November 23, 2025
The Last Sunday after Pentecost
(Proper 29)
The Readings from the Revised Common Lectionary
Old Testament Jeremiah 23:1-6
Psalm: Canticle 16 From Luke 1: 68-79
Epistle: Colossians 1:11-20
Gospel: Luke 23:33-43
Dear Ones in Christ,
There are moments when the Word of God does not merely comfort us, it confronts us. Today is one of those days.
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture,” says the Lord through Jeremiah.
It is a word spoken into ancient Israel but it echoes unmistakably in our own time. For we, too, live in a season of scattered flocks, a world fractured by violence and fear, a nation exhausted by deception and division, a people hungry for truth, starving for compassion, and longing to be led by hands that heal rather than harm.
We know this ache. We feel it every time cruelty is paraded as strength, every time lies are sold as leadership, every time the vulnerable are made enemies and the powerful excuse themselves from moral responsibility.
Yet into all this, the Lord declares: “I Myself will gather My flock.” Not an angel, not a committee, not a system God Himself. He promises a shepherd, a righteous branch, one who will reign with justice, who will restore the scattered and who will let no one be lost. And we know His name. Jesus Christ. The Lord our Righteousness.
And so, with Jeremiah’s warning still ringing in our ears, we turn to the ancient song of Zechariah, a song of dawn breaking upon a weary world: “Blessed be the Lord…He has come to His people and set them free.”
This is not sentimental sweetness. This is not the kind of dawn you admire from a porch swing. This is the fierce mercy of God splitting open the night, shining on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, and guiding our feet into the way of peace.
The dawn of God ALWAYS leads toward peace. Never toward vengeance. Never toward domination. Never toward the dehumanization of our neighbor. Peacemaking is not weakness, it is the work of the risen Christ in a broken world.
And then Paul sings the great hymn of Colossians, reminding a frightened church that: “In Him all things hold together.”
Hear that again… ALL things.
Not some. Not the convenient parts. Not the parts that make sense to us. All things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, they hold together in Christ.
And if they hold together in Him, then nothing, nothing, is beyond redemption. Not our institutions, not our nation, not our relationships,
not our souls.
Christ is the center that cannot be moved. And the more chaotic our world becomes, the more we cling to that center. And then we arrive at Calvary. We stand beneath a sky that trembles while the King of glory hangs between two criminals.
And what does the true Shepherd do? He does not curse. He does not condemn. He does not call down fire. He says, “Father, forgive them.”
This is kingship the world cannot comprehend, a Shepherd who dies for His sheep, a Lord who refuses the sword, a King whose throne is a cross, a Savior who welcomes a dying thief into paradise with nothing but a promise and a prayer.
This is the leadership we desperately need. This is the righteousness Jeremiah foresaw. This is the dawn Zechariah sang. This is the One in whom all things hold together.
The question, then, is not whether God is still gathering His people. He is. The question is whether we, His servants will join that work or resist it. Will we be shepherds who heal? Or voices that scatter? Will we stand with the wounded and forgotten? Or align ourselves with the loud and powerful? Will we live as children of the dawn or as disciples of the darkness?
Our world does not need more anger, more noise, more contempt. It needs women and men who look like Jesus, crucified love, resurrected hope, peacemakers in an age addicted to outrage.
We are called to be those people. To carry the light of Christ into every shadow. To gather rather than scatter. To reconcile rather than divide. To forgive when forgiveness seems absurd. To speak truth when lies are easier. To stand with “the least of these,” for that is where the Shepherd always stands.
The dawn still breaks Beloved. Jeremiah warns us. Zechariah blesses us. Paul steadies us. And Jesus shows us the only way forward. The Cross is our compass. The Dawn is our calling. The Shepherd is our King.
May we live as His people, a people who refuse to scatter, a people who gather in love, a people who shine with the dawn, a people who walk the way of peace.
For the world is waiting. And the Shepherd is calling. And the dawn, thanks be to God, still breaks.
Amen.