[Propertalk] Fwd: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Easter 4A

Sat May 10 21:11:45 EDT 2014

Forwarded:

-----Original Message-----
From: Judy <judy_boli at ecunet.org>
To: propertalk.topic <propertalk.topic at ecunet.org>
Sent: Fri, May 9, 2014 11:34 pm
Subject: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Easter 4A

Dear Friends,

This Sunday’s sermon is entitled “The Good Shepherd” and deals with thegospel (John 10: 1-10).  Here it is:

As you probably noticed in the bulletin, every fourth Sunday of Easteris “Good Shepherd Sunday,” so this morning almost all of the Bible lessonsrefer in one way or another to Jesus as our Good Shepherd.  Now we don’t know anything about sheep andshepherds, but the people in Jesus’ time did- they were either farm people orknew farm people.  The image of Jesus astheir Good Shepherd really spoke to them. Let me try to open Bible times and culture to you so it will speak to usas well.

First of all, did you notice in today’s Gospel (John 10:1-10) thatJesus said he was the “Gate for the sheep” (verse 7)?  What in the world was he talking about?  If we lived in Bible times, we wouldunderstand right away.  Almost every townhad a sheepfold or sheep-pen, which was simply a small fenced-in area, oftenmade of stone.  This sheepfold orsheep-pen had an opening, but usually no gate. If a shepherd wasn’t by a town, he made his own sheep-pen with bushesand briars- again with an opening, but no gate. When evening came, he would gather all his sheep into the pen.  Problem: with an opening but no gate, how wasthe shepherd going to keep the sheep in and the wolves and thieves out?  Easily! He slept in the opening himself so anything or anybody attempting to goin or out would have to go over him. Sort of like when my children were early teen-agers many years ago.  The youth group invited friends for asleep-over downstairs, with the boys sleeping in the common room and the girlssleeping in the classroom-lounge.  I stupidlyagreed to be one of the chaperones.  Whenall the chaperones decided we couldn’t stand it any longer, we declared it wastime for bed.  Our problem: all the boyswere in love with all the girls and vise-versa- how to keep them apart!  We chaperones knew they were just waiting forus to go to sleep so they could get together unsupervised!  What did we do?  Easy- I put my sleeping bag in front of thedoor between the two rooms so no one could get through, and we all had a goodnight’s sleep.  Same idea.  Jesus is your Good Shepherd and he is theGate for your life.  Nothing can get intoyour life that he can’t protect you from or support you through.  Remind you of a song we sing?  “Be Not Afraid, for God Is in Charge!”

Now, if we are going to look at Jesus as the Good Shepherd, we’d alsobetter look at us as the sheep.  What doyou know about sheep?  Three words, allstarting with “s” will answer that question: “stupid, stubborn, andstinky.”  Trying to keep a bunch of sheeptogether would be sort of like trying to take a bunch of toddlers to thezoo.  Haven’t you noticed preschoolteachers hoping to keep their class together by having a rope with each childholding on?  I don’t know if it works forpreschoolers, but sheep don’t hold ropes and where they want to go, theygo.  What they want to eat, they eat- poisonousor not.  I remember taking one of mychildren to Bill Knapps Restaurant (remember the good old days when it wasstill open?) and noticing that my precious, spotless, sanitized toddler waschewing something.  When I asked, I wastold “Oh, mama- gum from under the table!” I almost threw up!  Sheep are likethat.  Unless the shepherd clears thegrazing field of poisonous weeds, they’ll eat them.  As their wool gets longer, it smells like akid’s sneakers or well-used socks.  Beingcompared to sheep is not really a compliment, but it’s probably a validcomparison.  As with sheep and children,the hardest thing the Shepherd has to protect us from is ourselves and our ownfoolishness.  How does Jesus dothat?  Did you notice verses 2-4 tell usthat the Shepherd knows the sheep by name, they know his voice, and they followhim.  Remember on the first Easter whenMary Magdalene was outside the empty tomb weeping and she mistook the risenChrist for the gardener?  How did he getthrough to her?  Sure- he called hername- “Mary, Mary.”  That’s what he doesfor us.  

But what if our lives are too busy to hear him?  Or, worse yet, what if we don’t want to hearhim?  You know the feeling when your consciencesays, “Don’t do this or go with him or take that or use this or participate inthat or say what you’re about to say or do what you’re about to do.”  You hear your conscience, but you sin anyway-go for those forbidden fruits or let it all hang out or do the selfishthing.  What then?  This is when our Good Shepherd becomes thePassover Lamb.  Remember how- just beforewe receive Holy Communion- the priest breaks the Holy Bread and says, “Christ,our Passover, is sacrificed for us.” Jesus has become the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of theworld.”  There’s a parallel for this alsoin the world of the shepherd.  Have youever heard of Jeff Smith (1939- 2004), also known as the Frugal Gourmet?  Many say he was TV's original celebrity chef.  Anyway, in his book called “The FrugalGourmet Keeps the Feast,” he tells about a conversation he had with a shepherdfrom the Middle East.  He learned thatvery often during lambing season, the shepherd would awaken to find a deadmother sheep with a live baby lamb and another live mother sheep with a deadbaby lamb.  The mother sheep whose lambhas died has milk ready to feed a hungry lamb, but no babies.  The lamb whose mother sheep has died isstarving for lack of milk.  Easilysolved, you think.  Just let the orphanlamb suckle from the childless mother sheep. Great idea, but it won’t work; because the mother sheep knows the orphanlamb doesn’t smell like her baby.  Do youknow how the shepherd solves the problem? He drains the blood from the body of the dead lamb and washes the liveorphan lamb with that blood.  Now theorphan lamb smells like one of her own, and the mother sheep will adopt theorphan and feed it.  That’s what God didwith us- washed us in the Blood of his Lamb- Jesus, the Christ, so we could beadopted as sons and daughters of God and freed from our sins.

So, where are you in all of this? Have you accepted Jesus as your Good Shepherd?  If not, just invite him into your life rightnow and then seal it at the altar as you come up for Communion?  Are you allowing Jesus to be the Gatekeeperof your life, or do you keep running after things that will destroy you?  Do you spend enough quiet time with our Lordso you recognize his voice, or do you keep busy, busy, busy with the radioblaring, the TV on, the video games popping, the music blasting, or you’re onyour cell phone talking or texting? Finally, is Jesus not only your Good Shepherd, but your MODELShepherd?  Do you just happily acceptGod’s blessings, keeping them to yourself; or do you reach out and touch?  May God bless us as we follow our GoodShepherd

For anyone who is interested, this sermon and updatedAfrican-American wisdom statements are posted on our parish’s NEW WEB SITEunder “Sermons & Stuff”. The address is: http://www.stpaulsepisag.org .

Blessed preaching,
Judy Boli
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Saginaw, Michigan

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20140510/25d3787c/attachment.htm>