The Day Has Already Come, Says the Lord!

Jeremiah 23:1-6

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.”

Most of our country, and indeed most of the world, is beyond stressed out when it comes to U.S. politics right now.  We are bombarded each day by promised horrors like rounding up millions of immigrants and putting them into camps, taking away health care, stripping hard-won rights from women, from minorities, and from the LGBTQ community.  We hear the plans to get rid of things like the Department of Education, the National Endowment for the Arts, Farm Crop Insurance, and the National Weather Service.  We see the Supreme Court giving itself the sole, unelected, unaccountable power to decide what is, and what is not, an official presidential act, and what can and can’t be delegated to the executive branch for administration.  We hear threats against people in the media, people in institutions of higher learning, and political rivals, and so when we hear Jeremiah passing on God’s anger about “shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture” it feels a whole lot more like a now-ish thing, than just some disconnected-from-reality, 2600 year old, bible thing.

  

The stakes are so high right now.  The threat of the end of our democracy is so very real right now.  So many of the proposed policies are literally anti-Christ, against the teachings of Christ, right now, that many of us… me at the top of that list… look at that lesson from Jeremiah and the first thing we do is to long for exactly what Jeremiah was longing for.  We want more than anything for it to be true that “The days are surely coming, says the Lord.”  That the solution is on the way!

And we don’t just WANT it… we genuinely NEED it.  We NEED it for our fellow humans who will be affected in very real, life or death ways.  We NEED it so that you and I, our friends, loved ones, and fellow human beings can simply be safe to live their lives fully and freely as the persons God made them to be… to be included among those who are able to genuinely and hopefully and continually reach toward the ideal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness… to live in a place where we are allowed to differ on a million different things, but not on the ideal that liberty and justice should be for all, where all genuinely means ALL.    

The political angst is so high right now that we read Jeremiah’s words and long for exactly what God promised Jeremiah would be coming.  But in our angst we seem to forget… me at the top of the forgetful list… that what God promised, first through Jeremiah, and then by extension to all of us, HAS ALREADY BEEN GIVEN TO US!  The Day has ALREADY come, says the Lord!  Jesus has already HAD compassion, and continues to HAVE compassion on us because today we are, as people have always been, like sheep without a shepherd.  The truth today is that the Lord IS my Shepherd… not “will be” or “was”, but IS my Shepherd.  Every day we are tricked into believing that our only options for finding a Good Shepherd is among the political candidates we’ve been given.  It is a relentless campaign of bamboozlement and it works all too often on me, and even on the most level headed and intelligent people I know.

THAT is why we need to remind each other and the whole world, about the GOOD SHEPHERD we have already!  We need to tell each other that Good Shepherd’s desire is that WE SHALL NOT BE IN WANT and that God will get what God wants!  It’s GOD after all!  We need to remind each other that God desires all to have ENOUGH.  Enough like sheep get with green pastures and still water.  Enough like the people of the Exodus got with manna from the heavens.  Enough like the 5000 got with loaves and fishes.  God’s desire is that everyone have enough, not because anyone deserves it but simply because that's what God wants, and God will get what God wants because God is God!

 

Telling each other the story of the Good Shepherd who is already on the job will not magically change our country.  But it can change US.  It can change us from fearful beings with a narrow vision of our future possibilities, back into the Children of God that we are… a people who embrace the truth that with the Good Shepherd, there are actually infinite possibilities beyond our current political options and no matter what happens, the God who has never left God’s people before is not about to leave God’s people now!

The political stakes in our country right now could not be higher and our calling to love of neighbor demands we pay attention.  Faithfulness still includes being informed and giving our support and our votes to the candidates who we believe will best move our country toward the ways of living which Jesus modeled for us… the ways of love, compassion, radical inclusion, care for the least, lost, and last in society, care for the immigrant, healing for the sick, feeding of the hungry, care for creation and all the rest.  Faithfulness calls us to all of that… AND… AND… and… it also calls us also to never forget, that even in the midst of this almighty mess, God is at work!  That God has promised that no matter how the world might look or even be… that somehow, God will make sure that it is goodness and mercy that will persue us all the days of our lives.  Amen.