Jeremiah 23:1-6
Proper 11 (16) - Year B
Proper 29 (34) - Year C
Context: The United Methodist Church trying Frank Schaefer for celebrating his son's marriage to another male -- son and son-in-law -- a patriarch's dream, except for legalistic religious types appealing to some letter-of-the-law type of "justice" with nary a pinch of human kindness, much less mercy.
How can this passage in this context not be a condemnation of everyone along the way who was swayed to vote for discrimination by some fear of losing members or money or their own privilege?
The shepherd has become the wolf, and a self-devouring one at that.
At times like this it is tempting to wait for a "Lord" who punished folks into exile to become self-dismayed and bring them home (blaming things now on another set of folks). [How do you read G*D gathering back folks G*D had driven away?]
This temptation is unworthy of folks made in an image of steadfast love and merciful justice. We need to call it for what it is, serial injustice upon one officially condemned group after another -- same tactics, different targets.
We need to get over some "Lord" being our righteousness. We have integrity inherent in our bones even if we do cover it up all too often with an overlay of officiousness and expediency. To be zealous for judgment is to be blind to mercy.
A second context is LovePrevailsUMC.com sitting in on a Connectional Table meeting that was so boring the leaders had to plead for an Amen after characterizing Jesus as an "adaptive leader", the latest highest praise a functionary can muster. The whole meeting was sad with members nearly dozing off if not browsing Amazon. Energy was at a minimum and communication was all about branding rather than doing/being.
It is tempting to sic a righteous G*D on such unrighteous waste of time, energy, and resources. Again, this temptation is not creative enough for folks who have tasted of good and evil.
"Woe," cry the shepherds who don't know where new grass is. "Woe," cry the sheep sacrificed one-by-one. "Woe," cries a G*D caught in a self-designed trap.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/11/jeremiah-231-6.html
Is a righteous king the same as a benevolent dictator? Our experience of the latter is not very good. This equivalency is mostly the spin from inside the power structure rather than the results from outside. Unless you posit a great deal of external evil to which the king must respond and return evil for evil, thus becoming the evil they oppose, a question has to be asked why there are no continuing empires of righteousness?
We may need to remember that the title of King is not one that Jesus uses. It is used by the Magi as an extension of what they knew about the way the world works, through such political power. It is placed upon him by the Romans as a taunt. While taunts can become affirmed, see Methodist tradition, they are usually just an example of a political dirty trick - notice the way the word "liberal" has become a swear word instead of a descriptive word.
Jesus uses images of kings as part of his teaching, moving folks from where they are to a better, wider place. John records Jesus as moving away when folks wanted to make him king.
In front of Pilate Jesus is recorded as testifying to something called "truth" rather than continue a conversation about kingship.
How scary is it for to think of a shepherd, a king, Jesus, being with us rather than leading us?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/november2004.html
Jeremiah 23:1-6 or 2 Samuel 7:1-14a
Psalm 89:20-37 or Psalm 23
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
"Come away beloved/disciples," has a different feel when said by Solomon than by Jesus.
Jesus was an active prophet, not a poetic one. Particularly in Mark do we have an agenda-driven presentation speeding on.
When Jesus invites us to a deserted place it is only deserted inasmuch as he is not currently there, not that it is a desolation. A part of his teaching is to be active where you are in such a manner that such activity can be sustained for we are always dealing with desert-ion.
Sometimes we enter desolate territory only to find it wasn't, isn't, wont be. Sometimes we find such desolation visiting our routine life. Whether visiting or being visited, opportunity for "making whole" is available.
Our choice is to view desolate places as our life's joy or an impingement upon our possibilities.
- - -
a deserted place
is never so
when it is sought
desolation has a life
and rhythm of its own
not to be presumed upon
transforming strange aliens
into intimate family friends
hostility to peace
out of such journey
comes healing aplenty
for every unbidden dark valley
a desired desolate place
teems with expectation
and vast need
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html
On the cusp of one year leading to another it is time to look back and raise some general questions. These questions can be responded to on personal, cultic, and national levels.
What flocks have we scattered? Did we avoid doing bad things?
What remnant has been gathered? Did we do good things?
What connection with G*D did we nurture? Did we attend exercises of justice and righteousness?
- - -
whose honey-bunch are you
whose betrayer are you
whose dearie are you
whose loyal opposition are you
whose worst nightmare are you
whose defender are you
whose ignorer are you
whose righteousness are you
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html
Everyone is welcome but the leaders of flocks (congregations, denominations) have not done well with keeping up with the variety of creation that is to be welcomed. The huge temptation is to start and stop with ourselves and those like us. Anyone else is welcome to do their best to meet this impossible mark, but when they don't the body is divided over a non-identity (me and mine, not the wideness of G*D's mercy).
The promise is that new shepherds will be raised up from the outcasts and that their experience of being outcast will mean a special sensitivity to other outcasts and none shall be missing. Well, time and time again, new leaders have claimed mandates, thought their technique universal, and otherwise fallen into the same trap as their predecessors.
This is not claim or theory. Look around. The reality is overwhelming. Another lesson needs to be learned. This is not a rejoicing end of a Church Year passage that lets us rejoice. It is, once again, a call to recognize that we have gone around the circle from divider to outcast to divider with no particular visible gain.
So, if at the end of our year we can't put the words, "The Lord is our righteousness (welcome)", comfortably in our mouths, what do we put there?
Pity a well-intentioned G*D caught with that G*D's image throughout creation, chasing its tail. Pity a well-intentioned creation doubly caught as in a tarnished mirror. Pity us all, the days may yet be surely coming . . . but they surely are not now.
What will need to change in the coming year that we not end up at the same place. Whatever you come up with is what needs practice during Advent and after.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/11/jeremiah-231-6.html