[Propertalk] 4 Easter b

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

I have a funeral tomorrow afternoon and am late in getting the draft of 
the Sunday sermon but here's what I have.

Good celebrating!


Bob


THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY  		              THE FOURTH 
SUNDAY OF EASTER
ACTS 4:5-12	                          		    	    	 
29th APRIL, 2012
1 JOHN  3:16-24		                                                	  	 
PSALM 23
JOHN 10:11-18

	Three different quotations struck me in different ways about my faith 
and how we all struggle to trust – in the sense that Deacon Marj 
referred to last Sunday.

	The first is from a posting on-line. It may seem be flippant; it may 
seem serious; it may be enough to raise a casual smile; or it may be 
enough to make us think about all the possibilities for a day or more. 
The writer shared:

	“Whenever she stood in line at the bank, or while waiting for the bus, 
I noticed her feet. The right always in front & perpendicular to the 
left just so. Even after 2 children, she still dreamed of being a 
dancer.” 1

	Think about what that says. You have a secret dream. You may have had 
it from the first time you were able to formulate thoughts. Maybe it’s 
something you’ve kept to yourself and never shared. Possibly it’s 
something from which you were dissuaded as a teenager, or even 
ridiculed. But the dream is still there. It’s something you bring out in 
the privacy of your solitude, maybe often enough that you don’t realize 
you’re indulging in it. So like the woman in the writer’s comment, you 
stand in line, wherever you may be, you put your feet into certain 
ballet positions, you walk in a certain way, revealing what you may have 
forgotten about. It’s simply become a part of you.

	THAT, believe it or not, is what our faith is supposed to do for us. It 
becomes so much a part of us that it’s second nature – to see a glass 
half full instead of half empty; to believe that people actually WILL 
reform, or act decently, regardless of whether their views match yours 
or mine. On the level of how our entire life is ordered, we’re asked to 
accept that Jesus is such a One who will look after us and protect us, 
regardless what the cost to Him.

	Although this morning’s passage from the Gospel doesn’t come 
specifically from the chapters outlining Jesus’ crucifixion and 
resurrection, they DO exemplify it. No matter what pressures are 
insinuating themselves on our attention, no matter how troubled we may 
be with what’s going on wherever we live, or at work, or even in church, 
no matter what pressures there are, we need to remember that Jesus is 
still there, perhaps bruised from the last time He had to chase us into 
a ravine, but still there, nevertheless.

	You don’t need to do it right now, unless you’re feeling distracted, 
but look at the top picture on the page opposite the psalm when you take 
your bulletin home today. It’s recognisable, instantly, as being by Van 
Gogh. No one had his flair for swirling oils around, making such strong 
statements. I haven’t had time to check out what Van Gogh was doing in 
that ravine, but it looks as if it would be a pretty tough hike. You can 
just imagine sheep getting tangled up in the brush and the shepherd 
uttering some multi-language epithets in response to having to fetch 
them back with the rest of the flock. It’s a pretty depressing thought. 
Add to that the heat of the middle of the day and the cold temperatures 
at night and you add to the inhospitability of the situation.

I know I wouldn’t be that enthused about fetching sheep from down there, 
I don’t know about you.

	Yet Jesus, the Good Shepherd, will go wherever it takes to rescue those 
of us who’re snarled up in the bushes, or stuck on a ledge, or just 
plain too tired to make our way back out to be with the rest of the 
group. Jesus said that nothing would stop Him.

	This is what should be embedded in our conscious and sub-conscious. It 
should be second nature to us, somewhat in the same way as that woman 
who still nurtured the dream of being a dancer. No matter where we are 
in life, no matter what’s happening – Jesus will not only be there where 
it’s safe and convenient. Jesus will be there where it’s dangerous, and 
inconvenient – even when the problem’s been brought on by our own 
inattentiveness or willfulness.

	I don’t know about you, but that’s a tremendous relief to me. I’ve put 
myself in some fairly hairy situations from time to time. No doubt I’ll 
do a few stupid things at some point in the rest of my life – I can’t 
say what they may be. But I CAN say that whenever I need help, whenever 
I need support, whenever I feel alone, I can depend on Jesus to bring me 
back not just to my senses, but to the rest of the group. And the 
wonderful thing about this analogy, which springs from the lips of Jesus 
Himself, is that Jesus doesn’t leave me stuck in that ravine, or on that 
ledge, or in the middle of the freeway with traffic threatening to smush 
me while He conducts a little inventory about how I got there, and what 
I intended to do to make sure I never got into that predicament again, 
and whether or not I had enough money or resources
to pay for the tow truck.

	No – Jesus said, simply, I’m your Shepherd. I’ll take care of you, even 
when you present an incredible challenge to me; and I’ll do it quite 
cheerfully.

	Which leads to the second of the three quotations which crossed my 
computer screen last week. Two writers in a book of prayers wrote, “We 
discovered that faith is not expecting that the Lord will miraculously 
give us whatever we ask, or feeling that we will not be killed and that 
everything will turn out as we want. We learned that faith is putting 
ourselves in [God’s] hands, whatever happens, good or bad. [God] will 
help us somehow.” 2

	On Friday afternoon an AP report began, “In a city understandably wary 
of low-flying aircraft, New Yorkers and tourists alike watched with joy 
and excitement Friday as space shuttle Enterprise sailed over the 
skyline on its final flight before it becomes a museum piece.

	“Ten years after 9/11, people gathered on rooftops and the banks of the 
Hudson River to marvel at the sight of the spacecraft riding piggyback 
on a modified jumbo jet that flew over the Statue of Liberty and past 
the skyscrapers along Manhattan's West Side.

	“‘It made me feel empowered. I'm going to start crying,’ Jennifer 
Patton, a tourist from Canton, Ohio, said after the plane passed over 
the cheering crowd on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, the 
floating air-and-space museum that will be the shuttle's permanent home.

	“‘I just feel like to have a plane fly that low over the Hudson, right 
past New York City, and to have everyone cheering and excited about it, 
shows that we don't have fear, that we have a sense of ‘This is ours.’” 
3

	“We don’t have fear … ‘This is ours’” – that’s an amazing statement. I 
don’t know this first hand, but through my son-in-law and daughter I 
know about sudden noises, and instinctive reactions because of fear 
that’s built in to your whole being, based on previous experiences.

	Right after 9/11 there was another plane crash – on Long Island, I 
think. Everyone thought the worst. Try as hard as they might, the 
sizeable majority of the people thought of another terrorist attack. It 
turned out to be caused by a mechanical problem. Fear is tremendous 
force. Fear of losing friends, fear of losing face, fear of losing 
economic power, fear of losing control of our lives, fear, perhaps the 
worst fear, fear of losing the most important people in our lives.

	Jesus the Good Shepherd speaks to that. Jesus, in two words, said – 
says this morning – “Trust Me!” Jesus said, as the couple who wrote that 
prayer put it, that “faith is putting ourselves in [God’s] hands, 
whatever happens, good or bad. [That God] will help us somehow.”

	No one said that this is easy, least of all Jesus. Jesus, as we saw 
barely a month ago, Jesus deliberately walked to Jerusalem; with His 
disciples He faced up to whomever was not willing – or able – to listen 
to Him about the sort of life God wants EVERYONE to experience, to 
enjoy. God doesn’t want ANYONE to be afraid – not of God, not of our 
sisters or brothers, not of natural disaster, not of falling into and 
becoming trapped into any sort of a ravine – whether depicted by such a 
tremendous artist as Van Gogh or not.

	There’s a really curious fact about “Ravine”. What you may not know is 
that underneath that wonderful painting, art restorers and historians 
have found another painting, one that the artist did first, before 
reusing the canvas. Just what that first painting was, isn’t certain. 
Why Van Gogh painted on top of it isn’t known either. What IS certain is 
that a masterpiece was produced, perhaps benefitting from what was there 
first, or because of the thinking that went into the first concept and 
the subsequent imaginative work. I don’t know, and haven’t read enough, 
to have a good idea whether or not the original colours would make an 
impact on the choice of colours and patterns which had to be laid on top 
in order not to detract from the finished work as it hands in a gallery 
today. What I DO know is that every artist, of whatever medium, always 
benefits from what has preceded it, whether it’s something good or bad. 
Being rescued – say from a thicket at the bottom of a ravine – cannot 
fail to have an impact on one’s life. Having been comforted while under 
emotional distress; having been given courage to make unpleasant or 
difficult decisions; having hope that all things WILL work for good 
because there’s no doubt about God’s love and God’s compassion – all of 
that should colour our lives and heklp us to know and understand the 
depths of the love of God, and the trust in which we’re invited to 
share.

	Which brings me to the third quotation I came across last week. It’s 
from Kathleen Norris’ most recent book. She’s written about 
spirituality, about how our faith is formed, and tested, and maintained. 
She writes well, and in concepts plain enough for us to understand. What 
she wrote was, “For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn't 
know we needed and take us places where we didn't know we didn't want to 
go. As we stumble through the crazily altered
landscape of our lives, we find that God is enjoying our attention as 
never before.” 4

	The interesting thing about Shepherds in the Middle East – I think this 
is still true today – is that shepherds always walk ahead of the flock, 
looking to see where best to go, what to avoid, how to find as much 
safety as possible. Sometimes this involved going over very rough areas 
in order to find the best pastures, or clearest waters. The sheep, 
however, followed the shepherd. They’d learned, as much as most sheep 
ever learn to listen for their own shepherd’s voice and to trust that 
the shepherd wouldn’t take them over the edge of a cliff.

If we seek God’s grace for our lives – and I doubt if there are many who 
would NOT want God’s grace – then we have to trust that our Good 
Shepherd will be aware of things of which we may only dream.

Life is about trust. Our faith is built on it. But while we’re working 
on accepting that fully, Jesus is still ready and able to fetch us out 
from the bottom of whatever ravine into which we may take ourselves. The 
only thing we have to remember, then, is that Jesus will be with us – 
wherever!

So we can – we SHOULD – continue to dream, to place our feet in third 
position wherever and whenever we want, to keep thinking of what we 
might yet be able to do, with God’s help.

And that’s the Good News for this week!

NOTES:

1 	StoryPeople 29th March, 2012 http://www.storypeople.com/

2	Felipe and Mary Barreda from, Common Prayer - A Liturgy for Ordinary 
Radicals see 
http://www.amazon.com/Common-Prayer-Liturgy-Ordinary-Radicals/dp/0310326192

3	“Space shuttle arrives in NYC; crowds watch in awe” By MEGHAN BARR 
Associated Press The Associated Press Friday, April 27, 2012 4:44 PM EDT
 
http://www.chron.com/news/article/Space-shuttle-arrives-in-NYC-crowds-watch-in-awe-3512476.php

4	Kathleen Norris, from Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's 
Life via Sojourners 11th April, 2011


Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)