Delivered November 24, 2019 at Hope Presbyterian, Mitchellville, MD
Texts: Jeremiah 23:1-6, Luke 23: 33-43
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“Woe to the shepherds” …If any of you were thinking about getting a jump on Advent and Christmas, I hope the opening of today’s passage from Jeremiah caused you to reconsider. It’s not Advent yet, so instead of angels telling shepherds “Do not be afraid” and “Unto us this night a child is born in Bethlehem, the city of David,” we get “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture.”
These don’t sound like very good shepherds. Destroying and scatting the sheep is exactly what shepherds are supposed to not do. It’s the opposite of the job. These shepherds aren’t just not good at their job. I don’t even think we can say they are bad at their job. A bad shepherd might lose a few sheep, but to scatter and destroy…that’s an entirely different thing. These aren’t shepherds who tried and failed. These are shepherds who, at the most generous interpretation, simply ignored the sheep. At worst, these are shepherds who actively sought to harm the flock. I think these were shepherds who wanted to be wolves.
Of course, Jeremiah is not speaking of literal shepherds: this is a metaphor for the political leaders of Judah, the Southern Kingdom.
This metaphor Jeremiah is developing is one we see elsewhere in Scripture—certainly we see a lot of it in the New Testament, but it also appears throughout the Hebrew Scripture. We can go all the way back to the book of Genesis. Jacob, the man who wrestled with God and earned the name Israel, the father of the 12 brothers from whom we get the 12 tribes of Israel, Jacob was a shepherd. Moving forward, Moses, before he led the Israelites out of Egypt, was a shepherd.
The idea of the shepherd leader is deeply rooted within the church. Even the title “Pastor” is derived from the Latin word for “Shepherd.”
What is it that makes the shepherd a good model for leadership?
A shepherd’s job is to keep the flock together, to keep the flock safe, and to lead the flock from place to place for grazing and water.
The shepherd keeps the flock together for safety. A single, stray lamb is an easy target for a predator, but the flock can defend itself.
The shepherd can’t effectively lead with force—the sheep will come to see the shepherd as a threat and will work to get away. The shepherd needs to be safe for the flock or they will leave.
The shepherd needs to keep the flock moving—the flock can’t become stagnant and can’t stay in one place, or they will eat and trample all the grass, and drink and foul the water.
Perhaps most importantly though, the flock does not belong to the shepherd…at least, not usually. The shepherd is subject to a higher authority—the owner of the flock.
Do you see how these are good qualities in a human leader?
People, too, are most vulnerable when they are, or feel alone—not just to external threats, but also to internal threats—to illness, both physical and mental. We need community.
People also can’t be led with force, at least, not for long. Force, fear, and intimidation may work in the short term, but the long history of revolutions show it always fails.
People also need guidance. We can look to the effects of climate change and other pollution in our immediate environments. We can look to areas that still lack reliable access to safe water and food. We can look to far too many places to see how desperately we need leadership in the care for our environment, because without it, we will continue to exhaust it.
And like the sheep do not belong to the shepherd, we do not belong to our leaders. We do not belong to our Pastors or our politicians. We are children of God.
The leaders of Jeremiahs’ time have failed to remember this. They have failed to listen to those who tried to warn them, not only Jeremiah, but many others.
In preparing this sermon, I kept feeling God pulling me back to one of those warnings, found in 1st Samuel.
Like Jacob, Moses was a shepherd before he was a leader of people. This experience, especially finding water, surely served him well during the 40 years in the desert.
Moses died just before entering the Holy Land, so leadership passed to Joshua first, and then to a series of Judges, local officials whose principal political job was resolving disputes, and who would, on occasion, rise to greater prominence for a time. The last of these judges was a man named Samuel, for whom not one, but 2 books of the Bible are named. In chapter 8 of First Samuel, we read that Samuel was getting old, so he appointed his sons as judges.
Unfortunately, Samuel’s sons were bad judges. They took bribes and worked for their own benefit. The people were not pleased, and so they came to Samuel and they asked for something Israel had not yet had: a king. All around Israel, other peoples were becoming more organized in larger groups, amassing more military power than before, and doing so under the leadership of kings.
So, in 1 Samuel, Chapter 8, verses 5 through 22, the elders came to Samuel
“and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.” But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” Samuel prayed to the LORD, and the LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me, from the day I brought them up out of Egypt to this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so also they are doing to you. Now then, listen to their voice; only– you shall solemnly warn them, and show them the ways of the king who shall reign over them.” So Samuel reported all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and his courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves, and the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves; but the LORD will not answer you in that day.” But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; they said, “No! but we are determined to have a king over us, so that we also may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.” When Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the LORD. The LORD said to Samuel, “Listen to their voice and set a king over them.”
Samuel’s description of the things the King will do is not a threat. He is simply stating the things that Kings do. Kings are not Judges. Kings are not shepherds. Kings are like wolves. Kings do not gently guide the flock from place to place. Kings command. Kings do not think that they lead only on behalf of God. Kings beleive they are Gods.
This is what has happened to the people in the time of Jeremiah. The Kings of Israel and Judah have failed to act as shepherds but have become wolves. One Kingdom became two. The people ceased to be God’s flock to be protected and became the Kings flock to be profited from. The safety of the Northern Kingdom was lost a generation before to the Assyrians, and the Babylonians have conquered first the Assyrians and now Judah, because no matter how much hope we place in human leaders and military might, there will always come a stronger king.
But, unlike many passages from Jeremiah, today, we are not left without hope. Jeremiah promises that God will gather the people together again, that the exile will end, and that there will come a new King out of the house of David—David who, before becoming King, was a shepherd. Jeremiah promises a king who will rule justly and wisely, who will keep the people safe and restore the kingdom.
We hear this now as pointing to Jesus, especially when we follow that text with, well, really any passage from one of the Gospels.
I think still though, about the confusion that so many must have felt when Jesus was crucified. I know, it’s not Easter. Today is not about the crucifixion. It’s not even about the resurrection. Today is meant to remind us that in the end, it is Christ who rules over us all. No matter what kinds of confusion, chaos, and suffering we may face because of our human leaders, their power is fleeting. As Jesus was on the cross in today’s text from Luke, they mocked him, asking why he did not save himself. They mocked him because they did not yet understand that Jesus was a model for a different kind of leadership: one in which a leader never puts their own needs before the needs of the community. One in which the protection of the flock is the only priority. They had expected a king who would unite the people and drive out the Romans: a military genius who would, like David, defeat this new Goliath. But this is not the model of leadership in the New Covenant. Jesus came to change the cycle of King after King, Empire after Empire.
Jesus did not save himself, because doing so would not have changed the world. Jesus did not save himself because claiming that title the Romans spat at him and mocked him with, King of the Jews, would have limited him—he was not King of the Jews but Lord and King of All. Jesus is a new kind of King, then and now. Jesus is our King.