St. John’s Episcopal Church
Tallahassee, FL
Jeremiah 23:1-6
Ephesians 2:11-22
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Throughout today’s readings
there is a theme.
There is a golden thread—a divine message—
woven through everything you have just heard,
and it is a message most of us these days
desperately need to hear.
The theme we hear in today’s readings
is the theme
of being scattered . . .
of being divided . . .
of being helpless and harassed
like sheep without a shepherd.
It all starts in our
Old Testament reading from Jeremiah,
where God seems pretty hot under the collar
and says, “Woe to the shepherds
who destroy and scatter
the sheep of my pasture!
You have scattered my flock.
You have driven them away.
You have not attended to them.”
It’s a tale as old as time.
Whether we want to talk about
the priests and the false prophets of the Old Testament days
or the politicians and potentates of the modern day,
it has always been
easier and more expedient
to divide the people
than it is to bring them together.
“But,” says the Lord,
“the days are surely coming
when I will raise up Someone New,
and he shall reign as king
and deal wisely,
and execute justice and righteousness
in the land.”
Fast forward, then, about 600 years,
and “Someone New” finally shows up.
He is unlike anything we expected . . .
a whole different kind of Shepherd.
In the story you just heard from Mark’s gospel,
this Someone New,
this new Shepherd,
this Jesus
just cannot help himself.
He and his apostles are dog tired.
They have been working,
and healing,
and traveling
and teaching
all day, every day,
and all they want to do . . .
is rest.
So off they go to a remote and quiet place,
but even there,
like Swifties waiting to get into the arena,
the crowds are already gathered,
and they are waiting.
Jesus could have turned them away.
He could have sent someone out to say,
“Sorry folks,
the show is over;
the band is on break;
you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
But instead, Mark tells us,
“As Jesus went ashore,
he saw a great crowd;
and he had compassion for them,
because they were like sheep without a shepherd;
and he began to teach them many things.”
In Matthew’s version of the gospel,
he goes a step further and says,
“When Jesus saw the crowds,
he had compassion for them,
because they were harassed and helpless,
like sheep without a shepherd.”
Like sheep without a shepherd.
Gah—life can feel that way, can’t it?
Life can feel so scattered, so divided,
that all we want is a decent shepherd
who can make it right
and give us the answers
or at least just hold us together.
We look high and low.
We search and we hope.
We settle. We vote.
We worry. We pray.
And still it feels like
we never quite find the shepherd we’re looking for.
Well, fortunately for you and me,
we already have that Shepherd,
and we’ve had him for a long, long time.
His name is Jesus.
* * *
But all of that is well and good.
It’s nice to say,
“No, no . . . we have a Shepherd.
We have an Advocate.
We have Someone to gather us in
rather than divide us.”
But what good does it do
when the world still feels so divided?
Well, this is where Ephesians comes in.
The letter to the Ephesians
was written to an early, early church
that was obviously made up
of a diverse crowd.
Namely, it was made up
of some people who had been Jews
and some who had been Gentiles.
I cannot express to you
how radical that would have been.
Back then,
Jews and Gentiles did not mix.
It was more than apartheid.
It was more than Jim Crow.
If you were a Jew,
you did not consort with Gentiles, period.
But there was something about this Jesus
that had made them come together.
There was something about this Jesus—
this new Shepherd
who forgives all our sins
and wipes our slates clean
and makes us all equal before God and one another—
there was something about him
that brought them together.
And yet, obviously, like all of us,
they had trouble remembering that.
“Remember,” Paul says in this letter.
“Remember that you used to be people without hope.
Remember that you once were a people divided.
But now in Christ Jesus
you who once were far off
have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
For he is our peace;
in his flesh he has made both groups into one
and has broken down the dividing wall,
that is, the hostility between us.”
Goodness gracious,
that bears repeating.
“For he is our peace;
in his flesh he has made both groups into one
and has broken down the dividing wall,
that is, the hostility between us.”
But he goes further.
“He has created in himself
one new humanity in place of the two,
thus making peace,
that he might reconcile both groups to God
in one body through the cross,
thus putting to death that hostility through it.”
But he goes further.
“So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens,
but you are citizens with the saints
and also members of the household of God.”
And we know something about that.
Look around this place.
Some of you are young
and some of you are old.
Some of you are gay,
and some of you are straight.
Some of you are Democrats,
and some of you are Republicans.
Some of you are Gators,
and some of you are Noles,
and y’all . . . I don’t know how to say this,
but there might even be a Miami fan or two in here.
And yet here we are,
doing this,
doing this together.
Kneeling down
and saying our prayers,
reconciled to one another
because we know who our Shepherd is.
Mother Leslie did an exquisite job last week
of saying all of this
and couching it in terms of our baptism.
But it doesn’t stop there.
In just a few minutes,
we are going to share in the ancient rite
of passing the peace.
We’re going to shake hands
and hug
and wave
and smile
and dadgumit we’re gonna mean it
because in this place,
this new Shepherd
has broken down the dividing wall,
and there can be no hostility between us.
And then, after that,
like a big ol’ family
at the family reunion—
like sheep with a Shepherd—
we will all get up
and we will all come to the welcome Table,
and we will all dine with our King and with one another,
and we won’t say boo about the garbage that divides us . . .
not because we choose
to avoid it
or deny it
or sweep it under the rug,
but because we choose to love each other.
Period. Full stop.
But here’s the final twist.
Here’s the beauty of it all.
I keep saying, “we come here,”
and talking like all of this
only works in this place
as though this building
is something magical.
It is not.
You see, the thing our new Shepherd is building
was never about a place.
It’s about the people.
Having torn down the dividing walls between us,
he has made us new and living stones
for the building up of something new.
In us, he has built a new Temple,
a new safe space,
and look at that very last sentence in Ephesians:
“In him the whole structure is joined together
and grows into a holy temple in the Lord;
in whom you also are built together spiritually
into a dwelling place for God.”
You see, in you and me
and in the peace we share,
Jesus is making a temple
where not only we can dwell in peace,
but where God can dwell with us.
That means that wherever you go,
whatever your day is like,
whatever makes you feel
like you are scattered and divided . . .
helpless and harassed . . .
like sheep without a shepherd . . .
. . . well, you know better,
for we are never far from one another,
and more importantly,
the God who loves you—
the new Shepherd you have longed for,
the Prince of Peace himself—
is always right there,
next to your beating, aching heart.
* * *
So buck up, buttercup,
and—as Paul would say—
remember.
Remember, that once you were far off,
but now you have been brought near.
Remember that once we were divided,
but now we are reconciled.
Remember that once we were strangers,
but now we know what it is to be one.
And for Pete’s sake,
just remember
that God loves you.
Amen.