Jeremiah 31:7-14 ~ Psalm 147:12-20 ~ Ephesians 1:3-14 ~ John 1:(1-9), 10-18
This September, my beloved and I left everything that is familiar to us so that she could pursue a graduate degree at a university in Italy. We live in a beautiful town, where I walk most mornings down a sun-dappled, cobblestone street, past quaint cafés and ancient churches, to a nearby market to collect the ingredients we’ll need for dinner that night. The weather has been lovely, the people have been friendly, the beach is only twenty minutes away, the food has been spectacular, and our open windows let us enjoy both the smells of a nearby bakery in the mornings and the sound of buskers playing in the evenings. In many ways, it’s surreal– we’re living the dream.
And while I know perfectly well how blessed we are to be able to have this experience, the move has not been without difficulties. It’s not just that we miss various familiarities– the convenience of speaking our native language, or owning a car, or being in the right time zone to watch our favorite show– but we deeply feel the absence of the communities we’ve left behind. We miss feeling the closeness of those with whom we have shared laughter and tears, we miss being able to count on seeing those who love us…I suppose you could say that we’re missing church. We’re missing a sense of community where we feel welcome and at ease, where we feel God’s love made real in the people around us.
All this to say, the chapter we’ve just started has been lovely– and also, kind of lonely. And in my more melancholic moments, I find myself drawn to the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah is called “the weeping prophet” for a reason: the book of the Bible that bears his name can be a difficult read, brimming with ominous portents of divine justice and the seeds of despair for God’s people. The first half of Jeremiah lists the repeated failures of Israel to live up to their calling, and much of the second half documents the conquest of Israel that happens as a consequence. Between these two halves, though, there is a small section reassuring us that God will not abandon God’s chosen people– an ember of hope that smolders resolutely through the Babylonian diaspora and is breathed into flame by the coming of the Messiah six hundred years later. This ember is a promise of God’s enduring faithfulness through the difficulties that darken the horizon: though the time of hardship is coming, a time of goodness and plenty will follow it. Though tears will be shed, sobs will soon turn to laughter. The chosen people are soon to be scattered, but they will be gathered together again.
This promise of gathering is especially compelling in this present moment of loneliness in my own life. My move to Italy is by no means the same as the generational trauma of God’s people being conquered and ripped from their homeland, but I do feel a bit…scattered. A bit cast away from home. So when that promise of gathering is made twice in the hopeful interval of Jeremiah 31– first in verse 8 and then again in verse 10– I noticed a pang of desire in my heart. I want to be gathered.
I think we all want that sometimes: to have God scoop us up and hold us close, to feel the safety and assurance that there’s someone greater than we are who is in control and wants our good. I’m sure that Jeremiah’s first audience would have understood that, at least. After all, God’s first commandment to their ancestor Abram was to “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house” (Gen. 12:1)– and the tapestry of God’s people since that point has been woven from threads of diaspora and wilderness wandering. I’m sure even the most devout Israelites, in the forty years after the exodus and after being dragged as captives to faraway lands, wondered if they would ever enjoy the peace and security of “home.” I’m sure, in the moments when true belonging felt like a distant dream, that they wondered if they would live to see the fulfillment of God’s promise of gathering.
Thanks be to God, we need not wonder as they did.
Ephesians 1 tells us that Christ came to us to fulfill God’s ultimate plan: to gather all things in heaven and on earth to Godself. In the person of Jesus, we find the goodness, the plenty, the joy that Jeremiah foresees, though perhaps not in the way his first audience (or we) would have expected. We expect a homecoming– but in the life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah, home comes to us. We expect a lion, a mighty king who restores Israel to its former glory– but God sends a lamb through whom God’s love and grace is known to each person. We expect God to purify us, so that we may enter into God’s presence in the innermost chamber of the Temple– but instead, God bursts out of the Temple to be among us as Immanuel, God With Us.
That is the promise of gathering that is fulfilled in the coming of Christ. That is the blessing we celebrate in the season of Christmas: that like the shepherd in Jeremiah 31:10, the one who calls himself “the Good Shepherd” in John 10 gathers the flock, that we may know peace and security under the watchful eye of the one who desires their good.
If you have ever had occasion to crack open the Book of Common Worship, you will see that every worship service is divided into four sections, the first of which is called “Gathering.” It’s an opportunity to greet one another and prepare to come before God in worship together. It strikes me that it’s also a remembering and an honoring of God’s promise, fulfilled in Jesus. It’s a chance to rejoice in the connection and beloved community that God has blessed us with, in the ways that we recognize the Spirit moving through one another, in the presence that is promised in Matthew 18 “wherever two or three are gathered.” I hope you join me in remembering this the coming weeks, that every coming together as a community might be a holy re-enactment of the first congregation gathered by the Messiah: a motley crew of farm animals, travelers from faraway lands, and poor shepherds gathered around a manger…with the glorious host of heaven looking on.
My prayer for you at the end of all of this is the same prayer I have for myself as I adjust to life in a new country: that you see in Jeremiah 31 not only a promise to an ancient people from a faraway land, but a promise to you. I pray that you allow yourself to feel fully whatever parts of you feel scattered, feel out of place, feel cast out from home…and hear God’s assurance in these words:
I am going to bring them from the land of the north,
And gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,
Among them the blind and the lame,
Those with child and those in labor, together;
A great company, they shall return here.
With weeping, they shall come,
And with consolations I will lead them back.
The one who scattered Israel will gather them,
And will keep them as shepherd a flock.
Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,
And the young men and the old shall be merry.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
I will give the priests their fill of fatness,
And my people shall be satisfied with my bounty.
Friends, may it be so for you this Christmas season.
Rev. Paul Burgess (he/him/él) recently wrapped up a three-year pastoral residency in North Carolina and is taking a “sabbatical” in Ravenna, Italy, supporting his Beloved, Maggie, as she pursues a graduate degree. Paul is a pastor in the PC(USA), a member of the board of directors for More Light Presbyterians, and a very proud uncle– and has, at various points in his life, also been a campus minister, a middle school English teacher, a Boy Scout, a Girl Scout, a soccer referee, a camp counselor, a retiree, an expat, and an actor. He cares deeply about immigration issues and de-segregating the Church, and can often be found listening to Irish music and playing board games.
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