Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD.
Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel,
concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people:
It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away,
and you have not attended to them.
So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the LORD.
Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock
out of all the lands where I have driven them,
and I will bring them back to their fold,
and they shall be fruitful and multiply.
I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them,
and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed,
nor shall any be missing, says the LORD.
The days are surely coming, says the LORD,
when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch,
and he shall reign as king and deal wisely,
and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety.
And this is the name by which he will be called:
"The LORD is our righteousness."
Psalm 46
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
God will help it when the morning dawns.
The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Come, behold the works of the LORD;
see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear; he burns the shields with fire.
"Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth."
The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Luke 1:68-79
"Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.
He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
and has remembered his holy covenant, t
he oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,
in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
by the forgiveness of their sins.
By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Colossians 1:11-20
May you be made strong
with all the strength that comes from his glorious power,
and may you be prepared to endure everything with patience,
while joyfully giving thanks to the Father,
who has enabled you to share
in the inheritance of the saints in the light.
He has rescued us from the power of darkness
and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,
in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;
for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created,
things visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—
all things have been created through him and for him.
He himself is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church;
he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
so that he might come to have first place in everything.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven,
by making peace through the blood of his cross.
===================================================
Today, on Christ the King Sunday, the last Sunday in the church calendar year, we place our focus on acknowledging just who is king - and who is not.
It was in the Old Testament book 1 Samuel, when Israel became dissatisfied with God’s way of governing, and spoke to God through Samuel, their judge, saying, we want a king to govern us, like other nations. At that time, Samuel served as judge on behalf of the Lord God. Samuel was getting old, and he had appointed his sons to be judges over Israel, but scripture tells us that “his sons did not follow in his way, but turned aside to seek their own gain, taking bribes and perverting justice.” Samuel went to the Lord with the demand of the people, and God reminded Samuel that they were not rejecting Samuel, but were rejecting the Lord God as king.
God’s response to the people of Israel who were demanding a king was this: “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
• you will 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 easy.
But the people were determined to have a king over them, so that “we may be like other nations, and that our king may govern us and go out before us and fight our battles.” And so the Lord told Samuel to listen to them, to set a king over them.”
The first king of Israel, proclaimed by Samuel, was Saul. Some of the people were pleased with Saul, but some despised him and refused to accept him as king.
It is fair to say that Saul had a problematic reign, without going into a lot of details, and was ultimately rejected as king. Samuel was commissioned to find the next king, having been told by the Lord God, “Do not look on height of stature; the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Then David was anointed, a great king, though with his own problems. And many kings and rulers came after that; there are so many stories in scripture of pretty good kings and pretty terrible kings. Clearly none of them measured up to the kind of king God intended for God’s people.
So in today’s Old Testament, the Lord speaks though Jeremiah, criticizing those who would be shepherds of God’s sheep, saying “you have not attended to them, and so I will attend to you”.
And God describes the kind of leader he desires, he intends, he will provide for God’s people:
" I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer,
or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the LORD.
The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch,
and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called:
"The LORD is our righteousness.”
The name of this king will be “The Lord is our righteousness”. He will deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness. God’s beloved people shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, or be scattered.
And of course, God gave us Christ to be the King, restoring for us God’s original intent that we would have a king of love and goodness and compassion. Christ the King, whose throne is the cross; whose crown is made of thorns.
In Luke’s gospel reading this morning, it is the father of John the Baptist, Zechariah, who speaks the prophecy about his son and the one who his son prepares the way for, Christ the King. He says, “By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
And the apostle Paul, coming after the time of Christ the King on earth, describes Christ in this way:
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;
for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers--all things have been created through him and for him.
He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
so that he might come to have first place in everything.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things,
whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”
Paul tells us that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. When we look at Christ, see in scripture how he behaved, how he loved, we are seeing how God loves us, how God so loves the world.
Paul tells us that all things were created through Christ and for Christ. All rulers and powers and thrones and dominions have their beginnings in Christ, and their purpose is for the kingdom of Christ.
But we know fully well that there are no rulers or powers or thrones or dominions who are not just as broken and sinful as we are. We can no more say that one leader or another is the chosen one of God than we can say that we are the chosen one of God. All are chosen by God, all of us; we are all chosen and called to do God’s will. And it is our choice whether we obey that calling or not. We are not chosen because we are good; we are chosen, all of us, to do good, to turn from evil, to turn toward God and to obey God. And thankfully, God gives us a model for how to be a leader who is doing God’s will. That model is Jesus Christ, the good shepherd.
When I first sensed a call to leave my position in corporate America, where I was serving as an executive manager almost eight years ago now, the calling I felt was to help leaders understand how to be faithful while leading. I had spent much of the prior decade reading everything I could get my hands on about servant leadership. This was the closest thing I could find to what I read in scripture about how God wanted us to care for those whom we led.
In 1977 Robert Greenleaf wrote a book entitled “Servant Leadership: A Journey Into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness”. Greenleaf was a retired AT&T executive at the time, and he proposed that "service ought to be the distinguishing characteristic of leadership.” Not only would it create better, stronger companies, he said, but business leaders themselves would find greater joy in their lives if they raised the servant aspect of their leadership and built more serving institutions. In this respect, he said, the leader becomes a follower, constantly inquiring whether other people’s highest priority needs are being served. Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants for others? True leadership, then, is an inner quality as such as an exercise of authority.”
This was written right around the year that I was graduating from engineering school, and it became an overriding principle of how I wanted to serve others through the work I had been called to do. It fit for me because of its parallels to the work of a good shepherd, as I had learned while growing up in church. The work of the shepherd does not look anything like leadership. It’s hard and dirty work. Good shepherds put their lives on the line for the sheep. The sheep do not work for the shepherd; they are cared for by the shepherd. This is the leadership model that God provides for us as good leadership. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. The king of love my shepherd is; his goodness never fails.
As Shane Claiborne describes in his book “Jesus for President”, "When God puts skin on to show the world what God’s love is intended to look like, he sends the Prince of Peace, to be born as a refugee in the middle of a genocide. Thirty years later this man, this king, is rescued from the trash bin of imperial executions to stand at the pinnacle of this peculiar people, set-apart by God to be a living temple. What a strange way to start a revolution.”
Just before last week’s election, theologian David Lose wrote that
“Martin Luther believed that God was an active God, always at work for the good of God’s people. And he believed that God exercised authority through two distinct arenas and toward two particular ends. The first arena was the spiritual one, and God worked through the church to make sure that all knew of God’s love, grace and mercy in Christ and so had peace of heart in this world and eternal life in the next. The second arena was what he would call the “temporal” one – the world of our immediate and physical needs of this time and place (as opposed to our spiritual and eternal needs) – and God’s means of caring for our temporal needs is through the family and government.
Indeed, for Luther these two things – family and government – were quite similar in their function – to care for those under their charge – and differ only in scale. The individual household – which was defined far more broadly in Luther’s day than in our own – cared for the children, grandparents, household servants, visiting guests, and all who might take shelter under the same roof. It was the local agent for care, whereas the government was the broader, communal and societal agent of care, tending the needs of the larger society. In one sense, Luther viewed government as “parents writ large,” as they were to tend the needs of their people as parents cared for their children.
Martin Luther’s way of understanding how government leadership exists was to care for the needs of the people, to protect them and keep them safe, and to give special attention to the most vulnerable.
So we have Martin Luther describing government leadership as extended family, caring for and protecting the people.
We have Robert Greenleaf describing business leadership as serving the people, bringing out the best in them, helping them become healthier, wiser, freer people.
We have the Word of God describing the best type of leadership as that of a shepherd, and sending God with skin on to show us exactly what that sort of King looks like. And not only that, giving us that King to be our King.
Christ the King Sunday was first established in 1925 by Pope Pius XI. This feast day was instituted at that pivotal time in history to remind Christians that their allegiance was to their spiritual ruler in heaven as opposed to earthly supremacy. This was a direct response to Benito Mussolini, who had declared himself the supreme leader.
On this day, Christ the King Sunday, the last day of the church calendar year, let us remember these things:
As Christians, we pledge allegiance to Christ the King, and serve him alone.
No other leader of God’s people has ever matched up to the kind of leadership God desires for us.
The kind of leadership God calls for is shown by the shepherd, not the conquerer.
The character of leadership God desires was told to us by Christ in the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit, those that mourn, those that hunger and thirst for righteousness.
Christ is the image of God. And we are made in the image of God, beloved children who are to be cared for by those in charge.
And Christ came to hold all things together. Not to tear them apart.
As Paul says, "
He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
so that he might come to have first place in everything.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things,
whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”
Let us be leaders and follow leaders who hold things together in Christ, who work for the reconciliation of the world through the power of the Holy Spirit, who follow Christ by making peace and by loving one another. Amen.
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