Sermon preached at the Sung Eucharist on the feast of Christ the King 2023

It is the Feast of Christ the King today and I have a confession to make. I confess to you my brothers and sisters that this is a day that makes me grumpy. On the Feast of Christ the King I grimace at the Minor Canons and I scowl the Dean’s Verger. The problem is this is a feast invented in 1925 by Pope Pius XI because he disliked fascists and absolutely hated Bolsheviks. He had a point to make about good government and putting life under the rule of Christ. It was a point worth making, but he was perhaps a bit too insistent. It can feel as though we are being invited to take sides, to like that government more than this one, this prime minister, more than that president. It makes me uneasy, even grumpy.

Still, because this is Christ the King, we have head readings about authority and kingship, about Christ who has all things put under him and Christ separating sheep and goats. In fact, there were a lot of sheep this morning. Ezekiel had things to say about sheep and about shepherds. Scripture introduces us to wise rulers and brave warriors, we meet good servants and good neighbours, but sheep do not get a good press. They get scattered and go hungry, they get injured, they get lost. Some sheep are too fat and some too skinny. You never meet a good sheep, never see a wise sheep. The shepherds, this morning, were no better—they were feeding themselves, not the sheep, and generally falling down on the job. Sheep and shepherds were in trouble, they provoked the anger of the Lord God:

Thus says the Lord God, I am against the shepherds; and I will demand my sheep at their hand… (Ezekiel 34: 10)

We are listening to the voice of Ezekiel and it is an extravagant voice. Ezekiel is the prophet you would not invite to tea in the Deanery, crockery would be broken, the cat would climb the curtain, and there would be portents and omens.

Let’s get our bearings. A nation is in despair, leadership has collapsed. After many changes at the top, people do not know where to look. There is war, atrocity and invasion. Now, some of that sounds a little familiar to you and me, but the scale of what had happened to Ezekiel beggars our imagination. He is an exile. His nation is invaded, its leaders carried off to Babylon. The great institutions are in ruins, the Temple is destroyed. This is a moment when normal service cannot be resumed. Pundits and commentators can explain when this follows that, when there is a story and one thing follows another but there are moments—at the gates of Bergen Belsen, on the streets of Hiroshima perhaps, when before and after no longer serve. A time when the words grate and strain. Ezekiel is in a place like that and, when he does find the words, they are curious and striking, the images are complicated.

So, when we hear about sheep and shepherds we need to pause. He is not talking about sheep. We are not looking at hillsides and a country scene. Ezekiel is talking about kings and about priests. He is describing the nation’s leaders; they are the shepherds. That is a fairly familiar idea in the East—the shepherd, the one walking ahead of the flock setting the pace as leader. King David, remember, the model king, came from leading the flocks. In Ezekiel’s prophecy though, the shepherds have gone wrong, they have turned into wolves, feeding on the flock. The story here is about failed leadership. Ezekiel wants us to notice self-interest. Just before our reading began, he was berating these shepherds:

You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. (Ezekiel 34: 3)

Then, because Ezekiel will never put a good idea down until he has turned it round, tipped it over and tossed it twice in the air, the language changes us. Suddenly, the problem is not the shepherds, it is the sheep themselves, they are at odds with another, it is all argy-bargy and attitude. These sheep are a problem too:

You pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide. (Ezekiel 34: 21)

We are left in no doubt that everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Ezekiel knows how to tell a bad story. If you think things are grim, he is here to tell you that it is worse than that. This is a crisis of leadership and a crisis of community.

Ezekiel announces God’s judgement. He is also though, here to say something about a different future. He believes in restoration. Even in the midst of catastrophe he has hope. And, at this point things get really interesting and Ezekiel does something you really do not expect.

If you know the Old Testament then you begin to know how prophecy works. There are rules, there is a grammar, we know what to expect. And what we expect is that we will hear what is wrong and then we will be told that someone will come and put it right. There is a famous scene in 1 Kings when Elijah is on the run as things go from bad to worse. God appears to him and sets the agenda for what needs to happen now:

Then the Lord said to him, ‘Go, return on your way… you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. Also, you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. (1 Kings 19: 15–17)

That is how it works; you identify the problem and you send the people to sort it. You name the problem, then you name the solution and appoint the staff. It is a strategy, it is the Elijah College Leadership course, there is a spreadsheet somewhere.

But not in Ezekiel! Did you notice the very particular language that was used?

Thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out… I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries… and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel… I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep… says the Lord God.

God himself steps into the space. God alone does this, because God is not like us and only God can break the weary cycle in which shepherds turn to wolves and sheep turn on one another. Not us; God!

Ezekiel says something we need to hear. We are used to the voice of moral improvement, the report card that tells us we ‘must try harder’. We assume we are going to keep hearing that insistent, nagging tone telling us to step up and make more effort. But you will not hear it here. Ezekiel tells us that God will not act ‘for our sake’, will not look at our muddle and mess and feel sorry for us. God will not even interfere because he knows there is a better priest than the one we have, a better king than the one sitting on the throne. God does not look at us and take sides, pick favourites, choose one over another. God acts, says Ezekiel, ‘for the sake of his holy name’ alone. God does not do things in this book because we mess up, God acts because God is holy and God can do no other. Our little wrongs and right have nothing to do with it, our squabbles over who is in charge are irrelevant. Our strategies and ploys are of no interest. The point is that we will always get it wrong, always give in to self-interest, always fall out with one another. God alone knows what truth and justice are. God cannot, will not, leave it to us.

I am not going to labour the point this morning with references to British politics, or the Middle East, or Ukraine. Problems and difficulties abound and I have no clever solution to offer. That is the point. Today the voice of Ezekiel sounds out over our divisions and our bitter conflicts and demands to know if we really believe in our own publicity any more. Do we actually think that the constant promise of more effort, more action and strong leadership will bring a brighter dawn? Do we really believe in ourselves? Do we want to go on feeding the beast that says that we have got this and we will sort it, or do we want to fall silent and look for the presence of the Living God?

Today is a summons to believe in God, not ourselves. It is a challenge to stop thinking we know about peace and justice and to turn to the God who can teach us both. There are important truths here. It seems that Pope Pius XI was right after all. We must attend to Christ our King.