Sermon – Scattered and Gathered
Jeremiah 23:1-6; John 10: 11-17
Farmville Presbyterian Church
11/23/25
My first regular, payrolled job was in a Pizza Hut. It was on hwy 360 in Chesterfield next to what is now Manchester Middle School. Now, it is another restaurant, but next door, and more importantly for this story, was a Huddle House. I remember sitting down with a Huddle House menu once back in those days, and I realized that I had reached the promised land. There under “hashbrowns” was a list of different ways you could order them with each variation building on the last: one topping with another topping and another topping and still another topping. Quickly, my eyes darted to the end, to the wonderful goal of any short-order chef-work – hashbrowns Scattered, Smothered, Covered, and Topped. The all-the-way hash browns today means grilled onions, melted cheese, hickory smoked Ham, diced tomatoes, jalapeno peppers & grilled mushrooms, then topped with Bert`s Chili™ and sausage gravy. Some things are truly blessed to be in the scattered family. Other things are not happy to be scattered.
As you might imagine, most things are actually not so good as scattered. Beside hashbrowns, seeds and really annoying people are about all I can think of that might be better as scattered. And it is really just seeds. Being scattered is the evidence of something truly terrible as we see in the prophet Jermiah. As we have seen time and again in Bible study, “shepherds” are another word for God’s leaders, those in charge of caring for and leading the people. The main shepherd is the king, but all of those who are supposed to lead the people and care for them in good ways also function as shepherds. It is no accident that our English word “pastor” means shepherd, and the word “congregation” means a “those who flock together.” There is a holy function, a sacred duty, in helping God’s people find good pastures and still waters. The shepherds in Jeremiah’s day had failed miserably at their job. King after king had lived for his own glory and despised God’s way. They were weak and proud. The people had drifted further and further from the life of God’s people. They had lost so much of what it meant to follow. They were scattered literally into exile, and the leaders – priests, kings, and even some prophets, were unable to keep the people on God’s path or even in God’s country. While Jeremiah was giving God’s word, this very prophecy, the Babylonian people were destroying the nation and tearing down Jerusalem, in particular. There was no fixing the situation then. At this point, Jeremiah is trying to help the people see a future. There was nothing else to do for them but try to give them hope in a far-off land.
Being scattered is not the end, however. And this is a good thing because it is hard for me to not feel scattered today. There is very little effort to being united in what is right or good. Our American system has fed self-interest to the extreme, and we ignore the real needs of our neighbor. One the one hand, our framers orchestrated a brilliant system that used self-interest in the act of governing. That’s why we are supposed to have checks and balances. No one is meant to have all the power. On the other hand, we cannot lose sight of the dignity or humanity of those around us. It is about more than living with the other. It is about living for what we can be together.
In Jeremiah’s day, there was no new king. The nation expired and with it the kingship. Only the dream remained. Even when they rebuilt Jerusalem, they never had any king for hundreds of years. Finally, they had some version of king over the course of 70 years until they got King Herod, a political puppet king established by Rome. It was a new line of even worse shepherds. His and his family’s reign was about fear and violence. That is the backdrop of John’s Gospel and our second reading.
Because there was a complete failure of the earthly shepherds, God provided the new shepherd in Jesus. It is easy for us to see Christ as the fulfilment of Jeremiah’s words. In him, the people who had been scattered were now to be gathered. Jesus makes it clear that not only would he care for the people of God that they knew, he was there to gather even more people than anyone expected. He was there to gather people that no one else imagined. God since the time of Abraham and Sarah projected a goal of eventually blessing all the world through them, yet that idea got smaller and smaller through the ages. Can Jesus lead us as the Good Shepherd to love the world into something new?
The greatest arrogance is to try to go backward in time. We cannot undo the present and recreate the past. We cannot discard the world of today and decide to live as if we were in another time. We cannot deny where God has placed us today. That has never been God’s intent or path. To try to run backward is to reject the God of today for our vision of yesterday’s god. What we can do is walk the path that God has laid out for us in faith, humility, and love. There is no getting around the situation that the world is where it is. We are in constant roll of technological evolution. That affects our life in Christ. We are in a time of political strife and ecological crisis. That affects our life in Christ. We see people dying needlessly all over this world – absolutely and completely needlessly. That affects our life in Christ. So many people do not have a good home, if any home at all. This affects our life in Christ. Jesus our King needs us to help shepherd God’s people today and to care for this world in his name. Literally, no one else will do this if God’s people will not do this. The choice is to scatter or to gather.
Everyone who is reading or hearing this has a part in this scattering or gathering. If you are in Christ, you are IN Christ and bear his ministry. We are part of the Good Shepherd and care for his sheep. Honestly, sheep have a reputation for being about as dumb as they come. This is not actually true, which is nice, because we are sheep, also, needing care and leading. They are very social creatures and need to figure out things together. They are also precious and useful. Even one that is lost is precious in God’s eyes. Sheep were an easy metaphor for Jesus in the ancient world. It is harder today when many have never even met a sheep. Just realize that we carry within us both the best and worst of humanity. We are amazing and tragic. We are able to do wonderful things and can be a complete mess. We are in need of so much help, and we are able to be that help for others. We are sheep AND have a hand in shepherding this world and God’s people in Christ our King. We have no future left to ourselves and our own devices, but with the Good Shepherd, we have a beautiful future.
Let me underscore this point: lone sheep do not survive. Scattered sheep do not have a future. You cannot have a sheep as a pet because they will physically fail without the herd. They need the social nature of other sheep. Being scattered and alone is no future for the sheep. It is no future for us. Thanks be to God that we have care, compassion, and a guiding and protecting hand. We are being gently led through the wilderness of today. And our place is to help bring along the rest of the flock, all of them. Our job is to gather, all of them. Please consider what you can do to help gather God’s people this week. We need good shepherding. We need good shepherding together.
To God be the glory. Amen.