The Church Of The Good Shepherd

Sermon
Fourth Easter • May 3, 2020
Acts 2:42-47 • Psalm 23 • 1 Peter 2:19-25 • John 10:1-10

In the Name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

TRANSLATE

This day is traditionally called “Good Shepherd Sunday” because of the Gospel reading. Jesus compares himself to a shepherd whose work is to look after a flock of sheep. The flock is kept secure at night in a sheep pen, but the shepherd leads them out to green pastures and running water during the day.

TRANSLATE

But, he says, the sheep will not follow just anyone. They will follow only their particular shepherd, and they will follow because they are familiar with his voice. Thieves and robbers they will not follow because they don’t know their voices.

TRANSLATE

The disciples’ response was, “What? What are you talking about?” So Jesus shifted the metaphor. “I’m the gate to the sheepfold. You can get to safe pasture only by going through this gate, through me.”

TRANSLATE

So Jesus gives two approaches to accessing the abundant life the Gospel promises. Listening to the “voice” and using Christ as the “gate.” The voice and the gate, two metaphors, two figures of speech, to salvation.

TRANSLATE

How then does one learn to listen to the voice of Christ, to distinguish clearly what is Christ’s voice and what is not? I suppose that one learns what his voice is in the same way we learn the voices of family members and associates—by listening to them repeatedly, by familiarity with what they say and how they say it. So, step one would be to read the Gospels, listening for the voice of Christ, distinct from the voice of the writers of the Gospels. For example, the voice of Luke, when he tells about Jesus’ ministry, is different from the voice of Jesus as he speaks his parables and stories.

TRANSLATE

Familiarity is the key. I’ve noticed when listening to televangelists and others who speak in God’s name that I can gradually hear the difference between their opinions and the authentic expression of the voice of Christ. I am able to hear the difference only by having become familiar with the voice of Christ in the first place, as Jesus spoke it.

TRANSLATE

Jesus says that others come to steal and kill and destroy—in other words, they come for their own self-interest, not for the welfare of the listeners. When listening to speakers who claim to speak for God, what are the results of their speech? Do they produce harmony and love, growth in understanding, or do they produce division and condemnation?

TRANSLATE

Jesus came, he says, so that we can have abundant life. Abundant life for everyone who will listen to his words, take them in, examine them, and apply the words to their lives. The Christ is profoundly not concerned with people’s past, with their being good. He loved the disreputable, the outcast. He spoke equally to soldiers and thieves, fraudulent tax-collectors and prostitutes. Their past was of no concern to Christ, only their willingness to repent, to turn around, to do right in the future.

          TRANSLATE

“I came,” he says, “ that you may have life and have it abundantly.” There is no condemnation here, only acceptance of who they are, only love for the person, only a straight-arrow dedication to the truth, to what’s so. He valued people who looked at their lives and acknowledged their misdeeds. And his standard response was forgiveness.

          TRANSLATE

In years past, there were edition of the Gospels that printed the words of Jesus in red, with the rest of the text in black type. This had a real value of helping the reader notice the difference between what Jesus said, and what the writers of the Gospels said about Jesus. I invite you to entertain the possibility of reading a short passage from the Gospels every day. In invite you to look for those passages that record what Jesus said.

          TRANSLATE

The writers of the Gospels had a list of the sayings of Jesus that they fitted into their story of Jesus’ ministry. I invite you to begin to hear clearly what the voice of Christ sound like, so that when others speak you can distinguish between what is the voice of Christ and what is the voice of other-than-Christ. Amen.

          TRANSLATE

Sermon
Third Easter • April 26, 2020
Acts 2:14a, 36-41 • Psalm 116: 1-3, 10-17 • 1 Peter 1:17-23 • Luke 24:13-35

This is the familiar story of the encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus. Two things in the story stand out for me now that we have been sequestered in our homes for almost a month during the covid-19 crisis: First, the two disciples on the road did not recognize the Christ for some considerable time. And second, it was when they sat down to dinner with him that they did finally recognize the Christ.

          TRANSLATE

It seems to me that the Christ shows up around us frequently, but we don’t recognize the presence of the Christ and his or her actions that impact us. Remember that “Christ” is not a person, but a title, and a job description.

          TRANSLATE

Think for a moment of a President of the United States—the current on or any previous one. And let’s say that you go down to Washington to meet the President. Whom do you see when you walk into the Oval Office? Is it a human being, George or Barak or Donald or whomever you are going to see? Or is it the President of the United States. Well, both, of course.

          TRANSLATE

It is a regular human being that you are going to see, but one who is invested with an office, a job to do, and a title. So it was with Jesus. He was a regular human being with particular skills and knowledge, a teacher and collector of followers. And was invested with a mission to announce the coming of the kingdom of God. He was the man Jesus, and he also embodied a mission, just like the President is both a human being and embodies the office and work of leading the country.

          TRANSLATE

This is what it means to incarnate some being, to put into the flesh of a human being some other entity. In the case of Jesus, it was to embody the godly being of Messiah, of the Christ.

          TRANSLATE

Now, I would like to suggest to you that there are many Christs in the world, each of whom is carrying out the work of salvation—not salvation in some abstract sense, but the salvation of particular people in particular circumstances. For example, if you are sick, the skill and dedication of a nurse or a doctor could be your salvation. Or if you are in danger of being mugged, a policeman could be your salvation.

          TRANSLATE

Life is a risky business, as we are reminded in this viral crisis, and to have salvation available is critical. I want to suggest to you that there are many Christs who save us from many dangers. And I want to suggest that you are one of them, and that what you do is a Godly work, the work of a Messiah, the work of a Christ.

          TRANSLATE

Like the Christ on the road to Emmaus, however, Christ is rarely recognized. We have filed Christ away in the person of Jesus, too high and lifted up to be part of our ordinary lives, and forgotten that he has called us follow him in his work. And this means doing the work of the Christ, the work of being a Christ for others.

          TRANSLATE

St Paul recognized this when he said in his letter to the Galatians, “as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” The spirit of Christ is something we can put on, something we have adopted. In doing so, we are still the same person, fully human, but doing Godly works.

          TRANSLATE

At our baptism, when we committed ourselves to Christ, we promised to “seek … Christ in all persons” and to “serve” him, “loving our neighbor as our selves.” This is exactly how it works—looking for Christ in others and, for ourselves, claiming nothing except to serve the Christs we find.

          TRANSLATE

But how do we recognize the Christ in others? There is a clue in the Emmaus story. The disciples recognized the Lord at dinner, when he broke the bread. Breaking the bread in a First Century Jewish meal was what the master of the house did. It was an act of service to take a loaf of bread and break it into pieces and to pass it around to everyone else.

          TRANSLATE

The Christ is whoever serves us, whoever feeds us, whoever helps us solve a problem, whoever opens us to new possibilities for our lives, whoever empowers us—in short, whoever saves us.

          TRANSLATE

So here is the mystery of the Christ: That we are called to serve, and that we are called to recognize God our Savior in those who serve us. The road to Emmaus is the road of our lives, meeting and recognizing the Christ who walks with us. Amen.

          TRANSLATE