It is the final Sunday of the Christian Year
and, clearly,
the theme is one of accountability.

What is God Like?
What would he have us be and do?
What does it mean to be faithful?

The illustrations of sheep and goats
in today's readings
are designed to get our attention
and are quite confrontational,

so, I think I will begin
with another, more accessible, story.

A man, who often found himself alone,
decided to buy a parrot for company.

He took it home from the pet store
and began to teach it how to talk.

I will get a lot of pleasure and company
from a talking bird, thought the man.

But, after a week or so of steady decline
the parrot died.

The man was angry
and went back to the owner of the pet store
to complain.

I worked and worked with this bird, he said,
and not one word did I get
in return.

I bought a tape player
and recorded the words on it
which I wanted the parrot to learn
and played that tape to the bird
morning, noon, and night
- no talk did I get.

I put a mirror in the cage
at your suggestion.
- no talk.
I put a little swing in the cage
to make it happy.
- not a word!

Then, yesterday, it fell off the perch
and died! …

"What," asked the pet shop owner,
"were you feeding it?" …

It is easy to get wrapped up
in our wants and desires
and become absorbed with self,
either as an individual
or as a nation.

It is easy to begin to exercise
the power we have been given
in such a way that,
even inadvertently,
we destroy life,
and become isolated, and alone.

It is to just such a story
as the one about the parrot
that God is responding
in today's first reading from Ezekiel.

"Thus says the Lord God,
I, myself, will search for my sheep
and rescue them and care for them.
I will bring back the strayed,
bind up the injured,
strengthen the weak;

but I have had it with the strong and the wise!"

Oh Oh…
This prophesy is not about sheep at all.

If we back up a few verses in Ezekiel.
we will see it clearly.

"You shepherds, hear the Word of the Lord!
'My sheep have been scattered
and wandered over all the mountains.

They have become food for the wild beasts,
because you have not searched
for my sheep.

You have fed yourselves
and grown fat,
but you have not fed them;

therefore," [and here begins today's reading]
"Therefore, I myself,
I, the Lord God,
will search for my sheep,
and feed them,
and bind up the injured,"
and so forth.

This reading is not directed
toward the sheep,
but rather toward the owner of the parrot
who had a duty to know and care for
the little bird;

the owner who was focused
on only his own wants and desires.

That is why he ended up alone
attempting to have a conversation
with a bird.

Specifically,
The parable from Ezekiel
is directed toward the leaders
and the wealthy of Israel,
whose task it was
to care for the people
and to lead them to grow
in faithfulness, love, and compassion;
so that they would be
the light of the World.

They saw only to their own comfort
and have failed as stewards
of my people,
says the Lord.

"And, now, I will set to it, myself.
I will raise up a new order
to lead my wanderers home."

Well, who are the lost sheep,
broken, and downtrodden?
and, who are the shepherds,
the new order,
in their wealth and power?

For a Christian, it must be clear
that we are, or were intended to be
at least part of that new order.

So, in the last 2000 years,
in our lifetimes, yours and mine,
in this last cycle of 52 Sunday readings
about being faithful --
So has God been preparing us
to be part of his New Order of shepherds.

So has he been heaping gift upon gift,
blessing upon blessing, upon us
and imploring us to use those tools
as caretakers of all Gods people,
all God's creation,
and tenders of the poor, the lost
and the downtrodden.

This is the Sunday of Christ the king.
"Here is who I am," God is saying,
and, "Here is what I expect of you."
"How are you doing?"

God makes it really, really clear
in today's Gospel reading
that we are accountable to him.

There are two kinds of people,
says Mathew's Jesus,
and like sheep and goats
they will be divided into two flocks
when darkness
and the cold of night
come.

To one group, he will say,
When I was hungry, you gave me food;
I was thirsty, and you gave me cool water.
I was a stranger and you welcomed me;
naked, and you clothed me.

I was sick, and you took care of me;
in prison, and you visited me.

And the righteous will answer,
We don't remember seeing you among those
for whom we cared, Lord.

And Jesus will say,
That's why you are so beautiful,
For inasmuch as you did it
for the least of these my beloved,
you did it unto me.

These are the shepherds of the new order.

This is the Sunday of Christ the King,
and God is not just piddling around
with us, today.

We live in a world
in which forces beyond comprehension
drive principalities and powers
to destroy and to diminish
the human spirit.

A whole string of choices
by powerful people and bodies
over a long period of time
has left this world a political, economic,
and social wasteland.

People are judged
by what others did a thousand years ago,
as when the Mongols massacred
one million Arabs at Baghdad
(Helegu in 1258 AD)
or 50 years ago, when it happened
to the Jews.

Now, National conceit and xenophobia,
with a tincture of crude oil,
collide with poverty, resentment,
and tribal pride;
and war looms on the horizon.

And, if all that doesn't make sense,
and I'm perfectly sure it doesn't,
lets just say that the world
seems dangerous and ugly just now,

and I don't have a clue how,
or the power to, change a thing.

But, but,
we are among those to whom God
has given the most
with which to begin constructing
his Kingdom
as it can exist on earth;

and, the institution Jesus died to create -
to be that place in a crazy world
where we can begin
to exercise power together,
on God's behalf -
is the Church.

The church doesn't exist
in the hope that God will bless us;
the church exists
because he already has.

It is here that we can become aware
of being gifted people, beloved people,
and of God's expectations in return.

Here we can share our gifts;
our time, our love, our wealth, our prayers;
and make a difference.

Here we become perceptive
of the needs of all God's beloved.

Here we can discern how we participate
in God's hope, breaking into the world.

Here, we begin to become,
for the first time,
fully human.

The collect today was a prayer
that all God's people
will be freed from sin and oppression
to be in communion with God
and one another.

This is how God does just that,
for, in the end,
he is giving us
the greatest gift of all.

By seeking to be what he asks
we are becoming that which
we truly are.

and live, not alone,
talking to a parrot,
but in communion with one another,
and in conversation
with God, himself.