Sunday, April 22, 2018

SERMON: "The Good Shepherd"

April 22, 2018
A Meditation on John 10:11-18










1.

The older I get, and the more I encounter life’s strange contradictions, the more grateful I am for “the good shepherd.”  I guess this is my “confessional” sermon: a personal musing around Jesus in my life.  I’ve got to tell you, friends, that I need Jesus.  The stranger I get, and the more I commit to heaven on earth, the more grateful I am for “the good shepherd.” 

I like to think my theological horizons get broader and deeper all the time.  And I like to think my politics drive me headlong into paradox and uncertainty.  You all have done this to me, encouraged me on the way.  But if all that’s so, it’s because Jesus is my “good shepherd”—and I have confidence, maybe even faith, that he’ll be right there when the wolves get close, and when they bear their goofy teeth.   He’ll lay down his life for me, and for you, and for us.

For most of these past sixteen years, I’ve carried in my pocket or satchel a folded copy of a poem by the 17th century Welsh priest George Herbert.  It’s his rendering of the Twenty-Third Psalm, and over time, I memorized it.  It goes like this:

The God of Love my shepherd is
And he that doth me feed.
While he is mine and I am his
What can I want or need.

He leads me to the tender grass
Where I both feed and rest,
Then to the streams that gently pass;
In both I have the best.

Or if I stray, he doth convert
And bring my mind in frame.
And all this not for my d’sert,
But for his holy name.

Yay, in death’s shady black abode,
Well may I walk, not fear,
For thou art with me and thy rod
To guide, thy staff to bear.

Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine
E’en in mine enemy’s sight.
My head with oil, my cup with wine
Runs over day and night.

Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my days,
And as it never shall remove,
So neither shall my praise.

Not a day goes by that I don’t recite this poem, often aloud, on a walk, in my car, before a difficult meeting.  The language is dated, to be sure; but isn’t all language dated at some point?  Dated or not, this is my faith:

The God of Love my shepherd is
And he that doth me feed.
While he is mine and I am his
What can I want or need.

He leads me to the tender grass
Where I both feed and rest,
Then to the streams that gently pass;
In both I have the best.

Or if I stray, he doth convert
And bring my mind in frame.
And all this not for my d’sert,
But for his holy name.

Yay, in death’s shady black abode,
Well may I walk, not fear,
For thou art with me and thy rod
To guide, thy staff to bear.

Nay, thou dost make me sit and dine
E’en in mine enemy’s sight.
My head with oil, my cup with wine
Runs over day and night.

Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my days,
And as it never shall remove,
So neither shall my praise.

I think it’s that one stanza, that one about “death’s shady black abode,” that comforts me most and keeps me coming back.  “The good shepherd” is a companion in chaos, a steady loving presence in storms I create for myself or walk into ill-prepared.  And I need him.  Call me meek.  Call me weak.  But I need him.    

Yay, in death’s shady black abode,
Well may I walk, not fear,
For thou art with me and thy rod
To guide, thy staff to bear.

I remember rushing across the country to my father’s bedside, six years ago, to keep vigil as he died.  “Well may I walk, not fear.”  “Well may I walk, not fear.”  I must have repeated Herbert’s poem dozens of times on that flight and finally had to explain myself to the elderly man sitting next to me.  He thought I was praying for his conversion.  And it took me a while to convince him otherwise.  But it comforted me, the poem, and reminded me of the shepherd’s companionship, a companionship I desperately needed and keenly felt.  Especially that week.  Some storms we cannot navigate alone.  Some anxieties are meant to be shared.  “For thou art with me and thy rod to guide, thy staff to bear.” 

And I remember stepping into a tense meeting at Temple Beth El some years later—in the complicated days around our Justice for Palestine conference.  I knew I’d be facing angry colleagues, and disappointed friends: and Herbert’s verse empowered me: “Well may I walk, not fear.”  “Well may I walk, not fear.”  It’s a strange and tricky thing to count on God’s guidance in a setting like that—where others may also invoke such guidance.  But the God of Love my shepherd is; and his rod was with me to guide me, somehow, and his staff to make me strong.  I felt it in my bones.  My faith doesn’t require God to take sides: I don’t think of God that way.  But it did reassure me, that under the big sky of God’s grace, we’d all be OK.  We’d survive the disappointment and conflict.  “My head with oil, my cup with wine, runs over day and night.”

Like I say, Jesus is my “good shepherd,” and I can’t imagine any of this—the work, the contradictions, the living and dying; I can’t imagine any of it without him.   

2.

Now I like to think of myself as a theological liberal, or at least a progressive voice, a progressive witness in the church.  I want to dismantle walls wherever I go and transgress boundaries and jam the gears of the system that oppresses.  I’m always thinking of flipping tables in the temple square and gathering the lost and forsaken in communion. 

So here’s the funny thing.

The more progressive I get, the more radically inclusive my approach to ministry, the more agitated and edgy my politics have become, the more central Jesus is in my life, and in my faith; the more I lean on Jesus and look to Jesus for meaning and balance and even comfort.  Today’s text makes more and more sense to me.  He is, quite simply, the “good shepherd.”  And when the wolves get close, when they bear their goofy teeth, I can count on him.  I can count on Jesus to see me through.        

Surely thy sweet and wondrous love
Shall measure all my days,
And as it never shall remove,
So neither shall my praise.

Now the thing is, I know this is not always true, not for all of you.  The truth is that we have all kinds of ways of understanding Jesus’ story and relating to Jesus as a historical figure, and all kinds of ways of connecting to him in spiritual practice.  And to be honest, I love that about us.  I love the diversity of metaphors we use around here.  I love the befuddling questions we ask—the serious and important questions we ask—about old traditions and tired dogma and biblical assumptions.  We make space for all of this; and it makes Christianity more curious and the church more interesting.

But here’s where I’m at.  I need Jesus today.  I need the good shepherd who knows my name, and yours too, and calls us into communion to be a beloved community.  I need the good shepherd who gathers other sheep too, other sheep from other flocks, and simply and powerfully loves us all.  I need the good shepherd, Jesus, who lays down his life for me, for you, for us, and for so many others in so many other places.

Interesting, isn’t it, that Jesus distinguishes, in the text, between the good shepherd and the hired man.  The good shepherd has a relationship with the sheep.  The good shepherd knows them by name.  The hired man is not at all as invested in his caring, in his watching, in his tending to the flock.  The hired man spends most of his time, to be honest, on his cell phone.  The good shepherd sees the sheep as his own, looks after them as his own kin, lays down his life for them: because their wellbeing is his joy, because their grazing is his delight, because their being sheep is his life’s desire.  It’s a metaphor, right?  We know it’s a metaphor.  The picture Jesus paints is a picture of compassion and concern, a picture of affection and protection.  “I am the good shepherd, and I know my own, and my own know me.”  And that’s why the wolves don’t have a chance.

So here’s what happens for me, for me at least, in worship.  Here’s what happens every Sunday.  I see all of you: your wonderfully diverse lifestyles, your nuanced theological sensibilities, your varied commitments to peacemaking and the common good.  I love that Curtis Reliford drives his peace truck to church and then to the southwest to share love and resources with native peoples there.  I love that Michelle Miracle and Lori Rivera sing their hearts out and experience music as holy communion.  I love that Ajschika Kan K’awiil sits silently when we pray to Jesus and remembers in his heart the even older prayers of his First Nation ancestors.  I love that Joanna Hildebrandt weeps when we pass the peace, and I love that the Prophets of Hope pray for incarcerated teens.  All that, and I love that more than a few of us identify as agnostics, deeply ambivalent about the whole Christian project.  I mean, seriously, this is the church.

And in my own little heart, with my own imperfect vision, I see Jesus stirring in the breadth and depth of all this.  The good shepherd.  I see Jesus gathering sheep from all walks of life, sheep that like to wander and sheep that stay close to home, sheep that question everything and sheep that choose not to.  Right here at Peace United, I see Jesus gathering so many of us into one family, one flock, one strange and beloved community.  And, friends, that’s a beautiful thing.    

And even more, even more than that, I hear Jesus, I hear him calling my name and yours, I hear him inviting us to deeper communion, to radical trust in an uncertain future.  He’s invested in us, Jesus.  That’s the thing.  He’s passionate about our mission.  He’s committed to our friendships and our partnerships and our collaboration right here at Peace United Church.  He’s a good shepherd, Jesus, and to my eye at least, he’s stirring in our midst every Sunday.  He’s stirring in our hearts and in our hopes even now. 

3.

What we cannot miss, what I cannot ignore this morning, is Jesus’ insistence that he has other sheep “which are not from this fold.”  Did you catch that in the text we read together?  I can claim Jesus as my “good shepherd” (and I do); and we can see Jesus stirring among us, bringing us together, protecting us from so many wolves.  All that’s fair.  And all that’s true and lovely and good.  But Jesus does not belong to us.  We do not own him or control him or employ him to do our bidding.  That’s not how this works.

“I have other sheep which are not from this fold,” he says, “and I must also bring them in.”  Which is to say that the good shepherd dreams bigger dreams than ours.  Which is to say that the good shepherd imagines a more generous circle, a more inclusive communion than ours.  We’re called to keep watch.  We’re called to pay attention.  We’re called to love Jesus and follow Jesus, but never, never to assume that he’s ours alone.  That our way is the only way, that our prayer is the only prayer. 

Because Jesus is the good shepherd, not the miserly one.  Because Jesus is the good bread, not the bitter loaf.  Because Jesus is light of the world, not the certainty that blinds us. 

The wildest thing about Jesus, the craziest thing about him, is that he gives us to one another.  He’s not interested in a kind of private, heroic, personal religion.  He's not interested in disciples that see faith as a reality TV show--where one girl wins and all the rest go home defeated.  Jesus resists a spirituality that promises personal salvation at the expense of shared communion, or individual achievement at the expense of the common good.  The wildest thing about Jesus is that he gives us to one another.  We call it beloved community.  He gives theological conservatives to theological liberals.  He gives be-bopping dancers to cantata-singing sopranos.  He gives juveniles at the hall to seasoned veterans coming to visit.

And that’s the way of the good shepherd.  Always the way of the good shepherd.  Because this is what he knows.  And this is what he believes.  We need one another.  Always have, and always will.  We need one another to survive.

Amen.