Reign of Christ
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Colossians 1:15-20
November 20, 2022
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
Image: 6th century mosaic Transfiguration in Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy.
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCkxzaozVpw
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep”
When the prophets say “woe”, it is never a good sign. “Woe” means “look out”. It means that someone has some ‘splaining to do. It means what went around is gonna come around.
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of God’s pasture,” Jeremiah proclaims.
The Bible loves to refer to people as sheep. So when it says shepherd, it usually means a person who is charged with caring for people. Sometimes it means pastors. There church traditions which refer to their ministers as under-shepherds, because Jesus is the Good Shepherd. And sometimes, I have heard you refer to members of Emmanuel as part of the flock, which picks up the same idea. We might legitimately read “woe to the pastors who destroy and scatter God’s sheep” These are terrifying words. Trust me, that is not a reading that I take lightly.
In Jeremiah’s time, the term shepherd was most often a reference to the king. It was a reminder for those who ruled Israel, that they were to care for the people as a shepherd cares for the flock, guiding them to restful pastures, leading them to clear water, not ruling by the sword or punitive laws. In the previous chapter, Jeremiah had delivered some specific expectations from God to the king:
“Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place.” (Jeremiah 22:3)
Those expectations were not met. Our reading today is the word from God that comes after the king was inattentive, preoccupied with his own well-being and ignoring the most vulnerable under his care. Which is when Jeremiah speaks up to say “Woe.” What is coming for Israel is the Babylonian invasion and exile. Woe be unto the leaders who have brought this on their people by caring more about their own wealth and power than the common good.
This Sunday is the last Sunday of the church year. Next week, is the first Sunday of Advent which is the start of the church year. In the Christian traditions which pay attention to these things, today is called Reign of Christ Sunday.
Reign of Christ Sunday is less than a hundred years old. It was established by Pope Pius in 1925. That was when the world was still reeling from the bloodshed of WWI. It was a time of rising nationalism and fascism as Mussolini, Stalin, Franco and Hitler came into leadership. In 1925, 40,000 members of the Klan marched in Washington using their “America First” slogan. Pope Pius wanted to re-establish the kingdom of Christ with peace in Christ and so he created this liturgical event to refocus on Jesus and away from unquestioning loyalty to earthly powers. Some of us might consider that and see that history is repeating itself 100 years later. Or we might look back to Jeremiah and see that it has been repeating itself for centuries.
While pronouncing the woes on the bad shepherds, Jeremiah also conveys hope to the sheep. God is on the side of those who suffer because of bad leadership. God will gather the flock. Not acting through a human agent this time, God will be the shepherd to bring them home from exile. Only after they are safely returned, will new human shepherds be established. Then kings will do what shepherds are supposed to do. A second promise is that God has not abandoned the house of David. A new king will come who will reign with righteousness and justice and peace for the good of all.[1]
Five hundred years later, some first century Jewish persons came to understand that this righteousness was embodied in Jesus of Nazareth. It is the reign of Jesus the Christ that will bring peace and healing and well-being to all. Jesus the Christ is the one who demands our highest allegiance.
The letter to the Colossians tells us that Jesus is the exact image of the invisible God, and that in Jesus all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Jesus is not a stand-in, not an understudy for God. Jesus is not cardboard cut-out of God. All the fullness of God dwells in Jesus. The visible Jesus shows us the invisible God. That is mystery which we can only begin to articulate.
Sometimes, before or after funerals, people talk to me about mystery. It happened this week. Someone who attended Sally’s funeral, told me about an experience they witnessed when someone was near death. Before the person died, the onlooker thought they were seeing a hallucination or confusion from an unclear mind. After the person died, they re-interpreted it and wondered whether the one who was dying was able to see into another reality. They aren’t sure, but are keeping an open mind about that possibility.
Colossians tells us that in Christ God is at work in the world, in the whole universe, and that we need to open our eyes, our minds to the vast mystery. It encourages our trust in the goodness of a reality that we cannot see, the image of the invisible God.
Paul piles up the words to try to communicate the enormity of God’s work in Jesus the Christ. “In him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible, and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers.”
In Christ, all things hold together. As the Rev. Fred Anderson says, “This tells us that this world is not under the control of national leaders, thirsty for power, or weapons of mass destruction--nuclear or otherwise--nor those crazed with a religious zeal . . . What holds this world together is not the survival of the fittest nor the unending cycle of violence since Cain and Abel acted out in the various theaters of hatred in today's world, nor even the continuing biological cycle of birth, life, death, decay and re-birth that we see in nature. What holds this world together is the power--the life force--of the One who created and redeemed it and who in sovereignty over it all continues to hold it together. The cosmos belongs to the Cosmic Christ and will not be wrested from him; in him all things hold together”[2]
There is a pattern to New Testament poems about Christ. They usually speak of his pre-existence, then his time on earth, and then his return to heaven. We would expect the center of this to be his death on the cross or his resurrection, but instead of that, right in the middle this one says “Christ is the head of the body, the church.”[3] The church, for all its weakness and struggles and even sin, is where Christ is now present on earth.
This is another way that history repeats. In the time of the prophets, God took action for God’s people, but then shared the power of leadership with future shepherds. In the unfolding story of God’s work throughout history . . . God creates and restores on our behalf, but always God gives the work back to us to carry forward.”
You and I are called to manifest that reign of Christ in our lives, seeking reconciliation where there is alienation, healing where there is brokenness. We know there is profound brokenness in God’s good creation. We know that the task of human beings is to till and to keep the creation. We are made in God’s image. God has given us responsibility for our own lives and for the care of God’s good creation. God has high hopes for us, high expectations of us, and Christ, the firstborn from creation and the firstborn from the dead, is our sovereign.
This is mystery and poetry and more of my words are not going to make it any clearer. So, let me turn back to poetry and the words of Brian Walsh, as he reflects on Colossians:
“In the face of a culture of death
a world of killing fields
a world of the walking dead
Christ is at the head of the resurrection parade
transforming our tears of betrayal into tears of joy
giving us dancing shoes for the resurrection party
And this glittering joker
who has danced in the dragon's jaws of death
now dances with a dance that is full
of nothing less than the fullness of God
this is the dance of the new creation
this is the dance of life out of death
and in this dance all that was broken
all that was estranged
all that was alienated
all that was dislocated and disconnected
is reconciled
comes home
is healed
and is made whole
everything
all things
whatever you can imagine
visible and invisible
mountains and atoms
outer space, urban space, and cyberspace
every inch of creation
every dimension of our lives
all things are reconciled in him
And it all happens on a cross
it all happens at a state execution
where the governor did not commute the sentence
it all happens at the hands of the empire
that has captivated our imaginations
it all happens through blood
not through a power grab by the sovereign one
it all happens in embraced pain
for the sake of others
it all happens on a cross
arms outstretched in embrace
and this is the image of the invisible God
this is the body of Christ. [4]
Thanks be to God.
[1] Walter Brueggemann, A Commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and Homecoming, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns, 1998). p 206-207
[2] Rev. Dr. Fred Anderson, http://day1.org/1074-image_of_the_invisiblesermon at www.day1.net, November 25, 2007
[3] Ben Witherington, The Letters to Philemon, the Colossians, and the Ephesians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on the Captivity Epistles (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns, 2007) p 132
[4] Sylvia Keesmat and Brian Walsh, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004). pp 88-89