John 10:1-10, 22-30 Acts 9:36-43
The
Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil: for though art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
Thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
I think I am safe in venturing a guess that those words are familiar to all of us in one form or another. I have heard them at funerals, weddings, baby dedications, baptisms, and bible schools. They are in the lectionary at least twice every year (three times this year, I think), and that’s very understandable because the image of the shepherd caring for the flock is powerfully.
God
is the shepherd who led the people out of Egypt, the shepherd who guides them
into the Promised Land, the shepherd who gathered them back to Israel after
they were dispersed by the Babyloninas.
God is the shepherd spoken of in Ezekiel – the one who will search out
the sheep, rescuing them from lonely places they have come to call home – the
one who will feed and protect them – the one who will send a Messiah to call
them back to the memory and promise of their God. And, of course, Jesus speaks of himself as
the Good Shepherd in John.
Yes,
the image of the Good Shepherd is well-known and well-loved, and it does a
wonderful job of portraying a part of what Jesus is to us.… And that is why we
skipped over it this morning. Usually it
falls between the two passages that we heard, but when it comes up, we tend to
focus on it and let the other images float away … which means that we miss out
on something important – Jesus, the gateway to the true life.
As
Gail O’Day puts it:
Jesus is more than the good shepherd for who Israel
[waited], because he is also the gate for the sheep. Jesus is the way to [life], and he leads the
way to life. While these are closely
related, they are not the same thing. Jesus
is the way to life because he is himself life….
All who gather around Jesus receive their identity as
members of the flock. [They] are the
ones who share in the mutual knowledge of God and Jesus…. Listening to Jesus’ voice is the source of
[their] unity, [and] by taking Jesus as [their] point of access to God, the
community receives abundant life….[1]
Abundant
life – the promise of God in Christ. The
promise that the chosen people had been holding onto for generations – holding
on and falling away. The hope of a life
full of the power and presence of God, and Jesus was offering himself as the
gate. But, it wasn’t for everyone. I don’t mean to say that any are excluded
from the goodness and mercy of God, yet it is clear that only those who hear
the voice of Christ and follow its call will find the way.
That
doesn’t seem like such a big thing to us – listening to the voice of the
shepherd … following it through the gate to life. We have the whole testament of the Christian
community to guide and reassure us, but it was a concern for the first
generation of believers. Many of them
remembered Jesus. Some of them had sat
at his feet and followed him, learning the way to life. A few had been chosen to receive the gift of
the Holy Spirit and had been empowered to carry on the teaching and the healing
– to carry on the mission of bringing others through the gate. But what about the others? What about those who had come to believe
after the resurrection? What about the
next generation – the people who weren’t even alive during the time Jesus
walked the earth?
The first apostles were aging. Many who had known Jesus personally had
already died, and the rest would soon no longer be present to witness to their
direct experience with Jesus. What would happen then? Would the church become lost without the
voice of Christ to lead it? Would the
power of the Spirit continue to live and speak in the community of believers or
would the church take on a sort of half-life – a sad echo of the abundance
promised and experienced by the first generation?
They
did have the stories at least – stories of Paul’s conversion and Peter’s dreams
… stories of people being whisked across the miles to share the good news of
Christ … stories of the healing of men like Aeneas who was given back control
of his body after eight years … stories, even, of the resurrection of faithful
believers like Tabitha. It was almost
like Jesus was still with them.
At
first glance, those stories don’t seem like they would have provided all that
much comfort to the people who were worried about the future. These miracles were all performed by
hand-picked disciples after all. They
came at the hands of those who had been given the power to do such things by
Jesus himself. But, if we look more
closely we find that none of these wonders were claimed by the men who did
them. They were always attributed to the
Spirit.
In fact, as Dr. Heinz Guenther noted, the main character of
Acts is “neither Peter nor Paul, but the Holy Spirit. [So,] ‘The Acts of the Apostles’ is really
the wrong name. They are the ‘helpers’
who carry out ‘The Acts of the Spirit.’ They
are always successful because in this ‘salvation history,’ … they function
under the protection of the Spirit and nothing can go wrong.… [All] the miracle stories and missionary
activities of the apostles” really tell the story of the lively Spirit that lived
in the community of believers.[2]
The
Spirit of God was at work in the early church.
It was the Spirit who guided them.
It was the Spirit who empowered them.
And it was the Spirit who spoke through them, calling all to come and
enter the gate … enter and find abundant life.
It didn’t matter that Jesus was not with them. All those stories were telling them –
reassuring them - that the Spirit was alive and at work among them.
And, I have stories to tell too.
I have stories to tell because the Spirit of God is alive and moving in
this community of faith – alive and at work in us just as it was in the early
church. I hear about it from Sue and Terry when they tell stories
about sitting with others and helping them through their grief. I see it in the relationships that Linda
builds with the women she helps learn English in her reading group. I notice it each time a light bulb is changed
or a leak fixed. It touches my life when
I feel the willingness – even eagerness – of this congregation to support Circle
of Friends. And I experienced it on a
profound level at the retreat last weekend.
When
we gathered there in the cabin there was more than a little anxiety in the
air. We were hoping to step back and
take a look at the difficult situation this congregation faces, and that kind
of work is never a very exciting prospect.
So, we were quiet and subdued as we ate our dinner together – at least
as quiet as it is possible to be when one is eating good food with friends.
And
then, as we sat together throughout the weekend, I felt the spirit of the group
changing. We shared our fears and
frustrations, and we moved through them.
As we worshipped and sang together … as we brainstormed entirely new
ideas … as we looked at ourselves and found energy and giftedness and passion
in our fellowship … as we talked together, the Spirit spoke to and through
us.
For
me, the great gift of the weekend was not all the work that we did (though that
work planted the seed of new life and growth for the congregation). It was the change in us. We began walking in the valley of the shadow
of death with despair close on our heals, but as we talked together … as we dreamed
together, we were led back down the path to the gate of life. Together, we walked through that gate, and,
together, we discovered hope and abundance and joy.
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