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Sermon – John 10.1-10, Acts 2.2.42-47, E4, YA, April 30, 2023

30 Tuesday May 2023

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As a parent of young children, I often found that I mourned when certain stages ended.  One of the harder transitions was when I was no longer physically able to manhandle my children.  Before then, if a kid was refusing to move, or was throwing an epic tantrum, I could just swoop them up and manage their outburst physically.  But once I could not long hold their weight or battle those strong little arms, I realized my parenting technique was going to need a dramatic change – I was going to have to give up some control and figure out how to help both of us verbally work through what was going on in the moment.  Of course, that probably was the way I should have been parenting from the beginning, but sometimes a good swoop sure did feel good and gave me the illusion of control.

When I see images of Jesus the Good Shepherd – the biblical image we celebrate today – I find a similar sense of disappointment.  If Jesus is the Good Shepherd, I am metaphorically that helpless, probably not too bright, albeit cuddly sheep draped over Jesus’ shoulders.  That kind of image has always made me feel a little disempowered.  But this week I stumbled on a Byzantine icon[i] of Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd which shifted things for me.  Instead of a sheep draped over Jesus’ shoulders, the icon has a person draped over Jesus’ shoulders.  Their eyes are closed, their body is limp, but Jesus, complete with the nail scars in his hands and feet, seems to effortlessly be carrying this person out of the wilderness.  The image did not necessarily make me feel empowered, but the image did humanize this metaphor for me.  I could easily imagine an adult who has been walking through the valley of the shadow of death, exhausted from suffering or grief.  Or I could imagine a protective Jesus who has swooped someone out of harm’s way.  And I can definitely imagine an adult who has worn themselves out with their own tantrum.

In John’s Gospel today, Jesus is shepherding the crowd through all those scenarios.  You may remember back in Lent we got that long story from John’s gospel about the blind man Jesus heals, only to have the religious community freak out about Jesus healing on the sabbath and not believing the man had actually been blind in the first place.  Well after the blind man proclaims his desire to follow Jesus, Jesus then turns back to the community of faith and offers this explanation of his healing the blind man.  His teaching in John is actually much longer than what we hear today – in fact, Chapter 10 of John’s gospel is usually divided into three sections – all about the Good Shepherd – but a different section is appointed for each liturgical year.  In year A, we get the “I am the gate,” or door, portion of Chapter 10.  We are told that when we pass through the gate, the “good shepherd,” tends to us so that we will have life, and have life abundantly.

This passage is the “so what” of Easter.  If you remember, people have been running around, demanding proof of Jesus’ resurrection, taking whole walks with Jesus before realizing who the resurrected Jesus is.  And so, Eastertide is a celebration of the resurrection, and we spend seven weeks trying to figure out what resurrection means.  The “so what” today then is that Jesus came, died, and rose again so that we might have life, and have that life abundantly.  And if that abundant life means Jesus has to carry us out of trouble, hold us when we cannot walk on our own, or haul us over his shoulder when we are just too stubborn to accept his gift of abundant life, that is what Jesus the Good Shepherd will do.  Jesus’ resurrection matters because his resurrection reminds us of the gift of abundant life.

But that story is only part one of our “so what” today.  The rest of the “so what” of resurrection happens in our lesson from Acts today.  Since Easter we have been reading in Acts about the beginnings of the church community.  We have heard two parts of Peter’s sermon after the great day of Pentecost, where he gathers the first mega church of over 3000 people.  Now we hear the “so what” of Jesus being the gate.  You see, when Jesus becomes the gate, the door through which we pass into the protected sheepfold, you know what that gathering of the sheep looks like?  We are not disempowered, limp bodies, lying under protection.  When we pass through Jesus’ resurrection, we join a community – a community of action.[ii]  The text from Acts says of that growing body, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”[iii]  As the community grows, they share in economic justice, sharing their wealth and caring for all equally.  They spend time together, eating with glad, generous hearts, praising God, and tending to the goodwill of all.  Jesus doesn’t just carry our limp, weary selves, and then deposit us into the world to try again.  Jesus brings us into a fold – a community of study, fellowship, communion, and prayer.

That is the beginning of your “so what” of Easter today.  We are an Easter people because Jesus gave his life so that we might have life and have that life abundantly.  As Easter people we are gifted that abundantly life so that we can enter the sheepfold of faithful community.  Your invitation today is hop off Jesus’ shoulders, walk through the gate of Jesus, and come into to a community of faith where we will study God’s word, develop meaningful relationships, come together around the common table, and pray.  When we gather in that kind of community, when we are fed mentally, physically, and spiritually, then we fueled for the rest of the “so what” of Easter.  Once nurtured in that generous, abundant community, we are led back out through the gate that is Jesus, better able to love and serve the Lord out in the world.  Thanks be to God!

[i] As found at https://www.etsy.com/listing/856250878/hand-painted-byzantine-icon-of-jesus?gpla=1&gao=1&&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_a-home_and_living-spirituality_and_religion-other&utm_custom1=_k_Cj0KCQjwgLOiBhC7ARIsAIeetVDhfiQo66BpPPH4Bg02sff293o0Q8_YqIhIUuxfVbEDRA8-6wbArd0aAg3OEALw_wcB_k_&utm_content=go_12559942249_120251207180_506897847531_pla-302895540136_c__856250878_122003557&utm_custom2=12559942249&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgLOiBhC7ARIsAIeetVDhfiQo66BpPPH4Bg02sff293o0Q8_YqIhIUuxfVbEDRA8-6wbArd0aAg3OEALw_wcB on April 29, 2023.

[ii] The idea of what life is like in the sheepfold is articulated by Matt Skinner in “Sermon Brainwave:  #901: Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year A) – April 30, 2023,” April 23, 2023, as found at https://www.workingpreacher.org/podcasts/901-fourth-sunday-of-easter-year-a-april-30-2023 on April 29, 2023.

[iii] Acts 2.42-47.

Sermon – John 10.11-18, Psalm 23, E4, YB, April 25, 2021

28 Wednesday Apr 2021

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As a new parent, I struggled during the toddler years – those years when the child is first asserting their will, realizing they want to be in control too.  And so, after trying calm coaxing and verbal reasoning, I eventually honed the art of muscling:  I realized I was stronger than my toddler, so I could just sweep them up and carry on doing what I knew we needed to do anyway.  Sometimes the swooping was playful, swinging the child around or letting them hang upside-down.  But more often, it was just a strong, steady sweep – getting us out of the grocery store during a meltdown, getting us out of the house and into the car for an appointment, getting us away from the television.  But that kind of parenting only works for so long – approximately as long as you can physically lift a flailing child, which for me, was not that long.  That is when parenting gets real.

I have been thinking a lot about the Good Shepherd this week, and the similarities between shepherding and parenting.  As children, or more aptly, as sheep, we want a shepherd who will take care of us.  The words from today’s psalm and John’s gospel lay out the idealized caregiver:  The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want[i]; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.[ii]  When we think about what we want from God, especially after a long year-plus of a pandemic, of political divisiveness, of struggling with the institution of racism, we want a God who will cradle us in, and love and protect us unconditionally.  I suspect that is why so many churches have paintings, stained glass windows, and statues of Jesus carrying a perfectly clean, cute little lamb on his shoulder.

I confess, I do not know enough about shepherding, but even from watching the lambs in Colonial Williamsburg, I can assure you, those lambs are not perfectly clean and well-behaved.  There is something about our saccharine-filled images of the Good Shepherd that feel unrealistic to me.  As much as I want to crawl in the lap of a loving, protective Jesus, something about our images of the Good Shepherd does not quite capture reality.  This week, I watched a YouTube video of a man trying to rescue a sheep.  There was this long narrow ditch alongside a road, and the sheep’s hind end was hanging out of the ditch.  A man, carefully using his strength, managed to grasp the sheep’s legs and pull the sheep free.  The freed sheep bounded away from him, bouncing gracefully toward freedom – of course until he bounded back over the ditch toward the other side of the road, jumping head-first, right back into the ditch.  In your imagination, you can almost hear the deep, audible sigh of frustration by the man who had just helped him.

I think that is why I like verse 14 of John’s gospel so much, “I am the good shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me.”  The shepherd knows how to love unconditionally; but the shepherd also knows all our “conditions”:  the times when we stubbornly do things our way, the times when we refuse wisdom and jump right back into trouble, the times when we project our anger and frustration on others.  And the sheep know the shepherd:  the times when the shepherd will try to reason with us instead of muscling us to do the shepherd’s will, the times when the shepherd forgives us when we confess our sins, the times when the shepherd sighs deeply in disappointment at our refusal to lie down in green pastures.  There is an intimacy to that relationship, as one scholar describes, a “mutual recognition and a mutual belonging together.”[iii] 

Our invitation this week is an invitation into that mutuality and intimacy.  The invitation is not an invitation into a snowy-white, paternalistic, cradling love.  The invitation is into a messy, complicated, but respectfully intimate relationship where we are known, and we know our shepherd.  Through this real, honest, vulnerable place we find strength to then go back out into the world, allowing “the Shepherd’s voice to speak through us as we reach out to the lost and hurting we encounter on the way,”[iv] sharing the love of the risen, shepherding Jesus that has saved us from many a ditch!  Amen.

[i] Psalm 23.1

[ii] John 10.11

[iii] Stephen A. Cooper, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 448.

[iv] Nancy R. Blakely, “Pastoral Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 452.

Sermon – John 10.22-30, Psalm 23, E4, YC, May 12, 2019

16 Thursday May 2019

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One of my good friends is enamored with the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.  She can describe the chapel of the Good Shepherd at the National Cathedral in minute, passionate detail.  In her office are images of Christ the Good Shepherd.   I suspect that if you asked her who Jesus is to her, she would say he is the Good Shepherd.  And she would not be alone.  The verses of John immediately before the text we heard today about Jesus being the Good Shepherd is a favorite when planning funerals.  The 23rd Psalm, which says “The Lord is my Shepherd,” is perhaps the most well-know scripture passage of all time – known even by people who have not attended church in ages.  The passage from John we hear today talks about the intimacy between Jesus and Jesus’ followers being like sheep who know their shepherd’s voice.  The fourth Sunday of Easter is even called “Good Shepherd Sunday,” in the liturgical year.  We probably should have all worn those awesome sheep hats the Praise Band wears during the Epiphany pageant to show our sheep solidarity.

Despite all that – despite the familiarity, the wide-spread popularity, and the commitment of an entire day in the church calendar to shepherd imagery – I must confess something I have told very few people in life:  I do not really like the imagery of Christ as the Good Shepherd.  Now I know some of you may be shocked – how can a priest not like one of the most popular biblical metaphors?  Some of you may be perplexed – what’s not to like about the image of a good shepherd?  Some of you may be downright offended – how can I not relate to the metaphor that has sustained you countless times?

Let me break my dislike down for us.  I do not like the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd primarily because I do not like the idea of being sheep.  Now I know we have the Fiber Festival coming up this weekend, and I like wool as much as anybody, but sheep are not the brightest animals.  They are easily spooked, they tend to be a little clueless, they seem to lack individual intelligence, and they make a horrible bleating noise that sounds nothing like the “baa” of nursery rhymes.  Sheep are easily corralled – dogs are used to herd them in simply by nudging them all back together.  That rod and staff the 23rd Psalm talks about is used to physically push and prod sheep into uniformity.  And let’s not forget they are notorious for getting lost.  I mean, of all images to conjure up and celebrate on a given Sunday, we get to be sheep?!?

But as you and I both know, the things that make us the most uncomfortable are usually the things that are the most true.  Take for example the question and request of Jesus by those gathered around him in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.  They say to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense?  If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”  Jesus responds, “I have told you, and you do not believe.”  I cannot count the number of times we have asked Jesus this same question.  Sometimes the question is the exact same question as the one the people of faith ask today – are you the Messiah?  Can we believe in you?  Should we believe in you?  For anyone who has struggled with their faith – worried like those gathered at the tomb whether any of this Jesus stuff is true – the question and request today are not unfamiliar.  But we often ask this question in other ways.  As one writer confesses, there are countless times that we petition God with, “‘If you are.’  If you are good.  If you are powerful.  If you are loving.  If you are real.  If you are the Messiah, then stop talking in riddles.  Stop hiding when I long for your presence.  Stop awakening in me holy hungers you won’t satisfy.  Show up, speak plainly, act decisively.  Take this world of swirling, dubious gray, and turn it black and white, once and for all.”[i]  To all those questions, to all those longings, the response from Jesus to us is the same response of Jesus to the people of faith in our scripture lesson:  I have, but you do not believe.

Now here is where the text gets even more uncomfortable.  Jesus’ full words are, “I have told you, and you do not believe…because you do not belong to my sheep.”  Now there are all kinds of awful things that have been said historically about this text – the supersessionism of Christians over Jews, predestination, you name it![ii]  But I do not think Jesus was trying to exclude one group, or say, only one group will ever belong and everyone else is out.  I think what Jesus is trying to do is challenge people like me who do not like the idea of being sheep.  Jesus is saying today – I know you do not like being sheep, I know you do not like submitting control to me, I know that you do not like admitting that you do not have things all figured out.  When Jesus says, you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep, I think Jesus is saying, we do not belong because we are unwilling to belong.  In other words, we do not belong not because Jesus excludes – we do not belong because we actively fight belonging.  And because we fight belonging, we also struggle with believing.

One of my favorite church welcome videos features a series of concerns that often keep people away from church:  feeling like they do not lead lives that are good enough, worrying about unfamiliar or even weird cultural practices that might be uncomfortable, concern they might not fit in because of what they wear, or a sense that they could never belong to a group that has shown a history of hypocrisy.  To each concern, the church-goers have response.  Not sure what to wear?  Wear clothes.  Not sure your past sins will make you worthy?  We all have pasts that make us unworthy.  Worried about secret handshakes or stiff worship?  You’ll just find love and affirmation here.  Know the church is full of hypocrites?  Aren’t we all hypocrites?  What I love about the video is that belonging is more natural that belonging seems – and the more you spend time belonging, the more you realize your belonging helps you believe.  Belief does not come first.  It cannot come first.  Belonging comes first.

Author Debie Thomas says knowing belonging comes first is where our hope is today.  “According to this text, whatever belief I arrive at in this life will not come from the ups and downs of my own emotional life. It will not come from a creed, a doctrine, or a cleverly worded sermon.  Rather it will come from the daily, hourly business of belonging to Jesus’s flock — of walking in the footsteps of the Shepherd, living in the company of fellow sheep, and listening in real time for the voice of the one whose classroom is rocky hills, hidden pastures, and deeply shadowed valleys.  If I won’t follow him into those layered places — places of both tranquility and treachery, trust and doubt — I will never belong to him at all.”[iii]

For the longest time, I have resisted the metaphor of Jesus as our Good Shepherd because I did not like what being a sheep implied about my character and intellect.  But what I forgot in my resistance is that there are a whole lot of sheep around when I simply consent to belong.  Bumping into fellow sheep reminds me that I have companions along the journey who are also sometimes resistant to the guidance of Christ.  Bumping into fellow sheep reminds me that I am not alone in the things of life and faith I do not understand.  Bumping into fellow sheep reminds me going solo often leads to peril.  Bumping into fellow sheep really is not all that bad.  Not only do we have a shepherd who loves us unconditionally and irrationally, we also have a community where all our weakness, foibles, and sins are held in common, and forgiven.

Our invitation is to remember what John is actually saying today in his gospel.  As one scholar reminds us, “God is the one who initiates a relationship to us.  God seeks us out long before we seek God.  Christ makes us his sheep; we do not make him our shepherd.”[iv]  That is why we have long said as a people of faith, “The Lord is my shepherd…He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside still waters.”  I mean, if you want to keep fighting the invitation to belong, by all means.  Lord knows, I have tried that route.  But on this Good Shepherd Sunday, your invitation is to consider another way:  to lean into the sheep all around you today, to trust that the Shepherd actually is good; and to know that wherever you are in your belief journey, belonging is the easiest step to get you there.  Amen.

[i] Debie Thomas, “Tell Us Plainly,” May 5, 2019, as found at https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=2201 on May 8, 2019.

[ii] Thomas H. Troeger, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 447.

[iii] Thomas.

[iv] Troeger, 449.

Sermon – Matthew 25.31-46, P29, YA, November 23, 2014

26 Wednesday Nov 2014

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Once upon a time, “there was a cobbler who lived alone in his shop with one window that looked out on the street.  His wife and children had all died and he asked God, “Holy One why have you so long delayed your coming?  I have almost given up hope in seeing you.  Please come to my humble shop this day and show me your face.”

Outside on the street the cold winter brought snow.  Through his window he saw a beggar who shivered in the cold.  The cobbler invited the beggar into the shop to warm him and offer a meager meal from his shrinking larder.  The beggar thanked him and left.

As the day passed, a few customers came with repairs they needed for their shoes and harnesses.  A young boy sought shelter from the cold and snow.  The child’s feet were wrapped in old dirty rags and stuffed with paper.  Into the shop he invited the boy.  After making him some warm milk and a sandwich from the little food he had he went to his closet and found a pair of shoes that [had] belonged to his son.  He fit the shoes to the boy.  Grateful, the boy left with a promise to return to visit him.

It was approaching dusk and the cobbler despaired of a visit from the Lord.  A woman with her young babe appeared in front of the window.  She was dressed in a thin piece of cloth and she looked as if she might freeze to death.  The cobbler invited her into his shop.  Wary of the old man, she hesitated at the door, but feeling the warmth within she stepped across the threshold.  The cobbler made her some tea and went to his closet to find a heavy woolen cloak that [had] belonged to his wife.  Giving her the cloak the woman thanked him and after he shared the rest of his larder with her, she left with the child.

The sun descended and left the cobbler bereft.  “Why didn’t you come and visit me today,” the cobbler asked?  There was a voice that spoke to him in his humble shop:  “But I did come to you.  When you invited in the beggar, the boy, and the mother and her child, I was there with you.  In each of their faces you looked into my eyes.”  [The cobbler] then remembered the scripture: “When did you see me hungry and feed me, alone and naked and clothe me and thirsty and you gave me a drink.”  The visitors who had come to his shop that day had been his master.  In their faces he had looked into the eyes of God.

That night the cobbler slept happy and at peace for the first time in many months.”[i]

Today’s gospel lesson is one of those lessons that we might hear and immediately panic, for fear that we are those goats at God’s left hand.  We can picture all of those homeless persons we passed without a nod or a coin; that nursing home that we go by everyday but fail to stop in for a visit; or that prison that we avoid because passing the prison makes us nervous enough – we cannot imagine actually going inside.  In fact, we are pretty sure that we are the goats of Jesus’ story, and we know that when those goats do not feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, tend the sick, and visit the prison, they are sent away to eternal punishment.  Talk about a sobering text.

Truthfully, we probably all could use a little sobering from time to time.  But today, I am more intrigued by the ways in which we are sheep.  In fact, St. Margaret’s gives us all kinds of opportunities to be sheep:  when we plant, tend, and pick produce that feeds the hungry in Huntington Station and Hicksville; when we donate money to the Outreach Fund, which provides clothing, gas, food, and toiletries to needy students at JFK High School here in Plainview; when we take communion to the shut-ins, or simply stop by for a visit or drop off a container of soup; or when we clear out our closets for veterans we may never meet.  All of these ways are ways in which St. Margaret’s is seeking and serving Christ in our neighborhood, and inviting us to fully become sheep at God’s right hand.

But as proud as I am of each of us, and as much as I want to assure us that we fall into the sheep category as often as we fall into the goat category[ii], the more important point is that Jesus’ words today are not meant to make us worry about completing a check list that will get us into heaven someday.  Instead, Jesus’ words today are meant to be a different kind of wake up call.  Jesus is saying today [clap], “Hey!  I am right here.  Wake up!”  Jesus does not want you to do all those wonderful things because that is what will get you into heaven.  Jesus wants you to do those wonderful things because that is where we will see his face and he will see ours.  Only when we are in those places of vulnerability, messiness, and desperation will we find each other.

I do not mean to romanticize poverty or helping the less fortunate.  But here is what I do know:  for the person who is in need, asking for help is one of the most humiliating experiences a person can know.  Asking for help means swallowing one’s pride, admitting defeat, and opening up oneself to rejection.  And for the person who is giving aid, giving that help means talking to someone we usually try to ignore, acknowledging our own privilege, and seeing afresh how thin the line is between “us” and “them.”  In that narrow space is where we can hear God say, “But I did come to you.  When you invited in the beggar, the boy, and the mother and her child, I was there with you.  In each of their faces you looked into my eyes.”  That is the invitation of today’s gospel lesson: not to panic in fear, but to step into those narrow spaces where Christ resides, and to see Christ face to face.  Amen.

[i] Leo Tolstoy, “Martin the Cobbler,” as retold by Bob Stuhlmann in “Goat Cheese And Starfish: For November 23, 2014,” posted on November 18, 2014, as found at http://storiesfromapriestlylife.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/goat-cheese-and-starfish-for-november-232014/.

[ii] Mark Douglas, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 336.