“The Shepherd Speaks”
A sermon preached for University Presbyterian Church
by Anna Pinckney Straight
November 23, 2008
Ezekiel 34:11-24
For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of
In the time of Ezekiel, the prophet, the situation was grim. The outlook was worse. The people were in exile. They were defeated. They were living away from home, physically and spiritually. It had been a long time coming, their exile. This separation from their land and their God which was more the result of their own disorientation and less a result of the strength of an ambitious enemy. These children of God had not been seeing with their eyes or their hearts. Through stubborn denial of the life to which they had been called by God, they had hurdled blindly and determinedly into this place of despair and dislocation.
This is how Walter Brueggemann describes Ezekiel[1]:
Most of the people in
Some, however, had noticed-a very few. They were regarded as cranks. There was Jeremiah, who reprimanded and spoke out of his dismay. There was Ezekiel, who had fantasies and hallucinations. Call them prophets. They were hostile and abrasive. Their speeches were unwelcome. But they noticed what no one else noticed. That is their significance. That is why we preserve their words - they were the only ones who saw death coming.
Ezekiel, the one who hallucinated, did not challenge the common notion that you need technology, muscle and power for security. He never even commented on that assumption. He did not think efforts at defense and security were important, but he did not argue about it. When he saw death coming, he interrupted the planning and deployment with a different agenda. You cannot have peace if you lie to each other, he said. You cannot have well-being if you do not speak the truth to each other. All the weapons in the world will not save you from your lies.
Ezekiel did not blame the king, the government, the military or the war planners for this terrible death to come. He blamed the religious community, the clergy, the prophets…. Ezekiel blamed the religious community because that community is responsible for truth-telling…
And since the religious community would not tell the truth, Ezekiel did. With words which were painfully honest and brutally revealing.
Brueggemann continues…
Ezekiel watched over
God promises peacemaking. That peacemaking by God only happens, however, when there is truth-telling - costly, urgent and subversive. That is the work of the church.
Ezekiel spoke while he waited for people to notice what had been happening and to begin to open their eyes. And when they did, Ezekiel made sure that he had words of promise that were every bit as strong as his words of condemnation had been. Ezekiel heard the truth, and it enabled him to speak the truth.
He brought them words from the Shepherd. The God that they were only beginning to get to know again. Ezekiel comforted them with an image created in words to help them recall- they are not alone. They are not forgotten. They are cared for, beloved, children of God.
“they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of
They are words of comfort for a people who are hurting. Hurting because of their dislocation and hurting again because of the honest self-assessment they are now undertaking.
God will gather this dislocated and scattered people. God will gather them, so they can begin their journey home. God will give them the location for which they are hungering so desperately.
We are invited to take this journey, too. Today is Christ the King Sunday. Next week, it will be the first Sunday of Advent. It is a time of year when we, too, begin to think about going home.
For some of us, this is literally what will be happening. We will be going home for the holidays. Travelling to be with others for thanksgiving. Welcoming family and friends into our homes. Eating familiar foods, telling familiar stories. Acknowledging the ties that hold us together.
For some of us, this time of holiday is one when the exile, the loneliness or grief is far more evident because of the reunions and community all around us.
For all of us, we are all being invited to begin a spiritual journey home. To begin taking the steps that will lead us to
And as we begin this journey, we are in a place remarkably similar to those to whom Ezekiel was speaking, this year more than almost any other year I can remember. Ahead of us, as a nation, a community, is a tremendous opportunity to do things a new way. It is exhilarating and terrifying, all at the same time.
The liturgical year invites us to begin this journey by considering, first, the landscape of our current location. To consider where we might go by first figuring out where we are: how God is our Shepherd. How Christ is our King.
Of course, God isn’t like any other shepherd. Shepherds were concerned for the health of the flock, but they wanted as many fat and healthy sheep as possible. They wanted to turn a profit, and that meant encouraging the big and the healthy. God, Ezekiel tells us, is a different kind of shepherd. God doesn’t value the fat sheep more than the others, in fact, God will push the fat sheep away from the food. God cares for the lost and the forgotten. Wants the food to be shared and the safety to be known by all.
Christ isn’t like any other King. Kings were concerned with the centralization of wealth and power, nation building and keeping others out to avoid spreading the prosperity too thin. Christ the King, on the other hand, was concerned first and only about love and forgiveness, about the expansion of peace and truth. The sharing of resources so abundance is recognized by all.
On Christ the King Sunday, we remember just how different a King and a Shepherd we worship.
But I can’t help but wonder, for as much as we think about how God is a different King and Shepherd that we expect, maybe that’s not the most radical thing at play in this moment. Maybe, the most radical truth we are called to consider is not how God is different from what we expect, maybe the most radical truth at play in God’s word for us today is how God sees US in ways that we do not expect.
Maybe the most radical truth at play in God’s word for us today is how God sees US in ways that we do not expect.
Maybe the thing we are being called to consider this week and this year is that even though we are sheep who have hoarded our food, scared the weak away, or wandered on paths of our own creation, we are cared for by a shepherd who does not give up, but searches and calls our names to come and be a community, one with another, together, with concern and care for all.
In consideration of this passage, Kathleen Norris writes, “The human imagination, battered and torn by our fears and limitations, comes from a God who asks us to see ourselves and our world in a new way. How we choose to return this remarkable gift to God is entirely up to us.”[2]
On this Christ the King Sunday, I believe we are not only being invited to consider the King but to give some time to the nature of Christ’s Kingdom, and what visions God has for our life together.
Catholic theologian Hans Küng writes these words about this kingdom[3],
What kind of Kingdom will this be? It will be a Kingdom where, in accordance with Jesus’ prayer, Gods’ name is truly hallowed, his will is done on earth, human beings will have everything in abundance, all sin will be forgiven and all evil overcome. It will be a Kingdom where, in accordance with Jesus’ promises, the poor, the hungry, those who weep and those who are downtrodden will finally come into their own; where pain, suffering and death will have an end. It will be a Kingdom that cannot be described, but only made known in metaphors: as the new covenant, the seed springing up, the ripe harvest, the great banquet, the royal feast. It will therefore be a Kingdom – wholly as the prophets foretold – of absolute righteousness, of unsurpassable freedom, of dauntless love, of universal reconciliation, of everlasting peace. In this sense therefore it will be the time of salvation, of fulfillment, of consummation, of God’s presence: the absolute future.
Can you see it? Can you dream it? It is possible not because of the way that we view God, but because of the way that God sees us. As children of God, sheep worthy of shepherding. As residents in, subjects of, Christ’s kingdom.
It is a vision, a vision Ezekiel shared with his people, too, this way God sees us, that God sees even when we do not.
God see us as sheep worth of shepherding, as subjects worthy of Christ the King, even when we do not.
We are not alone or forgotten, we are beloved children of a God who wants to care for us and lead us in the way of righteousness and justice. We are beloved children of God who must hear the truth in order to speak the truth.
And today, I’m wondering.
If Christ wants to be our King, are we willing to be subjects in his kingdom?
If God wants to be our Shepherd, are we willing to be shepherded?
[1] Walter Brueggemann, “Truth-telling and Peacemaking: A Reflection on Ezekiel,” in Christian Century ,
November 30, 1998, pp.1096-1098.
[2] Kathleen Norris, “Imagining Christ,” in Christian Century, November 15, 2005, p. 18.
[3] Hans Küng, On Being a Christian trans, Edward Quinn (London: William Collins Sons & Co, 1977), p. 215.
Found in Resources for Preaching and Worship, Year B, Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild, eds., 262.
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