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A Reflection on the First Reading for Sunday, July 21, 2024:
Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

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Jeremiah
​23.1-6

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. “So I will attend to you for your evil doings,” says the Lord. “Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing,” says the Lord.

“The days are surely coming,” says the Lord, “when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’”

Pause. Pray. Reflect.

A young man. As young as my youngest is now. Jeremiah was no more than twenty when God whispered and shouted and called him to speak to kings. He first came alongside King Josiah, a young man of his own generation and of his own heart. For almost two decades they had a long walk in the same direction of reform, recalling the kingdom to their covenant with the Living God. And then it began to unravel. King Josiah was taken in battle. With each new decade of his life, Jeremiah was called to come alongside another king in his early twenties who had a determined deafness to his voice. Each decade more was lost as these kings refused the Righteous One and the pattern He laid for the care of a kingdom. Until, by the time Jeremiah was my age rather than my children’s age, it was all gone. The kingdom had fallen. The sheep were scattered. 

Into here God whispered hope.
The hope of a return.
A gathering home caused,
By the extension of His own arms.
No fear.
None missing.

I think I am still there, in the space between the scattering and the gathering. Sailing in that ocean of hope between the twin shores of promise and completion. 

You have come, Righteous Branch. 
You breathed Your first breath in David’s royal city. 
You walked in the dust of Judah. 
You extended Your arms and took a last breath on a hill outside Jerusalem. You got up from a breakfast campfire by the Sea of Galilee, 
Taking Peter aside to lay on him
The weight of being a shepherd after Your own heart.

So now I sit here with You in my boat on this ocean of hope between one place and another, becalmed. In this momentary stillness there is an awareness of Your desire for the return. The returning. Of all. None missing. This desire is so heavy that I’m not sure my small boat could carry it if You should leave this weight behind on my deck boards when You go. So You’ll just have to stay until they all come home. There are more to be recalled to a covenant with You, and Your gaze is on them. I feel a new wind coming.

I Feel the Winds of God Today.



Noreen Smith

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