Scripture text: Jeremiah 23:1-6
The lectionary can be a great tool for us preachers. It provides us properly thematic texts from the Scriptures at appropriate times around the year, It gives us a direction and a guide on where the Holy Spirit might be taking us in any given week. It can be remarkable how well these selections can line up with world or local or personal events and that’s probably not coincidence, since God kinda does have a hand in all this.
There are times though when, at least for this preacher, when the lectionary annoys me. I feel like I’m being led to repeat myself. I spoke about the election in my sermon last Sunday. I spoke of how we should not get caught up in the hype, that the coming changing of the guard in the White House is neither the “bestest thing ever,” nor is it “the end of the world as we know it,” and that we as Christians should simply keep on keeping on at what we’ve been called to do in the world.
I thought it was a good sermon. Reasonably respectful and fair-minded about people’s feelings about what has happened on both sides. And then comes this week and what do I get out of the lectionary...
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!”
Too easy and, as I’ve learned in 15 years of preaching, often too dangerous. The inclination, of course, to let my liberal Christian flag fly proudly and point my finger at the President-elect and go “HA!” Like Darth Vader in his TIE fighter, “I have you now. You...you evil shepherd, you.”
But to do that would be dishonest to these times and to this text. This text isn’t just about political leaders, of our time or any other. Human society, then as now, is intertwined and interconnected. Religious, social, political circles all overlap with one another, and a problem in one likely has its origins in another.
So this text condemns all leaders who fail to uphold the common good. It condemns politicians who, in an effort to save a few bucks, would poison an entire city with lead water. Or those who would disenfranchise thousands because of their skin color or lack of economic resources. Or those who’ve ignored time and again the fact that the prosperity of these last few years has largely confined itself to those who already have plenty.
It condemns business CEOs who save a few bucks by cutting safety and letting workers die or be injured on the job. It condemns CEOs who, in order to get a new yacht, will send a factory overseas and lay off hundreds. It condemns journalists who would print lies people want to hear over the truth they need to. And it condemns preachers who use their sacred pulpit for their own enrichment or for the purpose of gaining worldly power.
You want to know why Trump won. It’s because of these folks, these shepherds of our national flock. One of the great ironies of our time is that the people who voted for him and the people who now protest him in the streets are angry about many of the same things. Leaders who care only for themselves, who turn a blind eye to the evils in our midst, and do nothing but enrich themselves at our expense.
So what does this have to do with us as Christians?
Again, another easy preaching trap I could turn to right now is to point to our Gospel lesson, say something like “Jesus is the only one who can save us, so to heck with the world and its so-called leaders,” and end there. But that sort of pie-in-the-sky preaching, where everything is solved by heaven, is trite and empty. It’s also dishonest to our Lutheran tradition.
Here we are in the midst of this 500 year celebration of the Lutheran church, so here also is a reminder (a refresher perhaps) about one Luther’s key theological tenets: the Two Kingdoms. God rules not just in heaven (the Kingdom of the Right-hand) but also here on earth (the Kingdom of the Left-hand). His will, which in the Kingdom of the Left is intended to be carried by our leaders, is order and the common welfare. The hungry should be fed. The poor cared for. Justice should be even-handed and fair. Prosperity should be shared so all may benefit.
Imagine if we did that, or perhaps held our leaders to account when they fail to do that?
Yes, one day we, like the repentant thief on the cross, will receive our salvation and be welcomed with joy into the Kingdom of the Right. Never question that. It’s a done deal. But until that day, we’re living in this world and God gives us a job to do. It is our duty and calling to spread the Kingdom of the Left as far and wide as possible. Here again, we come back to what I said last week. Do what we are called to do for others. Care, respect, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, love.
The reason we are in this mess (and we’d be in this mess regardless of who won two Tuesdays ago) is because we have failed to spread that kingdom. People have no respect. No compassion. No empathy for one another. Well, how are they going to have that if we don’t show them? This world beats all of us down at times and it is so easy to give in the anger, hate, and fear. Many have done so. We see them on the news every night. Not just the protesters or the angry mobs at Trump’s rallies. But the criminals in the ghetto and in the statehouses. People broken by the world.
That’s our mission field, my friends. It’s the people terrified of what President Trump might do to them marching on the streets of our cities. It’s the people terrified of what a President Hillary would have done in our heartland and Rust Belt. And all those who think the only way to survive in this world is to only look out for #1, laws, morals, and ethics be damned. We can show them a better way than the path of fear and rage. We can show them the Kingdom of God, perhaps not in its fullness, but at least in part. We can make this world better for them.
And maybe, just maybe, by doing so, we can finally get some decent shepherds for our flock. Amen.
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