Jeremiah, Jesus And Ourselves, Shepherding The Flock

Sixteenth Sunday in Course 2024

If you know your biblical history, it’s pretty easy to understand why the prophet Jeremiah is often portrayed in art as super-sad. He was active in his prophetic mission during a time that was economically prosperous, at least for the Jewish rich, but spiritually impoverished. Jeremiah is especially hard on the political and religious leaders of his day. You don’t use the word “woe” to start off your evaluation of a leader without cause. For much of Jeremiah’s ministry, the man at the top in Judea was the son of the good king, Hezekiah. That son was the bad king, Manasseh, who spent his life as a vassal of Assyria, and besides paying tribute, also adopted the “old gods,” the sun, moon and stars and the fertility gods of Canaan. And he suppressed the worship of Yahweh and murdered the prophets who opposed him.

But this prophecy we heard today looks forward to a time when the true God would depose the faithless rulers and out of love for His people, Israel, “set shepherds over them who will care for them.” He will by His almighty power drive away the fear that they constantly lived with. Moreover, He would raise up as king a descendant of David, who would rule wisely, and save a reunited kingdom of Israel. We know by reading the NT along with the Old, that this leader came in the first century, and is the God-man, Jesus, the Messiah of Israel and savior of the world.

St. Paul comments on that reality, as he writes to the church of Ephesus. In that Christian community, the blood of Christ that they share in communion has brought together the two groups of humans Paul was constantly trying to unite. They were united in peace, because the true peace is Jesus, whose sacrifice on the cross is the event that attracts all humans in need of rescue from sin. He preached peace and He was peace for all.

Last week we heard about the disciples being sent on mission, two by two, to the people of Israel. This week we hear the story of the aftermath. The disciples return with stories of preaching and healing and driving out demons. So Jesus invites them to come away and rest in His presence, for He is their peace and their rest. Off they went in a fishing boat, but the crowd was too clever to be fooled. They guessed the disciples’ destination, and got there first. The response of Jesus is best understood by reading the original Greek. He got on shore and saw “many multitude of people.” That’s a doubling of multitudes. What do they do to him? He feels an intense pity for them in His gut. It’s the same word used of the Good Samaritan when he sees the beaten-up Jew on the side of the Jericho road. It was a feeling, thought and willed response in the tradition of Jeremiah, hundreds of years earlier. They were like abandoned sheep, so Jesus put aside His own need of a break and gave them the teaching of God’s love that they had missed from their leaders. The Lord, our Lord, became their shepherd, so that they would lack nothing.

There’s the challenge to us. Each of us today needs to have the sensitivity to others’ needs that Jesus had on the shore of the Galilean lake. And we need to equip ourselves with such an understanding of God’s love as revealed to us in Word and Sacrament that we can respond to those needs joyfully and promptly, so as to continue the work of Jesus in our time as His first-century disciples did in theirs.