Starring The Good Shepherd and Me (Sermon)

John 10:11-18; 1 John 3:16- 24

I like to read. While I love books- the real physical nature of books, I actually love the act of reading more than the thing to be read. I do realize that and I do appreciate that not everyone likes to read. Some people prefer movies or audio books or graphic novels or magazines. (I am a terrible magazine reader, same for short stories.)

The elements that make these things good or enjoyable or engaging are the same across the genres. Even in non-fiction (book or movie), engaging characters, good storytelling, and captivating stakes are necessary. Books about salt, documentaries about wheat, comics about the Holocaust, and movies about fly-fishing have all been blockbusters in their area.

Character and plot are like the chicken and the egg. I heard someone say plot is character in action. This means that interesting people doing something un-engaging isn’t any better than nondescript characters doing something thrilling. Whether a story is told in a book or in a movie, the person who is interacting with the story needs a way to be drawn in, to learn about what is happening, and to see the characters in relation to one another or to their surroundings.

Today’s readings tell a story about us. Since the fourth Sunday after Easter has been designated “Good Shepherd Sunday”, each year we read a portion of the 10^thchapter of the gospel according to John and Psalm 23. John 10 focuses on Jesus describing himself as a gate or a door, a sheepfold or pen, and as the eponymous Good Shepherd. In Chapter 9, he healed a man who had been blind from birth and now he is speaking about himself, to the disciples, so that they might also be moved to sight. In this context, “seeing” means trusting in Jesus as God. 

When the writer of the Fourth Gospel calls Jesus the Good Shepherd, he is stirring up particular imagery for his community. The prophet Ezekiel speaks significantly of God’s provision of a good shepherd for the people whom God loves. Shepherding is significantly connected with David and his lineage, since he was a shepherd in his pre-king days. Psalm 23, generally attributed to David, creates a picture of God’s own self as a shepherd- providing, protecting, leading, and comforting.

When the gospel writer put words to skin and scroll, it was not merely so that people would have intellectual knowledge about the Incarnation- God with skin on (otherwise known as Jesus). The Evangelist is writing a story, creating a narrative, and the people who receive the gospel story are characters within it. It is as though the author makes takes the facts, shapes the account, and then says, “Who are you in this story?”

If your life was a book or a movie, a comic or a magazine article, what is the role of the Good Shepherd in that story? How we define and relate to Christ as Christians, as followers on the Way of Jesus, as children of a living God who has raised One among us from the dead… how we define Jesus gives shape, dimension, and direction to our own lives and to our life of discipleship together.

We are called, through our baptisms, Holy Communion, and the Spirit, into a story where the Good Shepherd is a main character. If someone were reviewing the book or movie of your life, what kind of role would the Good Shepherd have?

- Co-star (always together, it’s practically a buddy movie)

- Best supporting role (at the end of each chapter, she reflected on the words of the Good Shepherd)

- Bit part (Ah, yes, the Good Shepherd had a walk-on role in that one intense scene)

- Producer credit or dedication page without further mention?

If who Jesus is for us, as individuals and as a community, determines who we are, what we do, and how we seek to be in the world, what does it mean then to define him as the Good Shepherd? He defines himself as one who reveals the true will and love of God, as one who draws all people to himself, as one who lives and dies for the sake of the sheep. If this inclusive, inviting, compassionate, life-giving Jesus is whom we follow, trust, and meet in the world- our lives, our daily story, should reflect that. 

The writer of the epistle, 1 John, is probably not the same writer as the gospel, but they were possibly in the same community at different times. The epistle writer says, “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” Love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

A life story that features a good shepherd as a main character, a significant dynamic presence to the plot and the framing, with not be filled with hollow words. Hollow words are empty promises, perfunctory prayers, or dismissive platitudes. A biographical film with a good shepherd will not allow the action to be stopped by the specters of shame, fear, or guilt. Those are poor fodder and the good shepherd lays a table in front of those enemies, a table of grace and healing, and tells those forces, “You don’t eat here and you have no role in this story.”

When the Good Shepherd has a significant role in the life story of a character (you or me) or a community (us), love in truth and action pour forth as a plotline that pulls in all kinds of other players- the kinds of people you might not always expect to see singing or gardening or feeding or eating or playing together, but are suddenly side-by-side in a new chapter. When the Good Shepherd is the story, the dark valleys of death and grief are passable, even in their fearsomeness. When the Good Shepherd has a leading role in a narrative, the realities of goodness and mercy not only follow other characters, but they chase them down, surround them, and grace abounds.

We have been brought into such a story, not by our own will, but by God’s desire to draw us in, to draw all people in, through Jesus. When we respond to this narrative, this story of grace and hope, we are not only clarifying our own role in our life story- as one who is on the Way of Jesus- but we are also shaping the world around us by reflecting in truth and action who Jesus is in our lives. When our deeds- small and large- underscore that the Good Shepherd is the main character in our life story, we reveal a peace and confidence in the plot line of our lives. If character drives plot and the Good Shepherd is the main character in our lives, then we know the actions to which we are called, imitating said shepherd through inclusion, mercy, provision, and safety of other sheep from all kinds of folds. We also know how the story ends- with our dwelling in the house of the Lord forever.

Amen.  

Living for Love

1 John 4:7-21; John 15: 9-14

Where did you see love this week? Where did you experience it?

John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this: that he will lay down his life for his friends.

“No one has greater love than the one who is willing to lay down his or her life for a friend.”

What does that mean?

We generally assume that it means a willingness to die for another person or other people. When we interpret it in that manner, it becomes something a little removed from us. However, a life of love is not one of remove. What if Jesus doesn’t mean to “die for” a friend? What if the laying down of your life means to live for. After all, the end of the story of God’s love for creation in Jesus Christ does not end in death… it is about life.

The way love is expressed is in what we are willing to live for… to demonstrate our life’s goals, values, and understanding. God’s love for us was and is demonstrated as God willing to live and die as one of us and then to be resurrected as the firstborn among the dead.

Love, true love, is about the giving of one’s life in daily action, not waiting for a someday possibility.

Therefore, demonstrating love in Christian community, the sacrifice to which we are called, means living for God by living for each other. By thinking about how each of our actions, our words, our financial decisions, our prayers affect the people around us- whom we say we love.

Perfect love… perfected love… goal (telos)…

Perfect or perfected love is not a goal we can attain through our own work or our own faith. It is what God is working out in us. It is what a life of faith is lived toward, but not what a life of faith achieves. What does living a life toward the goal of perfected love look like?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a 20^th century German theologian and, possibly, one of the greatest religious thinkers of all time. During the rise of Hitler’s regime and the Third Reich, Bonhoeffer and others started underground seminaries in a movement called the Confessing Church, a Christian movement dedicated to living for Christ and, in particular, opposing the Nazi regime. In 1937, the formal seminaries were closed and government officials declared the Confessing Church illegal. Bonhoeffer still traveled to villages, teaching classes in what he called “seminary on the run.”

In 1939, Bonhoeffer received an invitation to teach at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. A committed pacificist, he was already worried about being drafted into the Nazi Army, so he left for America. However, he wrestled with that decision and, ultimately, realized he could not stay in the United States. He wrote to a friend, “I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people... Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security."

Bonhoeffer left the US in 1940, returning to Germany by steamship. He dedicated his life to the German resistance, especially by communicating its existence to allies in hopes of gaining their support and of securing their help in establishing a democratic post-Hitler Germany. Bonhoeffer was hanged in Flossenburg Concentration Camp on April 9, 1945, after being arrested almost 2 years earlier, accused of being involved in a plot to kill Hitler. Bonhoeffer did not return to Germany to lay down his life by dying. He died as a by-product of being willing to live out the love he had for God, for Christian freedom, for a better Germany, for his seminary students and their future.

Laying down one’s life… being willing to live for something other than yourself, for a greater good, for healing and hope in the people around you, and in the world.

Perfect love has been demonstrated for us… in what the Son was willing to forego in order to have a body like ours. The goal of that lived love, stronger than death, was to bring us into a deeper and truer understanding of the expansive nature of God’s grace and its hold on the world.

We are called by Jesus and the writer of 1 John to lay down our lives, all we have, in love. If we live in love, we are not our own. We belong to God. We are in God. We are able to recognize the perfect love, seen through Christ, that casts out fear. Laying down our lives in the love God has poured out for us and which pours through us for others is the only way.

Anything less is, frankly, not living.

Amen.

No Kneeling or Sitting

6^th Sunday of Pentecost

1 John 1:5-2:2

            Whenever I hear today’s verses from 1 John, this is what happens in my head, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We kneel or sit.” My years in churches that knelt or sat for the time of confession are not any greater in number than the number of years I’ve been with you, so I’ve never said or heard this phrase in six years. And yet, there it is. A biblical command and my automatic response…

            “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We kneel or sit.”

            That automatic response leapt into my head all week as I thought about the reading for today. Then the Presiding Bishop sent her letter on Thursday with the instructions to read to you on Sunday. Furthermore, the plane that was shot down in Ukraine, the children who have been gathered from the U.S. southern border, and the violence that continues to escalate in Iraq, Iran, and Syria all loomed large.

            “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We kneel or sit.”

            How could I address all or any of those things in a way that was empathetic, encouraging, and truthful? Could I deal with one, but not the others? What about the personal and family crises that have occurred this week? There is heartbreak here that you know that I know. And some people are gathered here because of a gorgeous and joyful wedding or other celebrations that have just past or are scheduled. People with joy in their hearts don’t always skip toward a hearty discussion of sin in the world.

            “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We kneel or sit.”

            We kneel or sit often becomes our default move when we hear about sin. Being confronted with our own vain, idolatrous, and selfish choices makes most of us want to turn the other way, much less stay and reflect on them with other people (who are surely worse sinners!). This is the truth, though:

            “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

            Many of us, maybe most of us, can even accept the idea that we have not always done the right thing. Even those among us who are sure we’re pretty good have still failed in many and various ways. The harder thing to acknowledge is that we also have a hand in the larger sins that are around us. Our national struggle and missteps in the situation between Israel and Palestine does not occur apart from us. Decisions about immigration, hope, and welcome affect us all.

            The deaths of three hundred people in an airplane as a political statement and challenge reflects an overall disregard for human life on earth. That kind of behavior does not exist in a vacuum. We want to confess to feeling frustrated with our children or gossiping about our neighbor or fudging some information, but the extent of sin, within us and without us, spreads.

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We kneel or sit.”

            The writer of 1 John would never want “kneeling or sitting” to be the response to or the action of confessing. The entirety of the letter calls the Christian, the person walking in the Way of Jesus, into a community of action, of growth, of change. With the revelation of the Holy Spirit, we walk, we move from darkness into light. By confessing our shortcomings, great and small, we are forgiven and renewed according to the truth of God’s work in Jesus Christ.

            Forgiveness doesn’t happen in just still, quiet moments- when we hold our hands just right, when we kneel or sit, when we say the right words. The Holy Spirit doesn’t need us to hold still. The Spirit molds us on the way, washes us on the move, and makes us whole even as we mess up again. We ask for forgiveness because we know we need it. God gives it because of God’s very nature.

            “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

            I have to put new words at the end of that sentence. You do too. Being cleansed from unrighteousness, being made right with God, is not for nothing. It is specifically so that we can continue forward to work for justice, peace, reconciliation, and to care for creation- all things that are in our baptismal promises. We pray, we act, we call, we write, we cry out, we point, we encourage, we rage, we confess, we are forgiven… There is no kneel or sit.

            We are called and pulled into the action of God’s work with our hands, our feet, our mouths, our time, our possessions.

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” We work and pray. We listen and heal. We hope and play. In recognizing the truth of God’s mercy and grace, we are called to do just about anything and everything, besides kneel or sit, for the sake of Christ in the world. 

Amen.

Koinonia (Sermon)

1 John 1:1-4

           

            How many of you have at least one sibling, whether living or dead (or estranged or close)? What does it mean to have a sibling or a close friend? That person becomes part of how you remember events, people, and places in your life. You compare notes, repeat the stories, and recall facts that the other person forgets. Having a close relationship with someone else, especially a brother or sister or close cousin, is the way that you make sense of history and your place in it.

            When a community formed around the teaching and understanding of the apostle John, the writer of the Fourth Gospel lifted up the divinity of Jesus. In that gospel, Jesus’ feet are just a little bit above the ground. The theme of the gospel according to John is “Like Father, like Son.” When we read that book, we cannot fail to grasp that Jesus is divine, is of God, is specifically and necessarily revealing God the Father to us.

            This was the prevailing understanding of the Johnannine community, the brothers and sisters who came together around John’s understanding of Jesus. However, when Jesus’ divinity becomes the main focus, what is lost? We miss out on the crucial other part of the incarnation, God becoming enfleshed,… Jesus’ humanity.

            Why does Jesus’ humanity matter? The less human Jesus becomes in our recollection, the less we feel able or compelled to imitate him. It is very easy to think of the divine Jesus as our Savior and Lord. That begins to move him over there, while we remain here. The further we feel from divinity ourselves, the tougher it is to believe that 1) salvation has actually been achieved, 2) what has been achieved is at work in us, changing us, and 3) that we are called and equipped for exactly the same kind of work for the sake of the world around us.

            The writer of 1 John, sometimes called the elder or an elder of the church, understood the significance of lifting up both Jesus’ divinity AND his humanity. Paying equal attention to Jesus as a man, as someone we could know, as a person who got scraped, had his feelings hurt, got tired and hungry, and needed to go to the bathroom, who became frustrated, who hugged children… remembering all of that as having equal importance to his eternal existence as the Word of life and love is valuable and imperative.

            It was because of people’s physical experiences of Jesus that they came to understand him as Emmanuel- God with us. It was because of people’s physical experiences of Jesus that they came to understand him as the Son of God. It is what they saw, heard, tasted, smelled, touched, and otherwise experienced that the Holy Spirit used to open their minds and hearts to this physical revelation of God’s own self.

            After the ascension, Christ’s presence was encountered differently. His presence was made real in the recounting of his deeds, sharing of his teaching, marveling at the healings, and living as he had commanded- loving God and neighbor. The elder writer of 1 John wants his hearers, including us, to understand that the humanity of Jesus, as well as his divinity, was part of God’s work to make a holy community, the followers of the way of Jesus, brothers and sisters bonded in a new way.

            The word in 1 John is koinonia. This word originates from the Greek word koinos, meaning “common.” When this word is used in the New Testament, it is typically translated as sharing, fellowship, or partnership. Koinonia means a special joint partnership, a unique fellowship, a creative community that shares one story. The story of Jesus, human and divine, makes us brothers and sisters. It shapes us as a koinonia, a unique kind of fellowship, in which we all share our stories, our experiences of Jesus in our lives and in the world. We share and carry the history together, the history of the church, of this church, of creation, of miracles, joys, and griefs.

            According to 1 John, this is the purpose of Jesus’ humanity- to bring us into this special kind of relationship with each other and God. We are not yet there, meaning whatever comes next. We are here now, as Jesus was and as Christ is. This means, brothers and sisters, that we are still at work and God remains at work in us. It means that our story-telling, our memory making, our shared laughter, tears, and labors are still on-going.

            The real person of Jesus, the story of his life, death, and resurrection, created koinonia, a community with shared story and purpose. The real presence of Christ makes that koinonia real here, in this time and place. We may not always agree as brothers and sisters. Our memories may differ. Our sense of what should be next may differ. However, we cannot actually disagree or undo what is of central importance, we have been made a family in Christ, a special and holy community with a shared sense of responsibility for one another, for this property, for Anchorage, and for all creation.

            We are never on our own in Christ. We die and are raised to new life in him through his story, as it has been carried through the family since the early days of the church. With the help of the Spirit, Our task now is to keep the community and the story alive, to share with one another (and the world) what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life. Amen.