Getting Ready for Sunday by Paige Hanks
Editor's Note: This post was written for Nov. 26th.
Thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice.
Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.
I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken. Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24
The brain is one of the greatest parts of the created self. Its complex design, its capacity to take in information and attempt to make sense of it, and its role as the driver of our thoughts and actions are fascinating and mysterious. One of those very unique aspects of our brain function is our spatial awareness. Spatial awareness is the ability to make sense out of what we encounter. Our spatial awareness helps us connect data points as we create mental images and maps of the world around us. When it is functioning appropriately, we can find our way around town, pick the right entrance at the mall, and choose the most direct route to our destination. When something is off, or we are missing a significant data point, our spatial awareness can lead us in the wrong direction or down unsafe paths. And feeling lost is one of the worst feelings in the world.
This Sunday is the celebration of Christ the King. It is the last Sunday of the liturgical year, the grand finale if you will, before we start the new liturgical year with Advent I next Sunday. A brilliant way to understand the authority and intent of the kingship of Christ is in the reading this week from Ezekiel, even though the incarnate Christ had not yet been revealed. Through the words of the prophet, God is revealed as the shepherd of God’s people. And we Christians know that the great shepherd of the flock is revealed to us in the life and ministry of Jesus. The prophet Ezekiel is living amongst the exiled Israelites, a people who have been rescued from slavery but have wandered and felt lost in the desert for what surely must have seemed like a lifetime. His prophecy is a message of hope to a lost people.
We may not physically live in a geographical desert today, but we are often a lost people ourselves. We rely on our spatial awareness to do something for us that the created self simply cannot do. Although we are created by God, we are lost without Jesus, who is both our great shepherd and our king. Jesus will search for us, rescue us from ourselves, and lead us to the kingdom when we cannot find our way. For it is in God’s kingdom that we are redeemed through the death and resurrection of Christ. When we are safely under the kingship of Christ, we sit at God’s right hand. And we never find ourselves lost again.
God created humanity and calls us through our baptism into covenant. It is within that covenantal context that we are “fed with justice” as Ezekiel says. This justice is like no human justice at all, but rather is a justice that forgives us our sins and reconciles us with God though we cannot ever deserve such gifts. And a reconciled people are then called to go out into the world and extend that justice to others through love. Today’s Gospel writer conveys what that is to look like, as we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit the imprisoned. For we are all members of the body of Christ, found and claimed by Christ our King.