gathered, not scattered

November 23, 2025 • Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Scripture Lesson: Jeremiah 23:1–6 (NRSV)
Rev. Jonathan Cintron, Guest Preacher

[You can view the full worship video recording at: https://youtu.be/ECTFDyRYpkI]

“How do I struggle with this?”

Back in 2015, I stood at a crossroads.
MBA in one hand, two futures in front of me: Law School, or Boston University School of Theology—with no English, no money, no clue, and never having seen snow in my life.

What pushed me wasn’t ambition.
It was trauma.

I grew up churchy—fifth-generation Methodist, preaching at 3, singing by 9, leading by 10, living in church every weekend. But the day I stood up to injustice from a pastor… that’s the day my real ministry began—and so did the harm.

And I grew up hearing:
“God doesn’t care about politics.”
“Homosexuality is a demon.”
“Being gay is an abomination.”

So when the Book of Discipline called me “incompatible,” I thought, Well, that’s an upgrade.

Everything in me (my sexuality, my passion for justice, my political voice) was framed as something God rejected.

And then God sent me a shepherd who saw me: Bishop Ortiz.
That’s why, at that crossroads, I chose theology.
Because I knew I had to join God in gathering the scattered…
since I was one of them.

And I’ve been wrestling with the institution ever since… an institution that often scatters more than it gathers, protects its power more than its people, and still thinks God lives in the building when God clearly left a long time ago to hang out in the margins.

Power knows exactly how to protect itself.

And beloved, I know I’m not alone.
My story is not just my story;
it’s the story of so many of us who have been scattered, silenced, or told we didn’t belong.

So let’s talk about us.
Because this struggle isn’t individual—it’s communal.

“How do we struggle with this?”

We Methodists come from a holiness tradition, yet holiness got hijacked into shame and fear. What once meant being who God created us to be,bold and authentic, became moralism: purity clubs policing bodies and identities.

And let’s be real:
hell, rapture, and fear have been church marketing tools for decades.

No wonder our buildings are empty.
No wonder so many of us have felt scattered, pushed out, erased.

We built beautiful sanctuaries, but too often they were empty of love, justice, and compassion. For many of us, they became symbols of everything that oppressed us: patriarchy, racism, white supremacy, colonization, fear, shame.

Many of us have asked, “Why do I keep showing up?”

We have been scattered… not by God, but by shepherds who weaponized doctrine, fear, and even God’s name.

We struggle to trust the church. We struggle to trust the shepherds. And sometimes we struggle to trust God: especially when God gets used to prop up the empire.

But here’s the truth beneath it all:
We struggle to see God clearly because the shepherds taught us to fear the very God who longs to gather us.

And that’s exactly where Jeremiah steps in—
right into our confusion, our hurt, and our hunger for something different.
Because while the shepherds may have scattered us,
God has something to say about that…

 “What does the Bible say about this?”
Jeremiah 23:1–6 (NRSV)

1 Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD.
2 It is you who have scattered my flock… and have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings.
3 Then I myself will gather the remnant…
4 …and they shall fear no longer, nor be dismayed, nor shall any be missing.
5 I will raise up for David a righteous Branch… who shall execute justice and righteousness.
6 Israel will live in safety.

Jeremiah speaks into the final years before Babylon destroys Jerusalem. The shepherds—kings and elites—abused their power, aligned with empire, and abandoned the vulnerable. Into this political, spiritual, and identity crisis, Jeremiah gives both judgment and hope.

A. VV. 1–2 — God confronts harmful shepherds

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep.”

These leaders were supposed to protect the vulnerable. Instead, they scattered them through injustice, exploitation, and political games.

Idolatry here isn’t just liturgy:
it is worship to power, wealth, the 1%, the empire.

God says, “I will attend to you.”
this is Not wrath but accountability.

This problem is not new.

The problem is not new.
God has always been angered by leadership that aligns with empire, harms people, or abandons the vulnerable.

And let me be clear:
God’s indictment of those shepherds becomes an indictment of every spiritual leader today who uses doctrine, policy, or silence to scatter people.

Woe to those who anoint the weapons that killed Palestinians.
Woe to those who sanctify the White House speaking in tongues and lying to the people about God’s presence.

God is not in the White House.
God is not in temples where spirituality becomes a form of capital.
God does not inhabit the temples of trade.

Quite the opposite: I do not know about your’s but my Bible talks about a  God who walks in, flips the tables, and calls those leaders thieves.

And woe to spiritual leaders who use faith to pacify their congregations: telling them to “just pray,” or “just wait,” or that injustice like the Genocide in Gaza is “a sign of the end times.”

If the sermons, the liturgy, the songs, the worship, the readings in your church are not challenging you to go out and change the world through concrete acts of love—get out of there fast.

B. V. 3 — GOD IS DONE. “I myself will gather the remnant.”

If the shepherds won’t gather, God says: I will.

God needs no institutions.
No buildings.
No Book of Discipline.

The Spirit gathers Her people.
with or without our permission.

History proves it:

• When the church justified slavery, God gathered the scattered in fields: in hush harbors and ring shouts.

• When the church scattered women, God gathered them in Seneca Falls.

• When the church scattered queer people, God gathered us at Stonewall… and the Spirit fell with tongues of fire shouting, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!”

God does not need these shepherds, GOD IS DONE. God always gathers the remnant.
You see, The future of the church begins at the margins, not at the center of privilege and power.
But many leaders can’t see that, because you cannot serve two masters:

Capital or God.
Privilege or justice.
Empire or the Spirit.
Their idolatry blinds them to the new thing God is doing.

C. V. 4 — New shepherds, new leadership

God promises leadership that is:

1. Without fear
No fear of empire, backlash, or losing members.
Wesley taught: God’s hermeneutics are always freedom, justice, radical love.

2. Does not dismay
This leadership stands its ground.
If dignity is the cost of progress, then the price is too high. We do not compromise, we do not sacrifice anyone

3.  Where No one missing
Centers Plurality, not uniformity.
No one erased.

4. Marked by Holiness
Holy, not as prohibition-era rules or respectability politics… but holy as being the image of God courageously and authentically. 

Holiness as action, not adjective.

Holiness that orients thoughts, words, and deeds around radical love, not fear or shame. 

D. VV. 5–6 — The Branch: God’s dream

Here lies the heart of the text:
God plants a new kind of leadership: one rooted in justice, righteousness, and safety.

Not a return to the past.
Not “Make Church Great Again.”
or a nostalgia disguised as theology.
Full pews with empty hearts.

God’s dream is something new:

• A new heaven

• A new earth

• A new community

• A church that looks like the Body of Christ: plural, diverse, many-in-One.

And that dream is already calling from the margins:

 There is a voice crying in the wilderness.
 God is gathering in Gaza.
 God is gathering at the border.
 God is gathering in the streets.
 God is gathering the ones who feel forgotten, abandoned, left out.
God is flipping tables, tearing down corrupt shepherding, and already rising new leadership from the margins.
Because that’s who God has always been:
the One who gathers the scattered 

And if this is who God is,
then the question becomes very personal:

What does this mean for you? Because if God is calling the church into something new, then God is also calling you into something new.

“What should you do about this?”
Beloved, the invitation becomes clear.

1. Examine your own shepherding.

Where have you scattered people? Who needs apology, repair, inclusion from you?
What closets do you need to come out of to reflect God’s image in you?

2. Become a safer presence. Become a gathering space.

Practice being someone who does not increase fear. And I’m not talking about toxic positivity: this is not, “Smile and pretend everything’s fine.”
It’s okay to say things are not okay.

But even in the “not okay,” you can be the kind of person who grounds others, who breathes peace, who brings clarity instead of chaos.

Learn names, stories, and pronouns.
Validate emotions. 
Validate feelings. 
Validate journeys.

 Even those who have fallen prey to false information, they, too, are sheep longing to be gathered.
Ask: “Who is missing here?”

3. Rebuild trust in God’s shepherding.

If you carry religious trauma, I see you.
The church hasn’t been kind to me either.
Yet here I am… not because I’m a masochist,
but because I refused to let them steal God from me.

I am God’s child whether they approve or not.

So ask God to heal the wounds harmful shepherds left in you.
Engage practices that restore hope.

Tattoo this hymn on your soul:
“I am a Child of God.”

No bishop, pastor, president, influencer, doctrine, or opinion can uproot your divine identity.

God loves you with a love that gathers, not scatters—
a love that reaches into every closet and calls you into freedom.

4. Courageously embrace transformation.

Let God reshape your assumptions.
Step into bold, vulnerable, liberating faith.
Ask yourself:
Who is missing and how do I help bring them home?

And beloved, once you start to wrestle with these questions…
once you begin to heal, to unlearn, to transform…
the next question becomes even bigger:

What would it look like if all of us lived this way?

If each of us became a gathering presence…
what kind of community could we build together?
What kind of church could we become?
What kind of world could God create through us?

 “How can we live this out together?”

So how do we become the Church of the Village God is calling us to be?

1. Commit to being a gathering church.

A church where the scattered find safety.
A church that refuses silence, fear, and shame.
A church that uses every tool (art, liturgy, tech, creativity) to gather boldly.
Not a nostalgic church, but a new church.
A church that says:
We’re not going back. We’re going forward.

2. Practice shared shepherding.

Leadership is not for a few—
it is the call of the whole flock.

A community where:

• Queer kids are safe

• Elders are cherished

• Immigrants find home

• The exhausted find rest

Everyone a shepherd in the way of Jesus.

3. Imagine the world God dreams.

A community where:

• No one is missing

• The vulnerable are centered

• Justice flows

• And the church becomes a sign of liberation, not harm

This is what it means to become the church we’re called to be:

• Open hearts that gather

• Bold faith that transforms

• Joy that welcomes renewal

• Courage that dreams with God

If we live this together, we will not just attend church:
we will become the gathering place of God’s dream.

CONCLUSION

Beloved, the time for timid faith is over.
God is gathering the scattered right now: in the streets, in the shelters, in the margins, in the closets, in the protests, in the broken places the church forgot.

And God is asking us: this community, this church, this moment… to rise up and join the Spirit in the work of gathering.

No more nostalgia for what once was.
No more worship of empty buildings or empty traditions.
No more silence in the face of harm.
No more losing people because we were afraid to be bold.

This is the hour for courage.
This is the hour for creativity.
This is the hour for liberation.
This is the hour to be the church God dreamed of in Jeremiah 23:
a church where the scattered come home,
a church where justice is not a slogan but a lifestyle,
a church where no one is missing,
a church where the Spirit can finally breathe again.

So rise up, Church of the Village.
The Shepherd is calling us forward.
The Spirit is gathering.
And God is dreaming through us a new world into being.

Let’s become that church.
Let’s gather God’s people.
Let’s walk into the future God is already building…
for the scattered, for the wounded, for the world, and for the glory of the One who gathers us all. “We’re not rebuilding what was; we’re becoming what God dreamed.”

Amen.

Benediction:
Go now as gatherers in a world that scatters.
Go with courage that refuses fear, with love that protects the vulnerable, and with hearts tuned to the margins where God is already moving.
May the God who gathers the scattered send you out as builders of justice and bearers of radical hope.
The Spirit goes before you, strengthens you, and surrounds you.
Go in power, go together, no one missing.
Amen.

Copyright (c) 2025 - Jonathan Cintron
All rights reserved.