A Little Bit Sheepish
May 11/2014 John 10:1-10 and Psalm 23Every year at this time in the church, if you are following lectionary, and we do, it’s sheep and shepherds. In church on this Sunday, the psalm will be #23, and some portion of John 10 will be read. There is something that those who choose how the lectionary would work that is important to encounter every year with the metaphor of sheep and shepherd. It is funny, because although lectionaries have been in use in as long as we have had the printed text of the holy scriptures, the one that we use now, the revised common lectionary, has only been in use since the 1970’s. It is interesting because I imagine in Nashville Tennessee, which is where the organization that created the lectionary resides, you would not think that sheep and shepherds were at the forefrount of their minds when they were thinking about how to arrange scripture readings to open up God’s word for the church and it’s people in this day and age. And yet – this metaphor, this image of God is significant enough that a Sunday each year is devoted to it. The image of sheep and shepherd has more meaning to the people of Jesus time than it does to this industrialized, computerized, urbanized society and the bible uses the image of the good shepherd, and the bad shepherd, and the lost sheep, and the wayward flock over and over and over and yet I bet you that there are some of us here that have never been up close and personal with a sheep – and I bet also that the shepherd of today barely resembles the shepherds of Jesus day… – I have this friend who when she was in her 20’s was with me as we went into Banff National Park – while we were there a few mountain sheep approached us looking for food from the friendly tourists – my friend Cindy was all excited because she had seen and touched a real moose. Many of us have no real appreciation for how a sheep lives and the care it needs and what a shepherd does for it and the flock. And yet – here we are surrounded by our woolly friends seeking to hear and follow the voice of the shepherd.
It is post Easter – we celebrated the resurrection of the Lord four weeks ago – and we are in the great 50 days of Easter in the church year – each of our stories in this time focus on how the world has changed now that God has conquered death, that Jesus lives again. And we follow the disciples as they shift from being with Jesus to them being the ones that are the bearers of the Good News – this is the birth of a new thing, the church is being created, something new is going on – because Jesus was dead but now is alive, because God was working in the world creating something new – the tomb was empty and the world has never been the same since.
On this forth Sunday in Easter – this Sunday of sheep and shepherds Jan Richardson reminds us that, to pay attention to where we pay attention, to how we turn ourselves toward the Christ who comes to us. Pay attention to who the Christ comes to as we listen to our story. The Christ comes to the women at the empty tomb, to the disciples and Thomas in the locked room, to the two at the Emmaus table in the breaking of the bread, Jesus shows himself, inviting others to see and recognize him, even to place their hand within his very flesh so that they may know and trust who he is.”[1] He comes when he is least expected and in unexpected ways. Pay attention to what we give our attention to. Jesus appears today – pre resurrection, in conversation at the temple – that’s meaning of his words have deeper meaning in a post-resurrection world. He speaking to the Pharisees - speaking about who he is, and what he has come to do and how is work and life are deeply interconnected to God’s – he is not making much headway with them. His words are falling on deaf ears. Jesus says – pay attention – something is happening here that is important and life changing and radical – very truly I tell you says Jesus – God is getting into the world and you are missing it!
And again Jesus said to them, "Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.
What is it that makes it so hard for us to accept that God wants good things for us, that the God wants us to be safe and happy and protected. Jesus is trying to help the Pharisees understand just how much good God is doing in the world – Jesus has just healed the man born blind and instead of rejoicing at the wonderful miracle that a man who had been blind since birth is now able to see, to experience the world in a whole new way – instead the Pharisees are looking for a scam, looking to discredit someone or something because for some reason, Jesus being able to heal the man does not fit into their understanding of who God is and what God is capable of doing. And so as they confront the man and his parents and finally Jesus, they are so wrapped up in what they see that they cannot see what is really going on – and when Jesus tries to clarify things by using the metaphor of sheep and shepherd and gate and gatekeeping and thieves and robbers – what the Pharisees here is not clarification they hear instead blasphamy – they do not hear gospel but heresy – they miss the presence of the divine and what they hear is hear is sacrilege!
Why is it so hard to accept that God wants good things for us?
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
It is pretty clear in the first line from this ancient prayer, this sacred piece of poetry that God wants the best for us. There is something about this prayer
Psalm 23 is a wonderful example of God’s love at work in the world. In the whole of the bible – this passage is the most known and the most used of all of them. There is something about this ancient text, this sacred piece of poetry that is able to transcend gender and race, denomination and faith and speak to the hearts of people of many different faiths and cultures all over the world
2He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;
3he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.
The shepherd psalm is our reminder about God’s will for
us in our lives and God place in the midst of living. It is about God’s presence in times of
trouble, God’s abundance in times of scarcity and God’s love as a protector,
redeemer and sustainer. It is not only
in the cadence of the psalm the poetry’s flow but the images of God that are
presented that cause us deep in our being knowledge of not only the sacredness
of life but also the deep intimate relationship that human being have with
their creator, with God. We have all
experienced times in our life’s journey times of sorrow, or pain, of grief –
and yet in the midst of that this psalm reminds us that we are not alone, that
God is with us in our adversity. – this
psalm reminds us that we are never alone in our valley of the shadow of death –
that God is with us.
Bad stuff happen we all have been there …and God walks with us
I love the perspective of a shop owner in Nottingham, England. He posted this notice in the window of his coat store: "We have been established for over 100 years and have been pleasing and displeasing customers ever since. We have made money and lost money, suffered the effects of coal nationalization, coat rationing, government control and bad payers. We have been cussed and discussed, messed about, lied to, held up, robbed and swindled. The only reason we stay in business is to see what happens next."
5You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Gretchen Alexander is sightless. But she refuses to
allow her blindness to limit her life activities. She enjoys archery, golf,
softball, sailing and water-skiing, as well as a number of other activities
that those of us who are sighted have yet to learn.
She also speaks to groups about living life fully. When speaking to a group of high school students, she was once asked if there was anything she wouldn’t try.
“I’ve decided to never skydive,” she answered. “It would scare the heck out of my dog.”
She also speaks to groups about living life fully. When speaking to a group of high school students, she was once asked if there was anything she wouldn’t try.
“I’ve decided to never skydive,” she answered. “It would scare the heck out of my dog.”
Why do some people rise above their problems and live
life fully, while others become defeated? Merle Shain explains it this way:
“There are only two ways to approach life, as a victim or as a gallant fighter.
And every day the decision is ours.” Or put another way, we can believe we’re
helpless or we can believe we’re powerful and capable. And every day we
reaffirm our belief.
We have a choice to make about whether we choose to see
the goodness and mercy that follows us all the days of our lives or not. We have a choice to make about whether we are
willing to live in the house of the Lord.
This God, our God – the God that Jesus was trying to
explain the to the Pharisees – this God is our Shepherd this God who as Nadia
Boltz Weber puts it:
“ is a God who created us and all that is, this
same God spoke through prophets and poets, claimed a people to be God’s own and
freed them from the shackles of slavery. This same God led those people through
the wilderness to a land of milk and honey, and told them to always welcome the
stranger and protect the foreigner so that they could remember where they came
from and what God had done for them. Then in the fullness of time, and to draw
ALL people to himself, God came and broke our hearts like only a baby could do
and made God’s home in the womb of a fierce young woman as though God was
saying, from now on this is how I want to be known. And as Jesus, God the Son
kissed lepers and befriended prostitutes and baffled authority. Jesus ate with
all the wrong people and on the night before he died, he gathered with his
faltering friends for a meal that tasted of freedom. He held up bread and told
us to do the same thing and he promised us so much: that he would be with us,
that forgiveness is real, that we are God’s, that people matter and that death
is done for and that after a tough resurrection, grilled fish makes an awesome
breakfast.
Which is to say, God chose to enter the the world–
enter into the uncertainty and danger of mortal human existence in order to point
to something bigger. Bigger than what is fleeting and finite. In
the incarnation God has given us nothing less than a small measure of eternity
through the birth, life, death and resurrection of Christ. And made us an
Easter people – not people who vapidly pretend that everything’s ok – but
people who live in the Christ reality of death and resurrection. People who
live in the reality of a God who brings live things out of dead things.”[2]
This is our God this is our Shepherd and we shall
not want. Amen.
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