Tag: lost sheep

• Jeremiah 39:1-14: Remaining Among the People

  
  

  Jeremiah 39:1-14: Remaining Among the People

  Monday, November 10, 2025

  

  We have read about Jeremiah in the dungeon (Chapter 37) and Jeremiah in the miry cistern (Chapter 38); now we read about his capture and that he remained among the people. Just yesterday I spoke with a friend about her reluctance to do something that would cause her great pain. I said that rather than focus on the suffering that an experience was bound to bring her, she might just want to focus on tending to God’s lost sheep. This was something she said she could do. I had heard the Jeremiah in her anticipate the lack of understanding she was about to meet. I heard her fear of her own unpredictable emotions rising. We spoke about patience, persistence and witnessing. And we spoke about how we cannot control people or events, of how we can barely sometimes control ourselves. Life brings us these difficult lessons to learn. Life also brings us unmeasurable reward, if we only learn to remain among the people.

  Yesterday’s Gospel reminded us of something we may want to carry with us everywhere and it is this: When we are fearful of something we must do we are likely relying on ourselves too much. And we are likely forgetting to rely on God. Jesus tells his disciples in Luke 12:8-12 that we need not worry about our circumstances – even when they are dire – if we remain in him, in God. When we allow the Spirit to direct us, we cannot fail. When they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities, do not worry about how or what your defense will be or about what you are to say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you at the moment what you should say. Jesus may be remembering the words from Isaiah 30:21: From behind, a voice will sound in your ears: “This is the way; walk in it,” when you would turn to the right or to the left. Both the Old and New Testament remind us that when we live in the Spirit, we cannot falter. When we remain with God’s people, we will not go wrong. When we follow Christ, we may suffer but we will never be lost.

  We are often reminded to witness, watch and wait on the Lord and so we pray from Psalm 5 in today’s MAGNIFICAT Morning Prayer: It is you whom I invoke, O Lord. In the morning you hear me; in the morning I offer you my prayer, watching and waiting. You are no God who loves evil; no sinner is your guest. The boastful shall not stand their ground before your face. But I through the greatness of your love have access to your house. I bow down before your holy temple, filled with awe.  All those you protect shall be glad and ring out their joy. You shelter them; in you they rejoice, those who knew your name. It is you who bless the just one, Lord: you surround the just one as with a shield. 

  I asked my friend to see herself as a shepherd who gathers lambs to bring them into the fold at night. I asked that she put all her worry into prayer. And I asked that she rely on God to bring goodness out of harm.

  In the end, Jesus reminds us, God is all there is. In the end, we do not want to wait on anyone or anything else. In the end, all that is asked of us is that we witness, watch and wait. Rather than succumb to the familiar fears that govern us poorly and use us badly, we will want to remember to gather ourselves and to gather lost sheep even as we remain among God’s people. For it is in, and of and through Christ that we are saved and brought back to God. It is in, and of and through the Spirit that we are consoled. And it is in, and of and through God that we are made whole. And in the end – when we can manage to remain with God’s people – we remember well that . . . God is all there is.

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  Cameron, Peter John. “Prayer for the Morning.” MAGNIFICAT. 16.10 (2011): 239. Print. 

  A re-post from October 16, 2011.

  Image from: https://www.umcnic.org/news/bishops-column-shepherding-on-the-edge

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  November 10, 2025

  God is all, Isaiah 30:21, lost sheep, Luke 12:8-12, patience, persistence, Psalm 5, Trinity, witness-watch-wait

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• Ezekiel 24:15-27: Destruction

  
  

  Ezekiel 24:15-27: Destruction
  Sunday, November 9, 2025

  

  The first 40 chapters of this prophesy are written predicting the doom and fall of Jerusalem; and Ezekiel was mocked for believing that the impregnable Jerusalem – jealously guarded by Yahweh – would fall to the pagans. History reminds us that in 597 B.C.E. Nebuchadnezzar and his troops swarmed into the city and violated the temple, sacking it, killing the Jewish soldiers, taking Jewish captives and carting off all that had value to Babylon. The Jewish nation had lived too long in false security, thinking for too long that they were unbeatable as a kingdom, invincible as a nation, indestructible as a people. They had not understood that it was their own actions that threatened their safety rather than the foreign troops. Their refusal to adhere to the spirit and the letter of the Mosaic Law had left them vulnerable.

  It is too often true that as humans we do not realize our lack of understanding until we lose what we hold most dear; and this is why there is something recognizable in the eyes of a fellow mourner that tells us when our sadness is truly felt by another. It is impossible to counterfeit soul-wrenching mourning. Nothing deceives those who have lost, those who have grieved. Like the witnesses to Ezekiel’s dumbness and numbness, we cannot empathize with grief or sorrow until we ourselves have experienced deep loss. This is human nature, for it is not until we exit from mourning that we find ourselves immutably changed. After exile, we forever recognize honest grieving when we see it. We do not fully and totally take in the fugitive until we are bereft of all we know.

  In today’s reading, we see Ezekiel’s stalwart attempt to obey Yahweh. We watch his effort to hide his grief. We cannot take our eyes from the drama of his transformation because somehow we understand that from this day forward the Diaspora will believe his predictions, will begin to heed his words, will try to put away their pride and anger, will learn to leave themselves open to the healing redemption of their God.

  Ezekiel is eventually vindicated, but not until the nation has begun their northward journey into the unknown. Ezekiel suffers great loss, but in so doing he opens himself to his mourning people. And accompanies them into exile.

  When we find ourselves on our knees with no where lower to sink, we must listen for the voice that says to us . . . All sanctuaries are desecrated . . . yet you are my favored one . . . the one I send to my people . . . to accompany them in their exile.

  God turns all harm to good. God heals, saves, and redeems. The Lord asks us to enter into the miracle of transforming the destruction with God, to join in the healing. When God calls us, we must respond. When we are sent as ministers to God’s flock, we must go. When the walls of the city are impregnated and the temple gold is taken, rather than wrapping ourselves in deep mourning, let us keep our sandals on our feet, leave our turbans on our heads, and leave behind the pride of our hearts. We are called to enter into a fugitive life to live for a time in which we find our sole sustenance in God. For by this sign, the lost sheep will know that God is with them.

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  A re-post from October 15, 2011.
  Image from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Jerusalem_%2870_CE%29

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  November 9, 2025

  deep loss, desecration, exile, God heals, God redeems, God saves, grief, lost sheep, mourning, Nebuchadnezzar, sheep, Temple

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