This week is traditionally known as “Christ the King Sunday.” But there’s a lot of problematic stuff in that. It’s not all bad, but in a very real way, it’s just another extension of Western European imperialism and colonialism, so I tend to downplay it a little. Ok, actually a lot. That said, what it also means is that it’s the last day in the Christian year, which means that the Sunday following, we officially hit the Advent Season! But first, in our lectionary, we get the prophet Jeremiah, aka: “The Weeping Prophet.” And he is known as this, because he may just be the most robust prophet when it comes to speaking truth to power on behalf of peace, justice, and all of that which is right and good. And it breaks his heart when his words are not heeded. So instead of wrapping up the Christian calendar with a celebration of “Christ’s reign,” this week we get back to what Jesus was really about, and we end the Christian year with a call. And that call is best summed up in one of the United Methodist baptismal vows, “resisting evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” -Pastor Paul
SCRIPTURE: Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NRSVUE)
31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another or say to each other, “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.