Jeremiah 23:1-6, Psalm 23, Ephesians 2:11-22, Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
The Rev. Candice B. Frazer
“They were like sheep without a shepherd” … “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter”… “The Lord is my shepherd.” I wonder if we are catching on to a theme here.
The use of shepherding language in the Old Testament is associated with kings who were considered beneficent protectors of Israel. The shepherding language of the prophet Jeremiah is different from that same language in Mark. The shepherds who must woe in Jeremiah have not done what is good in the eyes of the Lord. The shepherd of Mark’s Gospel seems to not even exist anymore. By the time of Jesus, the kings of Israel have sold out so much so that they can no longer be accused of a lack of beneficence, they really don’t seem to count. Of course, by Jesus’ time, Rome has conquered the territory and has wrested control and authority while maintaining a puppet throne in Israel. The woes of Jeremiah are now fully realized by the people of Israel.
Jeremiah was a prophet in the Southern Kingdom. You may remember that last week we heard from the prophet Amos—a herdsman and dresser of Sycamore trees who went to the Northern Kingdom of Israel to share a message of concern for his northern kin. They didn’t listen to him and sent him packing back to Judah, the Southern Kingdom. Subsequently, the Assyrians invaded and conquered the land from the north. Fast forward 200ish years and now Assyria, including what was once known as the Northern Kingdom and is now known as Samaria, has been conquered by the Babylonians who are threatening the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Judah has attempted political means to stay out of conflict, entreating with Egypt and various other kingdoms in the area to form alliances which might help her maintain independence. At one point, she even allows Egypt to place a puppet king on her throne—one with Jewish legitimacy—in order to strengthen the alliance with Egypt and keep Babylon out.
Of course, Egypt’s interest was that Judah would serve as a buffer state to minimize any threat to Egypt. Judah comes to realize this and, as Babylon becomes the superpower of the Middle East, they are quick to reassign loyalties to Babylon hoping that they might maintain their independence through treaties with her. But the kings of Judah are not satisfied with being a vassal state and soon attempt a bid at independence which leads to military action, execution and exile for the royal family.
Jeremiah’s role as prophet is less about warning the kings or the people about the threat of Babylon and more about acceptance of what is to come. He has watched Israel losing at this political chess game for too long. The risks that the kings take is directly detrimental to the people. They are no longer beneficent shepherds to their people but use the people to their own gain and Judah’s loss. The kings are destroying the lives of their people and their community.
Jeremiah warns against treaties with Egypt. He warns against collusion with neighboring countries. He warns that no matter what Judah’s powerbrokers do, it will be met with crushing defeat. And he is right. Instead of guiding the nation, especially through times of hardship, the kings disperse the flock into chaos. As the kings of Judah, one after the other, walk through the valley of the shadow of death, the sheep must fear the evil as they have been scattered and their shepherd kings are no longer with them and offer them no comfort.
The forces of Babylon break upon the nation of Judah and the valley of the shadow of death becomes flooded with the blood of their countrymen. There is no one to come to their aid—Assyria, Edom, Moab, Tyre, Sidon have already fallen, and Egypt will do nothing to help them. Their trust and faith in political and military action has failed them. Jeremiah confronts the folly of the leadership and the hope of the people. No longer shall they trust in those who proclaimed themselves good and protector; their only hope is to trust in the Lord to provide the sheep with a shepherd.
Jeremiah’s words were not popular—not with the leadership of Judah not with her people. Though hopeful, his words do nothing to correct the current situation much less lessen the threat of Babylon. The people have known order since the time of Josiah and his reforms in 622BCE. But slowly that order has dissolved into chaos—Judah is the proverbial frog boiled in water as the heat has slowly been turned up. Now they are in complete disorder and though a reordering will come—as it always does—they have no conception or awareness of when that day might be or what their life might look like then.
Most of us are familiar with the order-disorder-reordering of life, at least on a personal level. Moving to a new town, changing jobs, death, divorce, illness all take what has been an ordered life and flip it on its head causing us disorder and varying amounts of chaos. It is what comes out of the chaos that reminds us that life is never static and always offers us new hopes and possibilities.
Last year, my mother lost her home in the tornado that ripped through Selma. My sister and I and several of you came to her aid, helping her to recover whatever we might. So many memories were lost in that storm as were our traditions and comfort and the security we associate with our homes. Of course, stuff was lost too—but things are easily replaceable. She was forced to live in that liminal space of disorder for a while. You know that place, the in-between place, where what you had is gone and what is to come has not come quite yet. In churchy language we might say what was, what is, and what is to come.
It is the place of the “not yet” and it is a difficult place to reside. It offers no security or comfort that all shall be as it once was. It forces us to be less self-reliant and more reliant on God as we begin to discover that we cannot master our own destiny and we must put our hope and trust in something greater than ourselves.
It is the place in which we grieve because it always comes with loss. We cannot allow our grief to be our ending, if we have been paying attention, we have probably noticed that the worst things are never the last things. And if we can know this turmoil on a personal level, how much more intensely might Judah have known this turmoil on a national level.
Woe to the shepherds who allow this destruction and scattering of the sheep. And woe to those Judahites who put their trust only in the shepherds or in the false beliefs that God might reverse the geo-political reality that they have created, for they do not know God.
God doesn’t act on his people. God acts with his people and through his people. He promises he will plant the righteous branch of Jesse. He will nurture this root and gather his flock once again so that those who are like sheep without a shepherd might be drawn to him and be healed—reordered—if simply through the touch of the fringe of his cloak.
Jeremiah invites us to embrace the disordering not because he thinks we will like it or think it is good for us, but because he knows we are powerless to change the cosmic course of history. Embracing the disorder instead of resisting it offers us an opportunity into the reordering of our lives through Jesus Christ—and when our reordering is centered on God, then it will be a righteous reordering. We will know our shepherd—the good shepherd—not one of human origin who makes false promises but one of divine purpose; the true beneficent protector of all, not just Israel, but the children of God—made, known, and loved by our Creator.
Amen