Jeremiah 23:1-6

The first six verses of Jeremiah 23, prescribed for the Last Sunday After Pentecost in Year C has a long history in Anglican liturgies, as it overlaps with Jeremiah 23:5-8 which was read instead of a Epistle at Eucharists in what we rather quaintly called "The Sunday Next before Advent" from the First Prayer Book of Edward VI in 1549 to and including the American BCP 1928.

Jeremiah is sometimes referred to as "the prophet of gloom and doom" and it is true that there are many passages in his long book in which he warns and bemoans the dire punishments he foresees as coming upon his people as a result of their unfaithfulness to their God and his covenant with them. In Jeremiah's particular case, it is defeat and exile at the hands of the Babylonians. But one way or another, in varying times and circumstances, this is the message of all Israel's great prophetic tradition beginning at least as far back as Hosea and Amos in the 8th Century BCE. This doctrine is succinctly stated by St.

Paul at Galatians 6:7, "Be not deceived, brethren, God is not mocked." But this does not exhaust the prophets' vision; with the single exception of Amos, at least as far as his oracles have survived in writing, the prophets are unanimous in expressing their faith that God's love and his eternal purpose ultimately to save his people, and through them, his whole creation, will not fail.

We have just such a passage here. In verses 1 and 2 is the denunciation of the "false shepherds". Compare Ezekiel 34:1-10. But in verse 3 and 4 we have the assurance that God himself will take over the shepherding function as it were - again elaborated on in Ezekiel at 34:11-16 - and (at Jeremiah 23:5-6) the promise that there is to be finally a "Righteous Branch" to succeed David.

The compilers of our current Lectionary are right, it seems to me, to include verses 1 through 4, not only because of their rich allusive shepherd imagery, but also because it thus includes the denunciation of unfaithfulness as well as the promise of restoration. If we hear only verses 5 through 8, as we did for more than 400 years, we get a truncated message.

The Church, of course, understands that the promise of the "Righteous Branch" is fulfilled in Jesus - the One whose coming we look for in Advent beginning next Sunday. Even more powerful theologically is the image of God himself in Christ becoming the Good Shepherd as set forth in detail in John 10:11ff. (Also see Psalm 23:1, Psalm 80:1, and numerous other passages in both Testaments.)