“God’s Beckoning Grace”
Ezekiel 34:11-17 and Acts 2:42-47
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
3/10/24
11For thus says the Lord God: I myself will search for my sheep and will sort them out. 12As shepherds sort out their flocks when they are among scattered sheep, so I will sort 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. 13I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and 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. 14I 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. 15I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. 16I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strays, 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. (NRSV)
42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
43Awe came upon everyone because many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. (NRSV)
Ezekiel, prophet to the exiles several generations after Isaiah, speaks of God as a shepherd gathering a scattered flock and returning them home.
The image of God as shepherd is hardly new for Israel. Since the days of David, the people had been singing a psalm that began, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Both Psalm 23 and Ezekiel’s prophecy rely on concrete and earthy images. Ezekiel adds emphasis by moving from the nebulous language of “clouds and thick darkness” to describe exile, to the language of “fertile highlands…riverbeds…[and] green pastures” to describe home.
A couple of things stand out. First, Ezekiel makes an intentional connection between the One who delivers and the land to which the people will return. Ezekiel ties intimately to the earth the people’s restoration, their ongoing well-being, and their fundamental identity. So, how the people relate to and care for the earth mirrors the way they imagine, understand, relate to, and love God and one another.
Second, when the prophet refers to God leading the people to fertile highlands, riverbeds, and pastures, he’s saying that God will act directly on them as a shepherd acts on a flock. And once Israel remembers that she is a sheep gone astray, they can begin to understand that God, like a shepherd, is acting on their behalf.
This remembrance—synonymous with repentance—kindles a transformative theological evolution. The people re-imagine the physical Creation as a part of the revelatory Incarnation of God. As their faith matures, they begin to see all things as truly holy—including the experience of exile! And the more they deepen in their relationship with God, the less God has to act on them—the less God has to herdthem. Within their renewed relationship, they experience God inviting them to a lifelong journey of mutuality.
Defined by grace, God doesn’t force us in a given direction; God beckons us. The language of beckoning implies an awakening within those being beckoned. We awaken to what is good, holy, and true within ourselves and others. We find ourselves noticing and even seeking places of abundance, places where cooperation between humankind and the earth yield not only ample food, clothing, and shelter, but God’s presence and wisdom as well.
The spiritual traditions of many indigenous North Americans speak of “thin places.” Places where distinctions between the physical and the spiritual realms are as sheer as a bridal veil. In these thin places, one can experience holiness as a shimmering, immediate presence. And isn’t that the message of Resurrection? Easter is God’s decisive action on Jesus so that through Jesus the Creation may become a continuously thin place. A place through which God works and in whichGod may be experienced.
In today’s reading from Acts, Luke says, “God performed “many wonders and signs…through the apostles.” Through Resurrection, God is deepening God’s presence in the world by acting on and through the beloved community, just as God acts on and through Jesus.
The apostles in Jerusalem live in a posture of radical openness to God. And they do that by living in community—that is to say, communally. They share meals, pray together, pool their resources, and even sell personal property for the benefit of others. Being so lovingly held, they hold nothing back. And in giving all, they only deepen their trust in and love for God. Through the apostles’ faithfulness, God transforms the community itself into a thin place in which people recognize that they’re not only ones on whom God acts. They also become ones who, through their own faith, hope, and love, help to share and reveal God.
In setting a high bar for discipleship, the apostles demonstrate precisely how we embody the unity that Jesus speaks of when he says, “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us…completely one.” (John 17:21 and 23a)
In my opinion, in our culture, the term evangelical has lost its connection with the gospel of Jesus. But the very point of evangelical faith is to live in such a way that disciples demonstrate the love with which we are loved. Unable to create that love, we simply open ourselves to God’s compassionate justice, that is, to God’s sanctifying grief over all that is displaced, discarded, and distraught. And we make room for God to act through us. In this way, disciples discover their authority and strength in acts of humble service rather than through the means of violence and domination.
Remember your life. Recall times when you have been loved without judgment or expectation. Those are examples of thin moments when you can say, I was in the presence of God. Recall, too, those equally thin moments when you loved without judgment or expectation, and you can say, God was present through me.
It’s usually in the simplest acts that God loves us and loves others through us. To share food, work, and prayer is to live in Christ-centered community. It is to know and to love Jesus. And through such things, the Spirit transforms the inevitable difficulties and failures we face into experiences of God’s veil-thinning power of Resurrection.
Last Tuesday afternoon, I visited with a church member who had returned home after major surgery. We sat in his sun room with its tall windows looking out at his garden where daffodils and crocuses were already blooming and where so much else was just waiting its turn to break through warming soil and greening limbs. As we talked, the man reflected on our congregation and how you have been there for him and his wife, and for their whole family over the years. You could feel the air thinning as he said, “It chokes me up a little. Thinking about the church. The people. God. Always there. It helps me know that, no matter what, everything will be okay.”
I think the goal for every congregation is to continue becoming a thin place, a place where God’s real presence opens us to the holiness and beauty inherent in all that God creates and loves. That’s how we embrace our blessing and become blessings to others—whoever they are. Members of the church. Neighbors in the community. Recipients of ministries we support. People we disagree with and don’t understand. Even the earth itself.
I trust that God is beckoning us to be that kind of community in a culture growing increasingly bitter, divided, and not only tolerant of but worshipful toward violence and its agitators.
Now, a congregation that humbly opens itself and joyfully commits itself to God’s welcoming and inclusive grace will never be the biggest or wealthiest church around. Communities of grace live according to very different definitions of abundance than prosperity gospel churches. Nonetheless, such communities become irreplaceable and irrepressible reminders that God is present and beckoning all of us into God’s realm of expansive grace.
That realm is a place of “fertile land [and] green pastures.”
A place of “gladness and generous hearts.”
A place of “praise” and “goodwill.”
A place where exile has ended and Resurrection is still just beginning.
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