Church of the Good Shepherd

March 22, 2009
The Fourth Sunday in Lent (Year B)
Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21
Fifty Year Anniversary –  10 AM Later Folk Mass

What a joy and a privilege to be invited to come back to this wonderful parish, The Church of the Good Shepherd, after being away on the Cape for twelve years.  I’m delighted to be asked by Gale to help you celebrate fifty years of ministry, not only in this “oasis in the woods,” as you are known, but in much wider circles where the mission of Jesus Christ through your good work has affected so many lives.

And it is particularly nice to be asked to come back and reminisce for a few moments with you this morning about one aspect of the life and ministry of Good Shepherd which was new in its time, and which, as I saw it, was a large part of the spiritual energy that drove the evangelism and mission of this parish.  I’m talking about the Folk Mass service which was unique to the Episcopal church and Good Shepherd in the time just before and during my tenure here.

I was privileged to be called as rector here from 1983 to 1996, and it was an era where ‘liturgical folk music’ was beginning to blossom in the Episcopal Church.

The Church of the Good Shepherd was on the forefront of that movement and it was an exciting time.  People have often referred to the effect of folk music on society from the sixties as “a mighty wind” that affected significant cultural change.  I think for us in the church, that ‘mighty wind’ was also the work of the Holy Spirit in terms of how it fed and energized, as I said, people for ministry, evangelism, and mission.

I had played the guitar since the middle sixties in church and sang folk songs around campfires with kids at church youth conferences and summer camps, songs like “Michael Row your boat ashore” and “Today while the blossom still clings to the vine, I’ll taste your strawberries and drink your sweet wine” and “Kum Bah Ya” and everything that the Kingston Trio sang.  But when I came to Good Shepherd, I discovered a whole new Christian spiritual idiom, ‘liturgical folk music’ (in other words folk songs and music to accompany Eucharistic worship) which was unknown to me before.  And it delighted my spirit and it fed my soul.  It was music that started here under the rectorship of my predecessor, Roger Wootton, and led by a group of lay people with talents on a variety of folk instruments: Ken LeComte, Ron Cadieux, Joe Guertin and Bev Young on guitar; Bruce Wood on tenor banjo; Carol LeComte on bass fiddle, etc.

This was not to take away anything from the traditional  hymnal singing, choir and organ accompaniment we were all used to, but ‘liturgical folk music’ was new and exciting, and many people were hungry for music that praised God for God’s creation, that was lively and easier to sing, and had a beat to it.  It was joyful music, to say the least, and I loved it.  It fed my spirit.

A number of Good Shepherd folk experienced the possibilities of ‘liturgical folk music’ by way of being part of the Roman Catholic Cursillo movement in Massachusetts.  They were invited to join Roman Catholics who already were well into this new idiom at places like the Oblate Center in Natick, St.Basil’s in Methuen, Eastern Point Jesuit Retreat Center in Gloucester, and the Marist House in Framingham, where Cursillo renewal weekends were being held.  They became familiar with the music of Fr. Carey Landry, and such groups as the St. Louis Jesuits and the Monks of the Weston Priory, who were writing and performing some of the great songs, a number of which we are using in this service this morning.

Later in my time here, Jon and Jessie Panek, Maggie and Russ Hill, Jeff and Susan Lewis, Elizabeth Monk (on flute) joined the Folk Mass musicians.  Others who came after them included Debbie & Duncan Paige, Cam & Jean Amos, Bonnie Gudaitis, Karen & Rafael Pupo, and Neal Ogle.

It might seem strange to some to focus on this joyful idiom of liturgical praise music since we are in the penitential season of Lent, where our usual hymns are so generally written in minor chords, articulating the penitential and confessional nature of the season.  However, this IS the Fourth Sunday in Lent, and there is a particular uniqueness to this Sunday.

I wonder if there is anyone here who can tell me another name that is often given for this particular Sunday?  Give up?  In some quarters, especially among our Roman Catholic friends and neighbors, the Fourth Sunday in Lent is known as Laetare Sunday, [pronounced, “lay-TAH-ray”] from the Latin word meaning “rejoice.”  It may at first seem odd to speak of rejoicing in the middle of Lent.  After all, we have put away our “alleluias!” until Easter Sunday.  Yet, in ancient times, the special, or proper, parts of the service on this day began with the single word “rejoice,” reminding worshippers that the Church is more than halfway through its Lenten discipline and well on the way to Easter joy.  “So lighten up a little,” the Church seems to have been saying. 

For much the same reason, in some Anglican circles this day has become known as “Refreshment Sunday.”

So there you have it.  No matter how you name it, the Fourth Sunday of Lent, more or less the middle point of the season, is special.  So here we are at the halfway point of this season, and we are invited to “lighten up.”

That’s a message that wouldn’t hurt most of us to take to heart every day!  Life itself, of course, is made up of middle points to which we attribute unique and special importance.  It is human nature to mark time, to take note of milestones and halfway points.  We may remember being halfway through high school or college.  My former church on the Cape, St. David’s in South Yarmouth, is halfway through a transition between rectors.  And on this day in England, which is also called “Mothering Sunday,” (Why it’s called that, I don’t know.  I’ve heard that it has to do with working women who had moved away but were called back to their mother Church to come back home.)  But mothers “across the pond” will certainly remember being halfway through pregnancy, eager for the birth of their child.

Whatever it is, being halfway through something is special.  It can bring either anxiety or a foretaste of accomplishment – or both.

In our first reading today, we hear about the Children of Israel whom Moses has led out of slavery under the Pharaoh in Egypt.  These wanderers find themselves in the desert wilderness, halfway to the Promised Land, and they are downright feisty and “impatient on the way” as the text says. They cry out against Moses (and God), “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?”  As if that had been God’s purpose all along.  They gripe about everything.  They have forgotten that they are on their way home to the Promised Land.  They have lost sight of the purpose and meaning of their journey.  Doesn’t that happen to us too?  The desert and its hardships have robbed them not only of patience, but of perspective and hope as well.  Only when the Lord punishes them with a multitude of poisonous serpents, do the people come to their senses and repent.  Only when those bitten by the serpents look upon the serpent of bronze raised by Moses, do they once again come to life.  I’m not exactly sure what is the symbolism of the snake curled around the rod that Moses holds up before them that changes their attitude, but it is interesting that it is the same symbol used in medicine for healing.  You see it on ambulances as well.

The journey of the Israelites is not over, but they are halfway and their journey has gained new significance and purpose.

We have a lot of that same anxiety these days, too, don’t we?  Foreclosures taking place right and left; people getting laid off.  Who is absolutely certain that the stimulus package President Obama is pushing will work, that the government’s remedies will work?  Like the Children of Israel, it would be easy for us to lose hope and to despair.  Just like back then, there seems to be no end of complaint and blame.  Some fault the greed of Wall Street and business leaders for our problems.  Others cite irresponsible politicians and world leaders.  Yet few are willing to look in the mirror.  We all feel the bite of our anxieties.  Maybe you and I need a bronze serpent to gaze upon.  Maybe we need to face our fears and learn once again to live rather than despair, to rejoice in the hope of our loving God who loves each of us out of sight and forgives our sins and imperfections and calls us, before we follow any road, to first of all, follow him.

Lent is, after all, a time of reflection, repentance, and prayer, a time to let the Lord do “metanoia” on us.  That’s a fancy Greek word which simply means letting God’s unconditional love for us do a “180” on our hearts -- turn us around in faith,  so that we may at last be regenerated in the risen life of Easter.  And that has little to do with business cycles or the size of our paycheck.

Jesus himself, in our gospel reading today, gives us the best reason of all for rejoicing.  “God so loved the world,” he tells us, “that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”

To get into the spirit of that grace and to discover or perhaps, re-discover, how it manifests itself in our lives, let me suggest, if you haven’t read it already, that you read the book called “The Shack” by William Paul Young.  If the message of “The Shack”  doesn’t do a “metanoia” and change the way you look at life and faith in God, the Son and the Holy Spirit, at the very least it will give you incredible new insights about the faith to talk about with others who are also walking this sometimes precarious journey called life.  “The Shack” has helped a lot of people “lighten up“ - bottom line.  It should be required Lenten reading.  It’s message: there is still plenty of room for hope and even joy.  God loves us all without bounds. We need only look to his Son and the work of the Holy Spirit to understand this truth and live.  But it’s the innovative and new WAY the book talks about these things -- innovative and new -- and refreshing -- kind of like the folk mass was to so many people.

So lighten up and rejoice, as you celebrate this fifty year milestone – dare I say “halfway point?” – at the Church of Good Shepherd, even today, even in the middle of Lent.

Congratulations!  And God’s blessings be upon on all of you.

Amen.

The Rev. Dr. William B. Heuss
Rector of the Church of the Good Shepherd, 1983-1996