I recently read some advice on how to be successful.

1. Never apologize or admit wrongdoing, ever.
2. Always counter-attack, and always with greater force than you received.
3. Use the legal system as a weapon, not a recourse for justice.
4. Manipulate the media ruthlessly.
5. Use fear as both shield and sword.
6. Build a fortress of loyalty around yourself.
   Thom Hartmann, The Last American President, 9/23/2025, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

I wonder whether that really works.
I don’t think it would be helpful in making friends.
Well, not real friends.

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Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.

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Our reading from the Prophet Jeremiah is frequently used as a prophecy of Jesus. That’s the implication of putting it in the Revised Common Lectionary for Reign of Christ Sunday.

Of course Jewish people don’t read it that way. They read it as a prophecy for the people of Judah (or Judea) that the people will be gathered together again after the Babylonian captivity. They read it as a time when God will raise up a king from the line of David.

For them, Jesus is not that king.

It’s also a prophecy against false prophets who,
like the false prophets in the northern kingdom of Israel that fell to the Assyrians,
promise peace and prosperity while indulging in deceit and selfishness.

Although both Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism started at about the same time in the same place, there is understandably a tension between two closely related faiths that disagree over whether the promised king has come.

But let’s look at the prophecy:

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says the Lord.
Jeremiah 23:1, NRSVue

Leaders, whether civil or religious, have a responsibility to serve their flocks. Not themselves. Their flocks.

Power is difficult to wield. To do it well, one must not unfairly privilege anyone. Mistakes are amplified by power. Perhaps the easiest thing to do is to just use power for one’s self.

The six points on how to succeed – don’t apologize, always counter-attack, use the legal system as a weapon, manipulate the media, use fear as shield and sword, build a fortress of loyalty – are examples of how to use power to gain more power, and to enrich one’s self.

Those are the rules of Roy Cohn, as written by Thom Hartmann in The Last American President.

Roy Cohn was a lawyer who prosecuted Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, worked with Joseph McCarthy’s investigations of suspected communists, and advised and “solved problems” for powerful people in New York City.

He also denied being gay, ultimately dying of AIDS-related complications.

Notice how much of his recommendations are about using power to overpower others, even the powerful?

1. Never apologize or admit wrongdoing, ever.
2. Always counter-attack, and always with greater force than you received.
3. Use the legal system as a weapon, not a recourse for justice.
4. Manipulate the media ruthlessly.
5. Use fear as both shield and sword.
6. Build a fortress of loyalty around yourself.

How tempted are we to look for someone to overturn force with greater force?

And yet we follow Jesus, who did not overthrow the temple system, did not overthrow Herod, did not overthrow Pilate, and certainly did not overthrow Rome.

There’s a problem with overthrowing power by using greater power: it encourages someone to use even greater power than that to overthrow your power.

Once people hit each other with fists.
Then with rocks and sticks.
Then with rocks on sticks.
With knives, and swords, and arrows.
With bullets and canons and rockets.
With bombs.
With chemical weapons.
With biological weapons.
With nuclear weapons.

There seems to be no end to escalation.

We cannot use increasing violence as a way to peace.

So when Jesus was crucified, he asked for forgiveness for those who crucified him.

When the soldiers said
“If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”
Luke 23:37, NRSVUe

and one of the criminals crucified with him said

“Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”
Luke 23:39, NRSVue

Jesus did not save himself and the others being crucified. He instead endured it with them.

The other criminal noted:

“Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”
Luke 23:40-41 NRSVue

and

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.”
Luke 23:42, NRSVue

We are in a time of trouble.
There is a lot of harm.
Many are taken into captivity.
Some are killed.

And we may wonder where our God is in these times. We may wonder where Jesus is in our time of need.

Jesus is with us in our suffering, suffering with us. And the promise is that Jesus will remember us.

There is no promise of overwhelming force, but there is the power of love that undermines the force of violence. Overcoming violence with more violence is like overcoming shadows by shutting out the light.

But overcoming violence with love is like bringing light into the shadow. Or, as first published in a sermon by William Lonsdale Watkinson in 1907:

“It is better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness.”

Our theme for Advent is The Light of Hope. The images we will be using have the Bethlehem Star, which I have always loved even before I recognized that it contains the cross.

And if that star represents the light of Hope, and that is Jesus’ star, then our hope is in Jesus.

And if Jesus is God, then our hope is in God.

And if God is Love, then our hope is in love.

So my challenge to us all this week, the last week before the season of Advent,
is to remember Jesus as Jesus remembers us.

If we remember Jesus, Jesus will remember us.
Amen.

Amen.
Let’s sing CH 569 Jesus, Remember Me

• Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
• Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.