A sermon preached at St. Mary’s (Iffley, Rose Hill and Donnington) by Hilary Pearson on 21st July 2024

Can you hear the baahs?  Lots of sheep in today’s readings and psalm.  But the emphasis is on shepherds; good, bad and missing.

This emphasis is not surprising.  Sheep turn up a lot in the Bible.  There are about 200 references to sheep, a similar number to lambs and about 100 references to rams. Most of Old Testament references to sheep are to actual animals – not surprising as herding was the major form of agriculture in most of the areas where the Israelites historically lived.  That is still true today – in the Sinai, you still see Bedouin shepherds with flocks of sheep and goats.

The references to sheep in these readings are not about woolly animals, however – they are references to people, in particular the people of Israel.  We might not like being compared to sheep; they are not the brightest of animals and, as we know from Jesus’ story about the lost sheep, they are prone to wander off.  They are also vulnerable to wolves and other predators.  They will do rather dangerous things, such as squeezing through a narrow hole in a hedge to eat to some attractive plants – on the side of a busy road.  All of this means that, in order to live and thrive, they need someone to take care of them – a shepherd.  In the same way, a community, whether a political community such as a city or nation,  or a faith community such as a parish church, needs good shepherds to lead and care for them.

The chapter of the book of Jeremiah which immediately precedes our reading today is a condemnation of the kings of Judah who have built splendid palaces by making people work for nothing, who have oppressed their people and have worshipped other gods.  So this reference to bad shepherds who have scattered God’s flock seems to be a reference to political rulers.  However, the book of Jeremiah also has many condemnations of religious rulers who do not take care of those entrusted to their care, so it seems that there can be both political and religious bad shepherds.

To give a little context:  Jeremiah lived through the reigns of five kings of Judah, from about 650 BC to 570BC.  This was a time of great turmoil in the whole Middle East.  At the beginning of Jeremiah’s ministry the Assyrian empire based in Nineveh was dominant.  Mainly as a result of civil wars by powerful men seeking to depose existing rulers, this empire was then defeated by the Babylonians.  Under their most successful ruler, Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon came to rule over most of the civilised world of the time, modern Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel as well as western parts of Iran and the northern Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia.  The only country that resisted them was Egypt.

The book of Jeremiah tells us that his call from God to be a prophet came in the thirteenth year of Josiah, king of Judah. At that time, Judah was part of the Assyrian empire, which resulted in acceptance by the Jews of Assyrian gods and idolatry.  Josiah was very young when he came to the throne, but, after he became and adult and fully in charge, he began a thorough reform which started with finding the book of Mosaic law in the Jerusalem temple. He then had all the idols in the kingdom destroyed and the people taught what the Law of Moses required.  He was probably able to do this because at the time the Assyrian empire had been weakened by the civil wars. After he was killed in battle, his successors returned to the previous religion and abandoned Josiah’s reforms. None of them reigned for very long, and were first under Egyptian rule and then conquered by Babylon.

Those of you who have read the humorous version of English history in the book ‘1066 and All That’ may recall that the authors categorised each English king as either a Good King (with initial capitals) or a (similarly capitalised) Bad King.  The Biblical authors of the history of Israel and Judah in the books of Chronicles and Kings do the same thing: kings were either good because they worshipped the one God and obeyed the law of Moses, or bad because they worshipped idols and did not obey the law.  You will be able to guess that Josiah is recorded as a good king.  All the others during Jeremiah’s life were bad kings.  Then the kingdom ended by the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians.  Political and military leaders had already fled as refugees to Egypt, taking Jeremiah with them even though he had warned against going to Egypt.  Most of those who had stayed in Jerusalem were taken as captives to Babylon.

Jeremiah was not the only Old Testament prophet who saw the people as sheep, vulnerable to bad leaders.  For example, in 1 Kings 22 the prophet Micaiah, after his advice to the king of Israel not to go to war was rejected, said “I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd.”  Ezekiel criticised corrupt leaders as bad shepherds who neglected the flock so that God’s people were scattered and became vulnerable to predators (Ezekiel 34:1-6).  Isaiah, in the passage well known to us through Handel’s Messiah, saw that sin on the part of the people meant they “like sheep, have gone astray, each has turned to his own way…” (Isaiah 53:6)

Were the people of Israel entirely at the mercy of unjust and despotic rulers?  Jeremiah says no – God himself will become the shepherd who recovers the scattered flock and brings them home to their fold.  He will provide them with good leaders who will take care of them.  Psalm 23, tells us what sort of leadership we have when God is our shepherd.

There is something even better than the good shepherds, those leaders that God will provide when the people of Israel are brought home.  God reveals to the prophet a future in which a descendant of David will reign as a wise and just king.  In the New Testament, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke put particular emphasis of the genealogy of Jesus, tracing a direct descent from David. ( A quick aside: in an interesting connection with our first reading, king Josiah is listed as an ancestor of Jesus in Matthew’s genealogy.)  However, the whole New Testament points to Jesus as this long-expected king.  It also shows how Jesus was not the sort of king most people were expecting; a political and military ruler who would get rid of the Roman overlords and restore Israel as an independent kingdom.  The notice that Pilate had put at the head of the cross on which Jesus hung, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews’, was meant by him as mockery of his troublesome subjects: but in reality, it was true!

So what sort of king is Jesus of Nazareth?  We get a clue in our reading from Mark.  The news that there was a man who seemed to be a new prophet, who taught with authority and who healed physical and mental illnesses, had spread through the whole region of Galilee.  Huge crowds came and went and demanded attention, so that Jesus and the disciples had no rest or time to themselves – they even did not have time to eat.  Jesus first act was to take care of his disciples, his friends, by taking them away so they could rest.  They set off by boat to a deserted place.  But that plan failed – many in the crowd saw them leave and, following the progress of the boat, got to the landing place before the boat arrived.  I think most of us would be very cross – our much needed holiday spoiled!  That’s not how Jesus reacted.  He saw that they “were like sheep without a shepherd” and had compassion on them.

But what is the clearest sign of the kind of king Jesus is?  It is that the man under the sign saying ‘King of the Jews’ was beaten, jeered at, suffering, dying.  The complete opposite of the world’s expectation of a powerful ruler.  Our reading from Ephesians tells us that the sign on the cross is only part of the story.  Through his death and the shedding of his blood, Jesus has become the universal king and saviour, the Christ.  All humankind, not just the Jews, are in God’s kingdom, are given peace and have access to God the Father through the Holy Spirit.  That Jesus, who had compassion on the leaderless crowds even though he was tired and hungry, is the same Lord today who is our good shepherd.

We are living in a time of political turmoil.   There are so many political leaders in the world who are bad shepherds; leading their people into wars, encouraging activities which degrade the environment and increase global warming, ignoring their subjects who are poor, hungry, sick. It is easy to feel helpless and despair.  Is there anything we ordinary people can do?  We can vote, we can participate in action groups.  To the extent we are in any kind of leadership position we can follow Jesus’ example of compassion and care.  But, most important, we can pray and keep our trust in God’s promises.  Last Sunday morning, when I woke to the news of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, my mind was filled with fears for the future.  As I prayed, a little card fell out of the notebook where I keep all the lists of people and organisations I pray for.  I had picked it up at one of our parish retreats at the Carmelite monastery on Boars Hill.  It is known as ‘St Teresa’s bookmark’, because it was found on a slip of paper found after the death of Teresa of Avila in her prayer book.  This is an English translation of the original Spanish:

‘Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you

All things pass away, God never changes.

Patience obtains all things

The one who has God lacks nothing;

God alone suffices.’

Amen.