April 13, 2008
The Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year A)
Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10
This week, as I was researching for my sermon, I came across the following remark by a Rev. William Brosend. He wrote, “I have absolutely nothing new to say about the 23rd Psalm or the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John, and most readers have little need to rehash what they’ve already learned.”
A very refreshing statement although not necessarily very helpful! Especially for a preacher! And sometimes it is much more challenging to preach on a familiar gospel than on some rarely read or heard passage. It is true that Psalm 23 is very, very familiar and for many people very comforting and for that reason it is frequently said at funerals. However, I am one who does not care particularly for that psalm; in fact, I remember writing for a mandatory freshman English course a short paper decrying it. I couldn’t tell you today what I wrote. But I had my come-uppance many years later when during my Field Education experience an emergency called the priest away to the hospital in the middle of an Advent Evening service that she and I were leading with prepared meditations and suddenly I found myself doing an off the cuff meditation on, you guessed it, the 23rd. Psalm with, of course, positive assertions.
Now what about the gospel? What is so familiar about that? This week we are back to pre-Easter stories, the living Jesus, although as always we look at them and interpret them from the post-resurrection perspective. This Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter, is known as Good Shepherd Sunday, and not because of us! No, the three year cycle of readings for this Sunday has for each year naturally, the 23rd Psalm, but also a gospel reading from John that speaks either directly or indirectly of a good shepherd. And Jesus as the Good Shepherd is an image familiar to most of us since childhood.
But from Jesus’ perspective to speak of a shepherd was to use symbolism that was as familiar to the first century Jews as the city policeman or fireman is to us today. Policemen and firemen are people who care in a public way about the well-being of the members of the communities in which they live and work, just as the shepherd in Jesus’ time cared for his flock; and in this twenty-first century we are much more likely to meet a policeman or fireman doing his, even her, job than we are to see a shepherd leading sheep around the streets of Acton. So, yes, it is a familiar story, but how do we relate to it?
Strangely enough, according to John, Jesus’ audience did not understand what he was saying to them. I think it’s highly possible that they did understand but they were too literal in their interpretation and could not or would not stretch their minds to see beyond the sheep, and realize that it was they and all the people around them that Jesus was including, embracing, in his picture, not sheep at all. Or, of course, it’s highly possible they could have been deliberately choosing not to understand. As the saying goes, “There’s none so deaf as those who will not hear!” Haven’t we all been guilty of doing that on occasion?
So, if your audience doesn’t get it, what do you do? Try another tack, say it another way, and in the second half of this year’s gospel that’s exactly what Jesus did. He changed his metaphor from the shepherd calling his sheep. “I am the gate,” he says. “Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.” “I am the gate.” I am the means for salvation, for grace, for forgiveness, for bringing an awareness of a loving God into your lives, for teaching you how a loving relationship with your God can and will bring you new and abundant life. Listen to me! You know my voice. Follow me.
I think it is important at this point to note that Jesus did not say, “Whoever does not enter by me will not be saved.” Jesus was not about excluding people any more than he was about starting a new religion. I know he mentions “thieves and robbers or bandits,” but it’s not clear whom he means. They could be the scribes and priests who claim to be the spiritual leaders of God’s people or they could be messianic pretenders. Whoever they were, they were presumably at cross purposes with Jesus and his mission. But I would venture to say that it is more about them excluding themselves by their actions than by Jesus saying they are not welcome.
About a month ago along with several other people from Good Shepherd I attended Marcus Borg’s presentation on Sharing Jesus: Talking the Talk. [You must all know by now how impressed we were by it since I think every sermon since then has mentioned it!]
The second half of the program was entitled “The Passion of Jesus.” Prof. Borg was speaking not of Jesus’ suffering and death – often referred to as his Passion – but rather of his “consuming interest, devotion, commitment” to his Jewish tradition, to his faith, and to the scriptures, succinctly put to God and the Kingdom of God. That truly was Jesus’ passion: his love for his God. That was what he wanted above all else to share with those around him. And that is what today’s gospel is all about. “I am the gate,” he said. Come, enter, join with me and we will establish the kingdom, God’s kingdom, here on earth, here among all people. We are God’s beloved. That passion of Jesus is what I believe would drive him to invite all into his fold, excluding none, forgiving all.
Prof. Borg in his concluding comments drew a sharp distinction between “following Jesus“ and “believing in Jesus.” The latter, he says, relates to “Belief” statements, biblical, doctrinal, creedal, whereas “following Jesus” connotes discipleship, that is, action, commitment. Jesus would not have had time for the councils and creeds that grew up after his resurrection. Instead Jesus would have said, as he did many times, and indeed continues to say through his gospel, “[Just] Follow me.”
Now, I think that “fold,” that sheepfold, of the gospel could be interpreted today as [what we call] the church, the community of followers, the family of believers, or as Marcus Borg would prefer to call us, “belovers.” And, if all who heard Jesus, did just follow him, “Do as I say and do as I do!”, then our church, the “big,” the universal church, the community of Jesus, would be, like the sheepfold with its shepherd and sheep, filled with followers ready to go about his business of establishing the Kingdom of God here on earth.
The community of Jesus of the first century, the believers, belovers, followers, was described in stunning terms in the passage from Acts that we heard earlier. It is maybe an idealized, overly enthusiastic and optimistic view of the behavior of the early Christians, but it does portray how they gathered together to learn, to worship, to pray, to support one another financially and materially, and to break bread together, maybe not all of them every day as is the implication, but obviously frequently enough to be recognized for who they were and to attract others to join them.
That makes me wonder if sometimes, too often perhaps, we are too reticent, too reserved to talk about what a good thing we have going here at Good Shepherd, what a faithful, believing, beloving, exciting, community we are. I know we have had our differences – I wonder how many of you remember or can imagine that at one time we had a disagreement, to put it politely, over banners – but don’t all families have their moments of friction? The important thing to remember is that we grow, we are stronger in our faith when we have experienced the full range of reconciliation, forgiveness, and then communion together. This is what Jesus meant by having life and having it abundantly. (10:10b) This is what we are meant to share, how much we are the beloved of God. Jesus said, “I am the gate.” Through that gate we can come in and we can go out. We come in to worship, to hear God’s word, o pray, to praise, to be nourished by the body and blood of Christ, that is to be recharged by being together; then refreshed, renewed, forgiven, filled with God’s grace, we go out to spread the word, to share the love of God, and by word and example to invite others in.
Amen.
Sonia F. G. Stevenson, M. Div.
Church of the Good Shepherd