!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

August 12, 2018

Sunday, August 5, 2018

"Hunger for Heaven." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church

"Hunger for Heaven"

John 6:24-35; Ephesians 4:1-16

Throughout this sixth chapter of John, we hear a theme of hunger-- the hunger behind and beneath all other hungers... the hunger for a knowledge of God... the hunger for a word from the Lord.

The day after the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, people come looking for Jesus, and he says, “Truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” Jesus sees that the crowd is seeking him out because they got something they wanted—not because of the sign that was revealed to them of a deeper truth. Their stomachs have been filled, but they don’t understand the real significance of the miraculous feeding.

Jesus wants to give them much more than they want. He points them toward a bread that lasts—that endures for eternal life…bread that is a gift from God.

The crowd’s follow-up question shows that they’ve missed the theme of gift. “What kinds of works should we be doing to earn our salvation?”

Jesus responds: “This is God’s work. What you need to do is to believe in the One God has sent.”

The crowd doesn’t get it, so they ask for a proof—something that would remove the risks of faith. If Jesus would continue to provide food, then maybe that would be proof enough.

The crowd’s misunderstanding is understandable enough if they thought of Jesus as the prophet like Moses. There was a popular belief that God would provide manna again in the final days. This was connected with the hopes of a second Exodus. Many people thought that the messiah would come on Passover, and that manna would begin to fall again.

Jesus corrects their theology, and tells them that God is teaching something new. “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven…the heavenly bread which gives life to the world.”

The people still don’t realize that Jesus is trying to tell them that he is the bread of heaven. So, they ask: “Sir, give us this bread always.”

That’s why Jesus says, in verse 35, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

Jesus was trying to tell the crowd that what they wanted…what they expected and hoped for—wasn’t as good as what God wanted to give them.

The people in the crowd longed for something. They knew they needed something, so they asked for what they thought they needed. They wanted something to make their life better—but they weren’t looking for anything that would challenge the way they understood the world. What God was offering was a new word, embodied in Jesus—a new Word which would transform their lives.

In this chapter of John, and throughout the Gospel of John, if we listen closely we realize that Jesus and the crowd often use the same words—but with very different meanings. The crowd keeps misunderstanding what Jesus says, because they’re thinking in earthly terms, while Jesus is speaking in heavenly terms.

“What sign are you going to give us, that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing?” they ask. “What must we do to perform the works of God?”

Did you wonder when you heard this? How can they ask for a sign? Hadn’t they just shared in a miraculous feeding? Apparently, they don’t recognize the sign that has already been enacted before their eyes.

How can they not get it?

Because God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. God’s ways are not our ways. The logic of the world and the logic of the gospel are very different. The call to believe is nothing short of a call to conversion—conversion from the logic of the world--to the logic of God. The call to faith is a conversion from the logic of getting what you want to the logic of receiving what you need. As we grow in the Christian life, the logic of the gospel doesn’t overcome the logic of the world—but it puts it in its place, in its own proper sphere.

That’s why the people had such a hard time understanding what Jesus was saying. Because God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. God’s ways are not our ways. The people in the crowd were trying to understand Jesus in terms of the culture of their day, in terms of the world’s logic… in terms of what was familiar and comfortable to them.

It’s a very human way to respond. All too often we assume that the gospel is a little something we can add on to our present beliefs. The story of the encounter between Jesus and the crowd illustrates the tension between the familiar and the gospel. The text we read today is filled with that tension.

Christ’s invitation to believe in him is nothing short of a call to conversion. It calls us to be open to hear God teaching us new things. In the words of the apostle Paul, we are to be “transformed by the renewal of our minds.”

I believe that behind and beneath all the other hungers, all the longings, all the futile ways we try to satisfy our hunger and restlessness—our most basic hunger is for a word from God. Earlier in his gospel, John quotes the prophet Isaiah in writing that the people “will be taught by God.” Friends, God has not stopped teaching.

One of the essential beliefs of our Reformed tradition is the recognition of the human tendency to idolatry. As human beings, we tend to get comfortable with the values of the society, or the beliefs we have held in the past. When we hear a word from God that doesn’t fit in with the logic of the world, we have a hard time understanding the heavenly logic.

The call to conversion in today’s scripture lesson challenges us to be open to God’s redeeming activity in the world through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit-- even when it doesn’t fit in with our earthly logic.

The Spirit calls us to the new life revealed in Jesus Christ. That’s why we can’t settle in with the comfortable old ways of worshiping and living out our faith. As Presbyterians, we affirm that we are Reformed, and continually being reformed, according to the word of God and the call of the Spirit. Ours is a living, growing faith, which challenges us to a gradual, continuing conversion.

The logic of the world teaches us that we will feel happy and satisfied if only we have enough money and material possessions… bigger, more comfortable homes…or more land. The logic of the world teaches us that we can make ourselves safe and secure by building walls…or through power or military might.

Jesus calls us into a new life and starts messing with that worldly logic, saying we will be happy and blessed if we are meek and merciful…if we make peace… that we should love our enemies… and that we shouldn’t store up earthly treasures.

We are called, as followers of Christ, to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. As the body of Christ, we are called to live in humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

As disciples of Jesus, we are called to be on a journey of learning to see things differently, “to put away your former way of life, your old self…and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”[1]

In Jesus Christ, God offers us an alternative story to shape our lives: the gospel story of how God loves the world…the gospel story of how Jesus came to embody God’s love by living among us, full of grace and truth, proclaiming the reign of God, preaching good news to the poor and release to the captives, teaching by word and deed and blessing the children, healing the sick and binding up the brokenhearted, eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners, and calling all to repent and believe the gospel. In a gift of amazing grace, Jesus gave his very life for us on the cross. God raised Jesus from the dead, overcoming the power of sin and evil, delivering us from death to eternal life.

I believe that this gospel story is much more compelling and transforming than any stories the world gives us. I believe in the power of the gospel story to transform us and to work through us to transform the world.

The gospel story teaches us that the Holy Spirit feeds us with the bread of life and the cup of salvation

This is a story on which we can stake our lives.

Together, we can rejoice in God’s amazing grace and power…which we celebrate in the joyful feast each time we come to the Lord’s Table.

So, let us taste the bread of life. Let us taste and see that it is good! Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

August 5, 2018

[1] Eph. 4:22-24

Sunday, July 29, 2018

"Love and Life for the World." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

"Love and Life for the World"

2 Kings 4:42-44; Ephesians 3:14-21; John 6:1-21

Do you ever find yourself wondering what actually happened in these stories we just heard? A man comes to Elisha bringing food from the first fruits: twenty barley loaves and some fresh ears of grain. Elisha says, “Give it to the people and let them eat.” But his servant can’t see how that will be enough. Elisha had heard God’s promise: “Thus says the LORD, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’

Would you have believed Elisha?

The Bible tells us that Elisha served the twenty barley loaves and the grain, and the hundred people ate, and there was more than enough.

There are similar themes in the gospel lesson we just heard.

The gospel lesson we just heard is one of the few stories that John and the other gospel writers tell in common. It’s the only miracle story that appears in all four gospels. So, it must have been important to the early church.

After this, Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. The verses leading up to today’s gospel lesson set the context. The crowds are following because they saw Jesus perform SIGNS. Jesus has healed the official’s son and a man by the pool. The amazing things Jesus has been doing create a sense of anticipation for what is to come.

A large crowd was following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing on the sick. Jesus went up on the mountain and sat down with his disciples.

Jesus looked around at the large crowd and asked Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people can eat?

John tells us that Jesus said this to test Philip, as he already knew what he would do.

Philip answered Jesus, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread wouldn’t be enough for each of them to get a little.”

Then Andrew said, “There’s a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish--but what are they for so many?” Andrew sees the possibilities, but he’s still concerned that they don’t have enough.

Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” John mentions that there was a lot of grass in the area, which made it a comfortable place to sit down and have a picnic.

There are four gospel stories that tell about Jesus feeding 5,000, and Matthew’s and Mark each add a similar story about Jesus feeding 4,000. In all six stories, there are lots of left-overs!

At the center of the story is a miracle.

Now, if I were to tell you that it happened exactly the way the story says it did, some of you might get a little cranky. Some folk have a hard time believing that sort of thing… or would tell us that nothing like that has ever happened to you.

The way some people get more comfortable with this story is to explain that of course many of the five thousand people had a little food tucked away in their tunics—something they planned to sneak off and eat by themselves—but that Jesus got them to share what they had, so that there was plenty for everyone, with twelve baskets left over. According to that kind of thinking, the MIRACLE is that Jesus got them to share.

I think that interpretation has some merit, and it’s helpful to some folk who struggle with how to interpret the miracle stories in the Bible.

But that’s not what the Bible says. and that when the people saw it, they knew who he was. They understood the feeding of the five thousand as God’s divine hand in human affairs—God’s supernatural interruption of the natural order. There was bread where there hadn’t been any bread…fish where there hadn’t been any fish. That proved who Jesus was to them…and established their faith in him. The miracle made people believe. It gave them faith where there had been no faith—the same as it gave them food where there had been no food.

I’m not going to try to tell you how it happened that Jesus was able to feed thousands of people that day in the Galilee, because I can’t explain it in a pat, rational way that would satisfy everyone. But I believe the gospel writers when they say that something amazing and extraordinary happened, and that many hungry people got fed-- when it looked like there wouldn’t be enough. In the midst of what looked like scarcity, there was abundance!

I think it was C.S. Lewis who said that a miracle is something that takes your freedom away along with your doubts… something that leaves you no choice but to believe. You witness a miracle—or, as John the Evangelist would say, a "sign"-- and it makes you have faith.

But I’m not so sure about that. Without faith, there are always other explanations for even the best of miracles. You say you heard the voice of God? It sounded like ordinary thunder to me. She was healed of her illness? It was probably psychosomatic in the first place.

Come to think of it, though, is there proof for anything that really matters in the world? Are there homegrown, ordinary miracles you can think of—that there’s no evidence for… nothing that could prove them to anyone else…or to you—if you didn’t believe in them first.

Could it be that we’ve gotten it all backwards somehow? Maybe faith doesn’t come after miracles—but before them? Perhaps what makes something holy--what makes it a glowing and life-giving wonder—isn’t something about it…but about us.

In today’s gospel lesson we hear echoes of the Passover-Exodus story. Chapter five ended with complaints about a shallow, superficial understanding of Moses. But chapter six intends to show a deeper, fuller understanding of Moses and the Passover, which is now revealed in Jesus.

When Jesus miraculously feeds the multitude in the wilderness, the people remember the promise that God will raise up a prophet like Moses, and they confess that Jesus is that prophet. What they fail to realize what this sign actually reveals. Instead of seeing in Jesus the embodiment of God’s glory, love, and Word, they see a king…a political or military figure they hope will serve their desires. The crowds are missing the point of what’s happening. They see Jesus’ gracious gift--but they want him to manifest a glory that fits into their assumption and serves their goals.

How often do we fail to see the depths of what God is doing, because we’re focused on what serves our desires? How often do we fail to realize how graciously God is acting among us, for our sake and for the sake of the whole world?

We only see partially and in distorted ways. We need the continuing word of Jesus and the gift of his presence, if we are to move more deeply into God’s glory.

When the story moves to the next scene, we hear more echoes of Passover.

Jesus, knowing that the people in the crowd wanted to make him king by force, had withdrawn again to a mountain by himself. Then, when evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat and set off across the lake. A strong wind was blowing, and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water…and they were frightened.

But Jesus said to them, “It is I. Don’t be afraid.” Or, more accurately, we could read Jesus’ response as “I am.” “I am” and “Don’t be afraid” are the language of theophany.[1] I think Brian Peterson is right when he suggests that, in John’s language, it’s a “sign,” a window into the glory of God present in this world through Jesus.[2]

Like the crowds in John 6, we have been fed by God’s grace and mercy and care and steadfast love. Like them, we often fail to see what God is doing among us. We look for a Messiah or king who will serve our desires or our agendas.

But God is up to something far greater than anything we could imagine. Jesus comes to dwell among us, full of grace and truth, to reveal to us God’s love. Jesus comes across the fearful, lonely, empty, dangerous times and places and says, “Don’t be afraid. I am.”

He calls us to feed the hungry--to provide food and clean water to those who lack the basic things of life. But we look around and we’re afraid that our resources aren’t sufficient to meet all the needs. We’re afraid there won’t be enough.

Perhaps part of the miracle of our life of faith is that we creatures are able to make use of our freedom: to believe in spite of our doubts…to have faith without proof…and that because of those capacities in us, miraculous things do happen from time to time. Some of them are extraordinary. But most of them as ordinary as the voices of our fellow human beings telling us that we are loved…that we are precious in their sight and God’s…that they want to link their lives with ours…that together we can, with God’s help, change the world.

Together, we can practice trusting in God’s abundance and grace. Together, we can receive from Jesus’ hand what he gives and go out into the world with the gifts.

All life and all good gifts come from God. Jesus keeps coming to us to open our hearts and our hands to those around us…to open our eyes to his presence. He keeps encouraging us: “I am. Don’t be afraid.”

In the epistle lesson we heard, we hear Paul praying that the church, according to the riches of God’s glory, “may be strengthened in your inner being with power through God’s Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love… that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

As Gentile readers of the twenty-first century, do we get it? This message is for us, no less than to the ancient church in Ephesus. God has a plan for us, for us to be strengthened in our inner being with power through God’s Spirit…for Christ to dwell in our hearts through faith…for us to be rooted and grounded in love…for us to be filled with the fullness of God. We come together to be fed…filled…to open our lives to God in prayer…and to be transformed by God’s power.

Do we believe in that kind of miracle-- the kind of miracle in which we believe enough in God’s grace and power to risk giving our lives in prayer?

The GOOD NEWS is that—if we give our lives in prayer—we can begin to comprehend that God is within and around us. We’ll begin to see ourselves and everyone else differently. When we give ourselves in prayer, we begin to see the world in terms of God’s economy of abundance. When we give ourselves in prayer, I believe the things that break God’s heart break our hearts too…and we begin to comprehend what Jesus meant when he said, “How blessed are those who mourn! How blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness! How blessed are the peacemakers!”

When we’re weary from responsibilities with family, work, and church, the vision of God leads us back to the way of love and LIFE.

When we pray, God gives us the courage to risk. We learn to trust not in ourselves, but in something far bigger than we are. We live with what Brett Younger calls “a muffled but persistent sense of the holy.” [3]

What kind of a miracle might we experience if we pray for a bigger vision of God? What kind of a miracle might we be a part of-- if we pray that we will see our life in the center of God’s goodness…that Christ might dwell in our hearts? What kind of a miracle might it be if God overwhelms us with grace and it overflows in our lives and makes a difference in the world?

So… let us pray for faith in God’s power working in our world and in our leaders. Let us pray for God’s power in us to do everything that we can do to stop terrible hatred and violence in our world. Let there truly be peace on earth, and let it begin with you and me.

Now, to the One who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.

Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

July 29, 2018

[1] Exodus 3:14; Isaiah 43:10, 25; 4`:12; Genesis 15:1; Exodus 14a;13.

[2] Brian Peterson, Commentary on John 6:1-21 at https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3749

[3] Lectionary Homiletics, July 30, 2006, p. 80.

Sunday, July 22, 2018

"Like Sheep Without a Shepherd." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

"Like Sheep Without a Shepherd"

Jeremiah 23:1-6; Mark 6:30-34, 53-56; Ephesians 2:11-22; Psalm 23

Woe! This passage begins with the cry that marks an oracle of destruction. “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!”

The shepherd is a common ancient metaphor for leaders, and for kings in particular. Jeremiah shares with the prophet Ezekiel the conviction that leaders bear more responsibility than their people for social justice.[1]

There’s a persistent ethical theme throughout the Hebrew Bible. God requires the community to be ruled with justice and righteousness, which is to be made manifest in how they treat the alien, the orphan, and the widow.[2] But, as Elaine James suggests, rulers who seek their own fortune, who expand their houses and enrich their coffers at the expense of the poor are in egregious violation of God’s covenant, and will be held accountable.[3]

Jeremiah continues proclaiming a word from the LORD: “Therefore…concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended them. So, I will attend to you for your evil doings.”

The prophet speaks with tenderness and compassion on behalf of the people. Judah’s political leaders have been corrupt and have failed the people, but God is the shepherd who will ultimately redeem the people.

In Psalm 23, which we heard earlier, we hear similar images of a divine shepherd who is a source of comfort and life. In the scriptures, we hear assurances that, while corrupt leadership has “scattered” the sheep, God will “gather the remnant of my flock.” God will act as the good shepherd, as a model of just rule and care.

Jesus is described in these terms in the passage we heard today from Mark’s gospel. Jesus sees that the crowd of people are “like sheep without a shepherd,” and has compassion on them.

The imagery of shepherds and flocks of sheep would have been well-known to people in ancient times. The shepherd--and by analogy the king-- is responsible for the well-being of the sheep: to feed them, protect them, guide them.

But the opening verses of Jeremiah 23 accuse the shepherds of destroying and scattering God’s sheep. The kings have not been good shepherds. The sheep are in exile, scattered among the nations. God’s anger is aroused by the “evil doings” of the descendants of King David who ruled Judah, who probably included Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah.[4]

Jeremiah prophesied that each king had failed to “execute justice in the morning and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed.”[5]

The chapters leading up to today’s passage from Jeremiah provide context. The Bible tells us that King Josiah, who reigned from 640--609 BCE, “judged the cause of the poor and the needy.”[6] In contrast, the “eyes and heart of Josiah’s heirs were set on “dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence.”[7]

Jeremiah prophesied in the final years of the Kingdom of Judah, through the reign of the last king, Zedekiah. These were turbulent times for the leaders of ancient Judah. The seats of power in the ancient Near East had shifted. The Assyrian imperial dominance of the past hundred years was waning, and the Babylonian empire was on the rise. This international upheaval left the kings in the little nation of Judah with some very difficult decisions. Would they pay taxes to the new empire in Babylon, or should they side with their neighbor Egypt? Could they be independent and refuse to pay tribute to either one? It turns out that the decision to withhold tribute--against Jeremiah’s advice-- would not end well. The shepherds of Judah made policy decisions that placed the people in jeopardy and ultimately led to their exile.[8]

As biblical scholar Elna Solvang points out, while Zedekiah’s name means “my righteousness is the LORD,” his reign was far from righteous.[9]

As I worked with the passage from Jeremiah for today, I realized I needed a bit of a refresher course on the context, so I could interpret the passage accurately. In my Introduction to the Old Testament class at Princeton Seminary, we were required to memorize the names and order of the kings of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel and the prophets who prophesied in each of those times. But that was a long time ago.

As I did some reading, it occurred to me that all this background might sound pretty political to a lot of people. It sounds political-- because it is political. Jeremiah was prophesying in response to what was going on, and he was bringing a word of judgment from God to the political leaders of his time.

Jeremiah’s prophecy is rooted in a challenge to corrupt and ineffectual government over the people, a critique of the “shepherds” who have destroyed and scattered God’s sheep.

After pronouncing judgment on the evil shepherds, God promises to shepherd God’s people Godself and then to raise up shepherds over them. In this promise, we hear hope for peace, security, and prosperity, all of which are rooted in the faithfulness of God.

Jeremiah’s prophecy offers a vision of God’s breaking into human history, but it is clear that we aren’t yet living in the state of shalom for which we long, where justice and peace rule. The prophecy points us to the “already” and the “not-yet” of God’s work among us.

The gospels tell us that the people in Jesus’ day had been hoping for a Messiah who would come with armies and rule with might… a Messiah who would provide for peace through war and by defeating their worldly enemies.

But Jesus showed us that God shepherds and protects God’s people not through violence, but by offering God’s very self, and by teaching us to love even our enemies. Jesus revolutionizes our understanding of what God’s promise of security and prosperity mean in the kin-dom of God. Governments are true to God’s purposes only when they rule in congruence with Christ’s self-giving and understanding of love that is at the heart of the gospel.

Jeremiah has often been called “the weeping prophet.” We hear the prophets crying, “Woe!” and weeping over that which grieves God, calling us to lament corruption and destruction and injustice. They speak of the grief of God that the people need to share, because--without it--there can be no newness. They point us to a vision of how God intends God’s people to live, and they make claims on us regarding “the execution of justice and rightness in the land.”

So, how do we live in response to the hope we have been promised? How do we live into the new life God desires for us?

Some of us may feel “like sheep without a shepherd.” Will there be shepherds for us who are different from former shepherds?-- shepherds who will choose to be good shepherds, who will attend to the justice, protection, mercy, and righteousness that mirror God’s shepherding?

Just as the people of Judah could respond to bad shepherding by being cynical about their leaders, we too might be struggling with cynicism.

We look around and we remember that children in Flint have had their lives and their potential forever changed due to lead in the water… that thousands of poor families in Detroit are living without running water… that many people in Puerto Rico live without electrical power. We see images of children separated from their families at our southern border. We worry about the stripping of the social safety net while the wealthiest get tax breaks.

In Paul's letter to the church at Corinth, he tells them that, from now on... we regard no one from a human point of view.... if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation...from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Godself and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.^{^[10]}

That ministry of reconciliation is still our calling. For Christ is our peace. In his flesh, he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility between us.

Christ came proclaiming peace to those who were far off and peace to those who were near.... No one is to be a stranger or alien, but citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.... joined together and growing into a holy temple in the Lord... built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.^{^[11]}

In the passage from the letter to the Ephesians, we see a glimpse of the new community: So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.

The good news of Christian faith, according to the letter to the Ephesians, is that, in this broken world, reconciliation is no longer merely a dream, a longing for what once was, a hope for what someday might be-- but something that already is. Into a world still torn by death, sin, and hostility, Christ came proclaiming “peace to you who were far off and peace to those who are near.”

In a time when we hear a lot of talk about building barriers along our nation’s southern border to prevent illegal immigrants from entering, a time when Israelis have built a wall to separate themselves from the Palestinians, and other territories are protected by barriers and demilitarized zones to keep enemies apart.

Now, eliminating boundaries doesn’t in itself create peace. Peace comes by eliminating the hostility behind the dividing walls. God doesn’t just tear down walls, but unites people in the One who is our peace, creating one new humanity.

Some of us are old enough to remember the day the Berlin Wall came down. Most of us never expected it to happen in our lifetimes, and the feelings of surprise and possibility were palpable. If this wall could fall, what else?

The end of apartheid in South Africa brought even more hope and excitement. The divisions of black, white, and colored of the Apartheid system were coming apart, and reconciliation became possible.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa said he believes that God’s hand was in that miracle.

“God saw our brokenness and sought to extricate us from it-- but only with our cooperation. God will not cajole or bully us, but wants to woo us for our own sakes. We might say that the Bible is the story of God’s attempt to effect atonement, to bring us back to our intended condition of relatedness. God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to God. God sent Jesus who would fling out his arms on the cross as if to embrace us. God wants to draw us back into an intimate relationship and so bring to unity all that has become dis-united. This was God’s intention from the beginning. And each of us is called to be an ally of God in this work of justice and reconciliation.”

In the midst of all the brokenness and fearfulness and busy-ness and weariness and cynicism and hopelessness in our world, our Shepherd God keeps calling us into beloved, Sabbath community, where we can be fed and find rest, a community where we can encourage, console and celebrate with each other, renew our vision… and remind one another that we were put in this world for Gods good purposes.

Thanks be to God! Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

July 22, 2018

[1] Ezekiel uses this same metaphor to speak of the exile of Judah in Babylon in Ezekiel 34.

[2] Jeremiah 22:3-4

[3] Elaine James also cites Jeremiah 22:13-17 in her “Commentary on Jeremiah 23:1-6,” in Working Preacher blog, at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3701

[4] Jeremiah 22:11-12, Jeremiah 22:18, Jeremiah 22:24-30, Jeremiah 21:3-7.

[5] Jeremiah 21:12a

[6] Jeremiah 22:16

[7] Jeremiah 22:17

[8] Jeremiah 27:4-8

[9] Elna K. Solvang, in Commentary on Jeremiah 23:1-6 at Working Preacher blog, at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=349

^{^[10]}2 Corinthians 5:16-19

1 ^{^[11]}Ephesians 2:13-22