November 22, 2020 – The Reign of Christ

Examine your life and your lifestyle… 

Are you the lean sheep or the fat sheep?

Today, the church ends the current year, and next week we begin anew as we experience Advent, undoubtedly in a different way from which we have experienced it before. Christ the King Sunday – or the celebration of the Reign of Christ – is the final Sunday in the Church’s year. In German churches this Sunday is called Ewigkeitssonntag – eternity Sunday. Over the past few weeks, our readings have given us visions of end times, and this theme will be picked up again in our Advent readings which invite us to prepare, not only for the birth of Jesus, but also for the Christ’s second coming. 

Our reading today from Ezekiel speaks of a time of great uncertainty; we have undoubtedly been experiencing exactly that ourselves. There is much in Ezekiel’s prophecy that prompts questions about how people have responded to the crisis. Like the prophet Ezekiel’s confrontation to ancient Israel (Ezekiel 34), God takes notice of the weak, the lost, and the outcast to fulfill the intention of creation: to form a people with and in whom the Spirit so evidently lives that the world takes notice of the Creation and of the Creator God. In order to restore community upon the earth, those who pushed aside the weak, ignored the needy, and undermined the stranger will be held accountable.

But notice the words of Ezekiel echo the words of a favorite Psalm, Psalm 23. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures” (Ps 23:1-2). We don’t think much about this line, but let’s ponder: in order to lie down, in order to rest, we must feel safe. We don’t have to run. We can relax; we can take it all in. And that, my friends, is God’s desire for all of us – that we feel safe, that we can all “lie down.”

Israel often depicted its leaders as shepherds. We overdo that humble, poor shepherds image that our minds envision during the Nativity story. In Biblical times, flocks of sheep could number in the thousands, requiring immense administrative skill on the part of the shepherd.

It is so heartening to ponder the image that God, the ultimate shepherd, will “rescue [the sheep] from all the places to which they have been scattered” (Ez 34:12). The tenderness of God the shepherd is evident: seeking good pasture, arranging for the sheep to lie down and rest, and binding up the crippled sheep rather than leaving them. And it’s all summarized by the line “I will feed them with justice” (Ez 34:16).

Think back to those shepherds – the ones who will – in just a few weeks – hear the angelic choir. But think back to this night. Another dull night. Maybe the moon was shining on the pasture; perhaps not. A dull night just like the past 4 and the next 20. With no idea what was coming, or if anything was coming at all. I wonder how much we live like those shepherds – bored, stuck, tired of the pandemic and all the aches, pains, and unknowingness that comes with it. Yet, there is something marvelous on the horizon that we simply can’t predict or detect. It could be coming tomorrow; it could be in two weeks, or three months, or ten years. We cannot know.

But, friends, God’s promise also includes an element of judgment. God’s care is for the lost, the strayed, the injured, and the weak, and God will destroy the fat and the strong. Here the missing verses from this lectionary reading appear crucial. (Ez 34:17-19: “As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God: I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats: Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet?”) The fat and the strong include those who take what they need from the green pasture, or the fresh water, but spoil and contaminate what they do not need so that no one else can benefit from it. God condemns this mean spirited behavior, showing favor for the lean sheep over the fat sheep that had pushed them aside and deprived them. I don’t know about you, but I like to believe that I am more like the lean sheep; this passage calls us to examine our lives – and our lifestyles – and assess honestly those places where WE ARE the fat sheep, pushing the lean sheep out of our way, condemning the lean sheep to poverty.

Beloved, the world has changed. But the fluctuations only return us to the way things have always been. And in the church, we are ending ordinary time to enter a season of expectation, which seems altogether fitting for a cultural context such as ours now.

Ezekiel today wisely and peacefully declares to saints of old as well as saints of today who are called to attend to women and children, widows and orphans, hungry and thirsty, naked and homeless, neighbors and strangers, aliens and outcasts, just as the great cloud of witnesses who came before us. I invite you to extend grace, practice generosity, and live your life in a way that offers a glimpse of what it means to experience the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Although we long for reconnection with friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers, our simple invitation to community in God is truly Good News.

And in today’s words from Paul (Eph 1:17-18), I pray for you all as Paul prayed for those in the church in Ephesus: “ I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.”