Souls Need Other Souls: April 21, 2024

Year B, Easter 4                                John 10:11-18 and Psalm 23
This Sunday is often referred to as Good Shepherd Sunday because of the imagery that we find in both the gospel reading and the psalm.  Psalm 23 is one of the most beloved psalms in the Book of Psalms.  I have planned many funerals over the years and 90% of the time, the family will choose psalm 23. I have often wondered why. Why that psalm? What is it about the image of the shepherd that brings people such comfort?  Part of the choice comes from the familiarity. For people who don’t know the psalms, they will gravitate to what is most familiar. There is comfort in familiarity.  It’s the reason that so many of us have a movie, a book, or a show that we return to again and again. Just knowing something can make us feel better, even when we can’t articulate what it is about that thing that makes it so comforting.  Yet there must be a reason that this psalm and the image of Jesus as a shepherd has become such a familiar and popular image.  Of course it’s more than just the shepherd imagery.  It’s the words of the psalm.
                How many of you have a soul that needs reviving?  How many have walked through the valley of the shadow of death, or any valley of darkness?  How many are tortured by wants and needs and would give anything not to be in want?  How many long to rest and find a comfortable place to lie down? These are longings that would have resonated with those who first heard this psalm thousands of years ago and continue to resonate with so many of us.  The answer to these longings is found not in ourselves or those around us, but in the Lord, who is our shepherd. But that is easier said than done. Because I think we have lost our familiarity with God---with any image of God.
                In our Gospel reading, Jesus refers to himself as the good shepherd, the one who lays down his life for the sheep, the one who knows the sheep and is known by the sheep.  Even here we can see how important it is to Jesus to know and be known.  He understands the importance of familiarity in both a savior and a community. 
If you were to just read this passage without looking at what comes before and after, one might assume that he is speaking to his disciples or other followers…a crowd of people who are lost and beleaguered…the same kind of people who need to hear the words of Psalm 23.  No doubt whoever heard these words did need them. But it wasn’t just his disciples. Jesus was also speaking to people who were very critical of him and suspicious of his message.  In that crowd were the Pharisees, the religious elite of the Jewish faith.  We know they were there because they had been part of the previous conversation in chapter 9.
                Right before describing himself as a shepherd, Jesus had healed a blind man on the Sabbath and the Pharisees were not happy that he was doing work on the Sabbath as that was against their rules.   The Pharisees questioned the man who had been born blind, trying to figure out how and why Jesus did what he did. They tried to get the man who could now see to say that Jesus was not a man from God.  The man refused and said: “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes… Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.’”  The Pharisees didn’t like this answer and cast the formerly blind man out of the community.  He was no longer welcome.
When Jesus heard the man had been cast out, he returned to find him, even though this would almost surely create another confrontation with the Pharisees.  However, Jesus knew that this man had already led his whole life marginalized and ostracized and he didn’t want that to continue.  He had already given him his sight, but he wanted him to know the source of the healing.  The blind man had never actually seen Jesus because Jesus had made the healing contingent on him washing in the pool of Siloam.  By the time he did that, Jesus had moved on.  By finding him again, Jesus not only brought him back into the community that the Pharisees pushed him out of, Jesus gave the man the opportunity to see him, to know him.
Jesus knew that physical healing was incomplete if this man was still ostracized.  It’s not just that this man just could not see before, when someone had a disability, it was assumed that they were being punished for their sin or the sin of their parents.  So not only did this man have to live in a world with no accommodation for someone who couldn’t see, he had to live with people assuming his disability was actually a punishment from God.  Jesus knew this wasn’t true and he didn’t want this man to suffer any more judgment or shaming than he already had.  Jesus understood how important it was to have people belong to a community.
That is why he said in our reading for today, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.”  He sought this formerly blind man out and now in our reading for today, we hear him telling the Pharisees and disciples that this was the kind of messiah he would be. He would be the shepherd who would always be calling new people into the fold, who would call the marginalized and cast out into the fold.
For so long the Christian faith was about who was in and who was out.  Who was saved and who was not. Who was a sinner and who was forgiven.  Yet Jesus wanted everyone to know him and know his voice.  It was not about who would be part of his club, it was about those who would hear his voice.  We have gotten better at welcoming people. We have significantly lowered the barrier to entry for our churches.  But if we were to model ourselves off of Jesus (which is what we are supposed to do), we would know that being welcoming isn’t good enough.  When Jesus heard that man was cast out, he went and found him.  Because he wanted not just to be a familiar voice or a comforting figure. He wanted to be his shepherd and his savior.   It wasn’t enough to heal his body, he wanted to revive his soul.  Jesus understood that a soul needs other souls.
Our world is full of people with parched souls who still see Christianity as a private club that they are not welcome to.  Since we don’t have Jesus in the flesh searching for the lost and the weary, we have to be those people.  We, who know the voice of Jesus, must carry that voice out so that other souls can be restored and people can know that there is a place where they are not merely welcome, but a place where they can belong. 
You might think, oh I don’t know the voice of Jesus well enough to introduce others to it.  And I understand that.  Even as a priest, there are times when I think, who am I to share this message? How do I know I am saying the right thing?  Am I even hearing God’s voice?  Here’s what you can do.  You can reacquaint yourself with the voice of God.  Take this gospel reading or this psalm and read it every day.  Find a verse and make it a mantra. The more you read it, the more you internalize it, the more you will hear God’s voice and be able to share it with others.  People should not have to wait until there is a funeral to be reminded of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.  People should not have to wait for a tragedy to hear about the God who wants them and all people to know that they deserve to be part of something holy, something good and something that brings healing and love. People should not have to wait because we have that beautiful message.

Jiminy Cricket: April 22, 2018

Year B, Easter 4                                                            
1 John 3:16-24                                                                                 

Most of us have probably heard the phrase, “Let your conscience be your guide.”  It comes from the film Pinocchio, which is about a wooden puppet who wants to be a boy.  He must prove himself worthy by showing that he is brave, truthful and unselfish.  To help guide him in this quest, he has a little cricket named Jiminy Cricket who is the voice of his conscience.  One of the famous songs is, “Give a little whistle.” 

The first lines are:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tom-margie/2068063834

When you get in trouble and you don't know right from wrong-- Give a little whistle!

When you meet temptation and the urge is very strong--Give a little whistle!

If only it were that easy…if we could simply determine the right thing to do by whistling.  (Of course that would be a problem for people incapable of whistling.) We are bombarded in our culture with advice like “Let you conscience be your guide.”  “Follow your heart!” “Listen to your heart!’ “Go with your gut.”  It’s this idea that somewhere inside each of us is wisdom and truth and if we can become in tune with that part of us, we will discover the right path.

            I am not sure that is true.  Because our hearts can sometimes lead us astray.  Our gut or our feelings are usually based on our own best interest, which might not always be the best interest of everyone around us.  Thankfully, as Christians, we have this handy book (the Bible). The Bible is full of wisdom and guidance. Unfortunately, it can be a little harder to discern the wisdom of the Bible than it is to follow our gut or google something on the web.  Calling on the wisdom of the Holy Spirit requires more than a whistle. 

While the Bible can be difficult to decipher, especially if we are looking for an answer to a specific problem, there are consistent truths in the Bible.  I know it is hard to sit down and just read the Bible.  Most people think that they have to start with Genesis.  However, if you want to read an entire book of the Bible and you do not have a lot of patience or time, consider 1^st John.  By the end of the Easter season, we will have read from this book every Sunday for 6 Sundays.  There are only 5 chapters in the whole book (which is also a reason it’s a good book to start with). 

One of the reasons I think our lectionary spends so much time on 1^st John is because it’s emphasis on love.  You might think, well the whole Bible is about love.  That is true, but  1^st John is dense with love.  Despite the fact that it only has 5 chapters, the word love appears more often in this book than any other book in the New Testament—except the Gospel of John which is four times as long. First John is dense with love.

As I was reading the lessons for today, I kept coming back to one line. “God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.”  In the Episcopal Church, we use a specific translation of the Bible called the NRSV. I found the NRSV translation for this verse tricky which led me to read through other translations.  Another reliable translation reads, “ For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart.”[1]

It’s not just that our hearts can be unreliable at times, sometimes our feelings can be destructive.  We can be plagued by doubt, fear, anxiety and guilt.  Occasionally those things that plague us are based on very real experiences.  However, sometimes it’s not a real experience. There are some of us who are simply more inclined to experience feelings of doubt and anxiety than others.  It’s just the way we are born.  And even if we are one of those people who are fortunate enough not to be inclined toward those feelings of guilt and doubt, everyone can experience those emotions under strain and stress. 

Let’s assume that you are inclined toward guilt and while you know that God has forgiven you (in theory at least) it’s still hard to get past it. It still affects how you think and act. When you feel guilty all the time, it’s harder to be in relationship with God.  That is one way our heart can condemn us. 

Another example might be the way society tells us that what we have or who we are is never enough.  Every marketing campaign ever created is based on the idea that you need the thing that is being sold and you need it because you lack something, something that other people have.  On social media, we see the best of other people’s life, which means that despite the fact that we are more connected than ever, people feel more isolated, lonely and inadequate. Any time of the day or night, we can find someone who seems to be doing better than we are.  As a result, we become more self-focused and less inclined to be in relationship with God and one another.  That is another way that our hearts condemn us. 

The good news is that God is bigger than our heart or the ability of our heart to condemn us. John goes further to say, “Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God…”  If we have boldness before God, that means we can be honest and free.  We can consider our faults and our failures and we can move past them.  We can be free to act in love, to show our love in truth and action. That is another big point of this reading from 1^st John.  We don’t just talk about love, we demonstrate it. It’s a lot easier to show love when you are not riddled with doubt, fear, anxiety or any of those corrosive emotions.

This is all fine and good, but whistling would still be easier. Having a talking cricket at our side would come in handy.  While John doesn’t give us a catchy song he does provide the heart of the Christian message succinctly.  John writes, “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.”  Even if that is all you can remember, that would be enough. Believe in Jesus and love one another.

You know the interesting thing about Jiminy Cricket?  Apparently back in the day, people would use the phrase when amazed or afraid.  It was said in place of Jesus Christ so people could avoid using the name of the Lord in vain. It is not a surprise that Walt Disney would choose a variation of the name of Jesus Christ for the voice of wisdom, conscience, and friendship. 

While I think it would be extremely helpful if we could call upon the wisdom of Jesus with a whistle---and be even be better yet if we all had our own personal animated insect following us around serving as the voice of reason--- we have something and someone better.  We have God as a constant companion.  At the end of our reading, John writes, “All who obey his commandments abide in him and he abides in them.”  Abide means to stay, or make your home in something or someone.  God sent Jesus and then the Holy Spirit to make a space within each of us where he/she[2] could rest.  That means, we don’t have to whistle or depend on someone on the outside providing wisdom.  We have the Spirit within. 

---

[1] New Kings James Version

[2] The Greek word translated to Holy Spirit is feminine, which means it’s ok to refer to the Holy Spirit as she…but I did not say this in my sermon, as that would have been a bit of a detour.

April 26, 2015: Prone to Wander

Year B, Easter 4                                                                         

John 10:11-18                                                                                    

            One of my joys in life is a small group of writers who meet a couple times a year.  When we meet we start with an exercise called “listening to God.”  In this exercise you start by asking God a question and then writing down what you hear in response.  You are not allowed to edit yourself.  You write down everything that pops into your head, whether it is relevant or not.  After you have written everything, you take turns reading it out loud.  You don’t have to read out loud, but with this group I do because I know it is safe place.  I have also realized that you can learn a lot from what other people write.

One of the most interesting revelations I’ve had is that God talks to each one of in our own voice.  For instance, when God talks to me, he’s a little sarcastic and likes to say: “Seriously?!?” a lot. At first I thought that must mean that I am not listening to God.  I am listening to myself.  But then my friends reminded me that of course God sounds like us.  This is in our heads. God’s words are being filtered by our personalities.  Of course God talks to us in a way that we would understand.  If God spoke to me in Hebrew, I would be in serious trouble. 

            I thought of that exercise as I read the Gospel today.  John writes: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.”  In what is often referred to as the Good Shepherd Discourse, Jesus explains that the sheep follow the good shepherd because they know his voice.  They know his voice because they have heard it before. They know his voice because they have a relationship with this shepherd.

            You will find shepherd imagery throughout the Bible, especially in the Old Testament.  In the Old Testament the shepherd represents a powerful leader, a king and often the one true God of the Hebrew people.    Jesus is sharing the parable that we heard today with the Pharisees…the Pharisees who are already pretty ticked at him.  This parable isn’t just a nice comforting story; it sheds light on an earlier incident.  In this earlier incident Jesus healed a blind man on the Sabbath.  The Pharisees were so angry at this display of power and disrespect for their rules that they questioned the formerly blind man.  When the blind man did not tell them what they wanted to hear, they cast him out. When Jesus learned that this had happened, he went out and found the man and told the man who it was that healed him.  It was not just some run of the mill miracle worker, but the Son of Man.  In response the blind man worshipped him.  This all happened right in front of the Pharisees. 

It is after this that Jesus tells the good shepherd parable. Therefore we can assume that while he is talking to his disciples he is also talking to the Pharisees.  He is telling them that he is the good shepherd, that he is God.  They become so angry that they try to stone him.  While this seems like a nice comforting image to us now, it served a greater purpose than comfort.  It was a proclamation of the identity of God, but also the character of God.

            Our God is the kind of God who will not only heal the blind, but go out and search for the man who was cast out of his community.   Jesus is not just any old shepherd.  He is the good shepherd, the shepherd who leads, and is also willing to die for the people he is shepherding.  That is the part that makes him more than a shepherd.  It makes him the savior of the world.   

            Yet what interests me is not merely the character of God, but the character of the sheep of his flock.   Sheep are not exactly renowned for their intelligence or bravery.  They are anxious and afraid of almost everything.  They get lost and wander off to places that are unsafe.  Usually they cannot find their way back unless someone leads them.  Humans are much more intelligent than sheep, but we seem to share some of the same characteristics.  We are easily distracted and anxious.  We tend to wander off course in our life.  Sometimes we are able to find the path that leads back to God, but often we cannot. 

What we can do is listen to the voice of God.  According to this parable, that is what sheep are really good at, discerning the voice of the shepherd and then listening to that voice.  Because the reality of life is that we will veer of course…a lot. We will wander and get frightened.  When that happens we will do things that will lead us even farther from the path to God.  We can’t necessarily control that part of us.  Perhaps some can, but most cannot.  If we know that we are prone to wander, then we need to be prepared to listen for the voice of God.  And the best way to do that is to strengthen our relationship with God now.  We can do that through prayer and meditation.  We can do that through worship and singing.  We can do that with the help of a spiritual guide or others who are wandering the path with us.  But whatever option we choose to build a relationship with God, we have to start now.  We can’t wait until we veer off course. If we do that it will be harder to listen.  We can’t listen to a voice that we don’t recognize in the first place.  

This process of being in relationship with God is not easy, even when we are trying.  Perhaps we might even think that we are too far gone.  We have waited too long.  I can assure you that is not the case.  It is never too late to get to know God and learn the voice of God.  God knows that we will wander.  That’s why Jesus compares us to sheep.  If we know that we will wander, we can work on casting out the other voices in our heads, the voices that say we are not good enough to hear God, the voices that say we are crazy to even try, the voices that say that God would never sound like our voice.  None of that is true. 

What we can rely on is the fact that God’s voice will always be the voice of love and truth.  It will often be the voice that tells us what we do not want to hear.  Let us get to know the voice of God now, as individuals and as a community.  There will come a point when we will need God to rescue us.  We will call out and God will respond.  The question is, will be able to recognize the voice of that response?