Perhaps you know what it feels like to be “scattered. . . driven away. . . not attended to?” For the last few weeks, I have talked about these ideas, concepts, feelings. At the end of the liturgical church calendar, we meet them again. Together we lived through these experiences as a church. On Christ the King Sunday, they surface in our text causing us to wonder.
These are the words and feelings that Jeremiah writes about in chapter 23 to the leaders of Judah living in the Babylonian captivity. They are so far from home—regardless of how ‘home’ is defined by the hearer.
Jeremiah’s message is written to the failed kings and to the failed religions leaders (both formally and informally placed leaders) of his day. They are also the words written to anyone who falls prey to the temptation of the office of false prophet—anyone who sees what is happening in our world and does not tell the confused, seeking, to “return to the Lord humbly and fully. Seek, and return, to Christ the King.”
The weeping prophet reminds his audience that when you feel this way, as we have here, God sends someone… someone from the line of David, the righteous Branch, for you. God cares for us in ways that this world cannot.
On Christ the King Sunday, I want to share with you the words of the 11th Century Eastern Orthodox Theologian and writer: St. Symeon. He writes these words for us:
We awaken in Christ’s body
As Christ awakens our bodies, . . .
For if we genuinely love Him,
we wake up inside Christ's body
where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him,
and He makes us, utterly, real,
and everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in Him transformed
and recognized as whole, as lovely,
and radiant in His light
he awakens as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.[1]
As I read those words, I hear Jeremiah 23. I hear that someone is coming. . . Someone who has seen us suffer. Someone who has watched all that we have been through in our past, and in our struggles today.
Someone who has heard us offer justifications for our positions and the rationalizations for our personal beliefs. Someone is coming to redeem us.
The one who knows how we feel when we are scattered. . . driven away. . . and not attended to. And as we have these feelings, and even when we are guilty of these acts, this person comes to reconcile and to save us.
So today, as this Table is set before us. As the bread will be broken and the cup poured soon for you, let us celebrate and honor the One who gathers us, reunites us. Let us be mindful of Christ the King together.
Move 1- the warning.
But be warned… This text begins with a word that should bring a practice of introspection to your hearts and lives before I invite you to join me at the Table and celebrate the victory won at this Table.
Yes, it is good to know that God will bring us home because Christ the King invites us here. But before we come to the Table, each of us should pause and consider how we are guilty of verse 2. Not just in a general sense, but truly pause and deeply wonder, in a very personal sense:
What does it look like to personally scatter? Jeremiah here is speaking about the idea of forced, purposeful dispersion—like global repopulation after the Flood. The verb occurred in that place also. Where has that happened in your life? What does it feel like if it has happened to you?
What about to drive away? To take someone, or a group, and divide them away from the rest of the community when they normally might belong to that same community? For each member of the Body of Christ knows something about the choice and action necessary to drive someone away.
The final sin in verse 2 is the most painful to consider: to not attend to… In this case the verb is always used to speak in a covenantal way between God and humanity. But as Jeremiah employs it, there is a NOT here. So, in this case Jeremiah invites us to look at ourselves and ask: where have we a broken covenant between the church and… someone else?
Heavy stuff to consider on Christ the King Sunday. But it is necessary work for us to begin with, and we gaze toward the Table which is set here.
This is also what Paul tells us to consider before we come to this very table. It was part of his communion liturgy in 1 Corinthians 11. And as I have said already, the people who heard Jeremiah 23 read to them by the mouthpiece of Jeremiah, they were instructed to wonder about this themselves.
Move 2- the fold
After we take a moment to think about the places and the instances where we are guilty of these self-centered choices, we should look at how the fold is better because each of us is here. We should recall the truth that the fold, the church, is better for we are and as we come together, even in our poor choices, Christ the King is working to restore His church.
For the fold, together as it is now under, and with, Christ the King, multiplies and does good work in the name of the Lord. Even if the fold, as it was in Jeremiah 23, lives in exile. For in this confessional moment, we grow stronger because the bond of confession unites us together. Christ the King, unifies us as the Church together. It is His good work that we participate in.
That good work refers to the testimonial words that St. Symeon spoke about earlier—testimonial of how Christ is in all of us—not in some of us.
Healing us. Partnering with. Calling us onward. It is the testimonial that Christ took what is broken in each of us, painful as it is to see, Christ took all the hurt and all the separation and he restored us by placing us in his very self. He took us by the hand and brought us into wholeness with God. Christ the King, took us, even when we felt like exiles, and brought us home again.
The shepherd cared for the flock—just as Jeremiah 23 illustrates in verse 3. The flock grows; it multiplies, it prospers in Christ because that is God’s will for His flock.
Move 3-
This affirmation, and the confessional act before that, lead us to the truth that Christ the King is coming to continue to heal and restore us when we find ourselves scattering, dividing, and not attending to others who are around us.
Christ the King comes if we are also the ones who have felt the effects of this division happening in our lives as well.
For He is here. And as he is here, Jesus deals fairly and justly with us. He strengthens us and makes us whole in ways that we do not always see as they prepare to happen and take shape. Because we are honest and open with God and each other, space is created where we God operate around us.
Conclusion
So now we come to the Table of the Lord let us bring all that we are all to God. Let us come acknowledging all that we have dealt with, and where we have been. And in doing so, let us also affirm that Christ the King is with us always.
DM
[1] https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/S/SymeontheNew/Weawakenin/index.html accessed on November 18, 2025.
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