This is the last Sunday after Pentecost, the day we celebrate Christ the King. Thinking of that as I read the lessons for today so full of sheep, I am reminded of the hymn “The King of Love my shepherd is”(Hymnal 1982, #645), a paraphrase of Psalm 23. You might want to find it in the Hymnal ’82 or check it out online. I am particularly struck by the third verse in relation to the Ezekiel message:

“Perverse and foolish oft I strayed but yet in love he sought me,

and on his shoulder gently laid, and home rejoicing brought me.”

Ezekiel tells us that God promises: “I will seek out my sheep . . . I will rescue them . . .I will feed them . . . I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep . . .I will seek the lost, and will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.” It is easy to see where Jesus got his model of the Good Shepherd and the parable of the lost sheep.

Bearing in mind that shepherds in Jesus’ day were the low guys on the prestige rating scale, the juxtaposition of the shepherds with the king in our lessons is noteworthy. High vs. low, authority vs. servanthood, esteem vs. humility are all very different perspectives from which to view the world. For me, the image of “The King of Love” is the reconciling factor of Christ Jesus’ incarnation, “who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave [or shepherd] being born in human likeness, and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” (Phil.2:6-7)

In our culture we tend to spend most of our time here on earth focusing on separating ideas, people, things into discrete entities; we perceive that everything is “this” or “that.” The King of Love came to model for and call us to live into the reconciling, unifying way of God’s love, of both/and, of the interdependence of all creation.