Grace Lutheran Church Last Sunday of the Church Year, November 20, 2005

The Rev. Evan Gaertner

Last Sunday of the Church Year "Scattered…Gathered"
November 20, 2005
Ezekiel 34:11–16, 20–24

It was a cold afternoon. It must have been cold because we were doing things inside that should have been done outside. My Dad was at the church doing pastor stuff. I was 6 years old and my brother Andy who was 12 was watching me, he was supposed to be the responsible one. Bored, we began to skateboard between the kitchen and the living room when I crashed into the corner of the glass coffee table. The glass was in shards and I had blood spilling from the corner of my eye. I still have a beautiful scar that I can see at the corner of my eye if I squint just right. Well no matter what a 6 year old and an 12 year old can do, we could not fix that coffee table. The shards of glass were not going to refashion themselves back into a coffee table and that blood was not going to go back into my head. We called Dad and he came home and I don't remember much more than him just saying over and over again, "What were you guys thinking?"

Well we have a problem. We are sinners. I know that this is not a shock to you. But no matter how obvious, nevertheless, we constantly busy ourselves pretending it isn't so bad or that after a little cleaning up no one will notice.

My brother and I could not pretend that the coffee table was never broken. People would have noticed the broken pieces of glass. If we would have brushed them aside and put them in the trash can, my Dad would have noticed the coffee table was missing…at least the next time he tried to put up his feet.

The Lord promises in our Old Testament lesson, "I will rescue my sheep from all the places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and bring them into their own land."

The reality is that we are a scattered flock because of our sin. As much as we would like to pretend we can handle the situation, we need help.

I know that community is important. For a sense of identity we need to belong. We belong to a family, a workplace, a neighborhood, a culture, a country. At different points in our lives these points of community play more central roles. But none of these can be the starting and ending point of how we establish and strengthen ourselves and our relationships with others.

Families try to be close, but there’s a problem. Some families are close and some just seem to break down. Every family has its weak points. Some may think that if their family could just all get together at Thanksgiving then they could be a family again. But if any of you have tried, you know that if there is a problem in a family it does not just go away just because you sit at the same table on Thanksgiving.

Even in perfect families you cannot rely on them forever. It is hard and frustrating but people die. Families can be a wonderful environment for us to grow in our faith but the family itself cannot be all there is to our sense of identity and growth.

Besides family some find community at work. When I got job at McDonald's in high school, I remember there were co-workers that I looked at as the crazy aunts and uncles, some were kindred brothers and sisters, and there were also the comforting mothers. Every character was found at work. But there’s a problem. In reality the good and the bad of family existed every shift. People would take twist words and start petty squabbles. It was hard in the summer time to get off of a shift or trade shifts on days when other people also wanted off. Just like my real family sin affected the community environment at work.

The neighborhood that you grew up in carries with it a lot of rich memories about what used to be. But there’s a problem. When we go back to our old stomping grounds and notice things are different, we want it to be like it used to be. And the tough truth is that the closeness and support of the neighborhood that you grew up with will not come back by rebuilding a parish hall or putting brick pavers in as crosswalks. Community never was the buildings in a neighborhood that brought people together. We can try to rebuild the external structures of yesterday but that will not be a fix.

Families, work, and a neighborhood can be sources of connections and relationships and they are indeed important. But there’s a problem, the reality is that sin enters every one of those relationships. Even in the perfect family where every one gets along and cares about each other there will come death and grieving and loss. And if family was the center point of your identity you will be rocked and shaken and shattered. And if work is your identity and you lose your job, you will be shattered not just economically. If your neighborhood is the source of your identity and it’s destroyed by a hurricane or run down by factories closing, you will be shattered.

Our first lesson today deals with the struggle of feeling connected when you look around and everything seems lost. Ezekiel wrote during the time after the Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple that Solomon had built. The people of the promise that had been led out of the bonds of slavery in Egypt into the promised land of Israel had forgotten how to trust in God. Instead of trusting in the God who is faithful in his promises, they trusted in the land, in their heritage, in their culture, and in the building of the Temple in Jerusalem. The destruction of Jerusalem and Babylon threw their faith into crisis. Was God defeated? Was God powerless? Were they still the people of God’s promise? With the land, the temple, and their culture scattered across the ancient world, what would happen?

Ezekiel brings us back to who they are and who we are. We are scattered sheep, battered and torn. We are lost and do not know where to turn to find our shepherd. So the good shepherd our Lord God turns to us. He finds us. The Lord God is the good shepherd that seeks the scattered.

The answer to those that are lost, scattered, torn and beaten down by this world is not immediately and reflexively church. You might think that I would say that the answer to feeling connected and having lasting relationships is to come to church. Well it is a yes and no answer. There can quickly develop and become entrenched in any congregation a church culture that is not necessarily a gospel culture. There can be too many words and customs that become coded messages to those on the outside. The gospel is about the free gift of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins. But because of our church heritage that free gift is sometimes not as easy to hear or see.

The reality is that we are a scattered people and that because of the stain of sin we mess up our relationships. There is no thing in this world that we can rely upon to make us whole and satisfy us. The great danger is that if we continue to seek lasting comfort in our families, our jobs, or our communities we will remain scattered, separating from our Lord.

By our own reason and strength we cannot refashion, reform, re-gather ourselves into the kinds of relationship and community for which God created us in his own image. Through what can be for some a haze of sit down, stand up liturgy, strange hymns and big words in the Bible God is at work. When we hear the Word of God, the Holy Spirit brings alive the promises of God into our very lives. When we participate in the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper the Holy Spirit connects us to the good news of Jesus.

Jesus is the good shepherd that goes into the midst of our lost and scattered lives and rescues us. The relationship with God that has been broken by our sin has been reformed, refashioned, regathered through the giving of Jesus into our flesh. Jesus became one of us, knowing the very depths of our pain and need. As Jesus died on the cross, he died our death. He was forsaken and lost there on the cross crying out, “My God, My God.” From the cross Jesus looked upon his beloved disciple and his mother and established family. Jesus said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then Jesus said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that hour the disciple took Mary the mother of God into his own home.

In that lost and scattering moment of the cross Jesus was gathering us one to another. Through our faith in him we are connected one to another. We are connected to God through Jesus Christ. We are connected to one another through our common faith. St. Paul wrote, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.”

Whenever disaster, disappointment, or depression comes across my screen I am encouraged that there is an everlasting comfort and hope in Jesus Christ.

Family, jobs, neighbors, church are all important to our sense of community. But individually none of them can meet my need for a relationship with my Lord and God. My relationship with my Lord and God is given to me through the power of the Holy Spirit as I am gathered to God’s Word and receive his Sacraments. Going into our families, jobs, and neighborhoods connected to Jesus allows us to better connect with one another.

The great joy of Jesus Christ coming alive in my family was witnessed when my Dad came home to that broken coffee table with the skateboard in the middle of the glass. By the forgiving love of Jesus my Dad picked me up. Besides saying, “What in the world were you thinking?” He also just held me and helped me and my brother pick up the glass.

I continue to pray for the time when my family and all families that have experienced the brokenness of death and irreconcilable differences can live in the wholeness of being led by the good shepherd. I trust the promise of God’s word when he said, “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.”

Soli Deo Gloria

Grace Lutheran Church

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