Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 Matthew 25:31-46 Homily<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Recently I was blessed by a conversation with a gentleman who is a financial manager. Most of you know what that kind of job is: he manages stocks and bonds and investment portfolios for people, working on their behalf \u2013 and, by commission, for himself \u2013 to make money. Ten years ago he was living in a big city and working for a big company, managing portfolios not for individuals, but for big businesses and corporations; he dealt with sums of money in the millions<\/em> of dollars. He personally knew and socialized with „big-name“ financial managers on Wall Street, and a few times considered \u2013 and was considered for \u2013 jobs among them.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And then his mother died. And while that was a personal, emotional blow, what became more of an issue for him was caring for his surviving dad, living in a small town in North Carolina. More and more he was traveling from his big-city home to visit and check on his dad, whose health condition was declining. So, he made the difficult and big decision to move away from his big-city job, back to small-town North Carolina, to be more involved in taking care of his dad. He started working, not for a big company, but just for himself, managing not big-time, big-money portfolios, but, in comparison to what he had been doing, small potatoes. And along with that, he was not making the big-money he once did; and he lost some of the prestige of working with people, and companies, that were big names, with lots of prestige and power of their own.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But he was also taking care of his dad. He was doing small things, that to his dad, and to him, on a day-to-day basis, really mattered. He says he learned a lot of life lessons in those few years from his dad, about his dad, and about himself<\/em>. He also began to volunteer in local schools. He came to know young students, and their families. He learned of, and became friends with, young people who needed guidance, young people from troubled homes, or poverty, who needed an advocate, and someone to share with them a bigger vision of the world, and of themselves; and he tried to \u2013 and did \u2013 help. Now, years later, looking back on it all, he says, he traded the better \u2013 for the best. He traded glitz and glamour and big-money and flying to New York, for helping children and their families. And he says: he wouldn\u2019t now have it any other way. He is making a difference \u2013 has made a difference \u2013 in people\u2019s lives in ways he couldn\u2019t imagine himself doing before.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cSoon and very soon, we are goin\u2019 to see the King\u201d is a popular jazz-type hymn. And indeed, we will! We\u2019re going to see him \u2013 Jesus enthroned in glory \u2013 with a gold crown on his head, sitting regally upon a throne. We\u2019re going to see him with angels and throngs of saints around him bowing in humble adoration, and we<\/em> will join the throng. And there\u2019ll be crystal palaces and golden domes and gates of pearl all around.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But we\u2019re also going to see the king various and several times before that. We will see him hungry. We will see him wandering on the street, a veteran, suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, mentally ill. We\u2019re going to see him on television, a victim of bullying, or a victim of violence. We\u2019re going to see him as a poor industrial worker from „second-shift“ at the mill, but now unemployed trying to keep up with the costs and needs of raising his family.\u00a0 Or we\u2019re going to see him as a poor grandma, on a fixed, limited income, trying to raise three little grandchildren.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Recently the Church calendar remembered St. Elizabeth of Thuringia. Thuringia is a territory in central Germany, and she lived there in the 1200s. She was nobility, and she married nobility, actually, a king. Yet, Elizabeth was known then, as she is remembered now, for caring for the sick and the poor. There is a story about her that says that, once, she brought a little boy who had leprosy home with her, and put him into her own bed, right there beside her and the king. Her husband knew that his wife was extravagant in her care for the sick and the poor, but this bringing a sick little waif home and putting him in their bed was a bit much. So her husband threw the bed-covers back to look at the boy and to say, \u201cBetsy, you\u2019ve gone too far; what is this you\u2019ve done?!?\u201d And what he beheld upon the bed was the Lord Himself, with the marks of crucifixion, lying in pain.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cWhen you\u2019ve done it to the least of these, you\u2019ve done it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The values of this world say go for the money; go for the power; go for the glitz and glamour; go for the prestige. But many of you, and the values of the Church, know differently: School teachers, with relatively small salaries; mental health workers, with monthly unstable jobs; families in economically depressed communities; all trying to help and look after each other. And every time you help or give encouragement to these or others in need, that is the goodness of the kingdom of God breaking in, and you have helped, and beheld, the King.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Until we see him with the golden crown \u2013 and surely, one day, we will; but until then \u2013 we will see him otherwise appearing. Sometimes, it takes practice to \u201cfocus our eyes\u201d just right, in order to recognize him, so well is he disguised. And we have a chance to practice now, to try to see him another place where he promises<\/em> he will be: in the breaking and the sharing of the bread.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 | For Sunday, November 26, AD 2024 | North American Lutheran Church | Antioch Lutheran Church, Dallas, NC, USA | From: The Rev. Andrew F. Weisner | Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24 11For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. 12As shepherds seek out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,2,845,157,853,108,110,722,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-19115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ezechiel","category-at","category-andrew-f-weisner","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-current","category-engl","category-kapitel-34-chapter-34-ezechiel","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19116,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19115\/revisions\/19116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19115"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=19115"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=19115"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=19115"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=19115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n11<\/sup>For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. 12<\/sup>As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13<\/sup>I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. 14<\/sup>I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; there they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15<\/sup>I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. 16<\/sup>I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, but the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them with justice. 20<\/sup>Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21<\/sup>Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, 22<\/sup>I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep. 23<\/sup>I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. 24<\/sup>And I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the Lord, have spoken.
\nPsalm 95:1-7a<\/p>\n
\n20<\/sup>But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.\u00a021<\/sup>For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being;\u00a022<\/sup>for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.\u00a023<\/sup>But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.\u00a024<\/sup>Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power.\u00a025<\/sup>For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.\u00a026<\/sup>The last enemy to be destroyed is death.\u00a027<\/sup>For \u201cGod has put all things in subjection under his feet.\u201d But when it says, \u201cAll things are put in subjection,\u201d it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him.\u00a028<\/sup>When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all.<\/p>\n
\n31<\/sup>\u201cWhen the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32<\/sup>All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33<\/sup>and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34<\/sup>Then the king will say to those at his right hand, \u2018Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35<\/sup>for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36<\/sup>I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.\u2019 37<\/sup>Then the righteous will answer him, \u2018Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? 38<\/sup>And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? 39<\/sup>And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?\u2019 40<\/sup>And the king will answer them, \u2018Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.\u2019 41<\/sup>Then he will say to those at his left hand, \u2018You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42<\/sup>for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43<\/sup>I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.\u2019 44<\/sup>Then they also will answer, \u2018Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?\u2019 45<\/sup>Then he will answer them, \u2018Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.\u2019 46<\/sup>And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.\u201d<\/p>\n