[Propertalk] Fwd: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Easter 4A: "When you can't sleep, don't count sheep. Talk to the Shepherd."

Sat May 6 17:45:40 EDT 2017

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-------- Original message --------From: Judy <judy_boli at ecunet.org> Date: 5/6/17  4:48 PM  (GMT-05:00) To: Propertalk <propertalk.topic at ecunet.org> Subject: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Easter 4A: "When you can't sleep, don't count sheep.  Talk to the Shepherd." 

Dear
Friends,

This
Sunday’s sermon is entitled “The Good Shepherd” and deals with the Psalm (23)
and the gospel (John 10: 1-10).  Here it
is: 

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

First of all, did you
notice in today’s Gospel (John 10:1-10) that Jesus 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 would understand right away. 
Almost every town had a sheepfold or sheep-pen, which was simply a small
fenced-in area, often made of stone. 
This sheepfold or sheep-pen had an opening, but usually no gate.  If a shepherd wasn’t by a town, he made his
own sheep-pen with bushes and 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 was the 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 go in 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 a sleep-over downstairs, with the boys sleeping in
the common room and the girls sleeping in the classroom-lounge.  I stupidly agreed to be one of the
chaperones.  When all the chaperones
decided we couldn’t stand it any longer, we declared it was time for bed.  Our problem: all the boys were in love with
all the girls and vise-versa- how to keep them apart!  We chaperones knew they were just waiting for
us to go to sleep so they could get together unsupervised!  What did we do?  Easy- I put my sleeping bag in front of the
door between the two rooms so no one could get through, and we all had a good
night’s sleep.  Same idea.  Jesus is your Good Shepherd and he is the
Gate for your life.  Nothing can get into
your 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 also better look at us as the
sheep.  What do you know about
sheep?  Three words, all starting with
“s” will answer that question: “stupid, stubborn, and stinky.”  Trying to keep a bunch of sheep together
would be sort of like trying to take a bunch of toddlers to the zoo.  Haven’t you noticed preschool teachers hoping
to keep their class together by having a rope with each child holding on?  I don’t know if it works for preschoolers,
but sheep don’t hold ropes and where they want to go, they go.  What they want to eat, they eat- poisonous or
not.  I remember taking one of my
children to Bill Knapps Restaurant (remember the good old days when it was
still open?) and noticing that my precious, spotless, sanitized toddler was
chewing something.  When I asked, I was
told “Oh, mama- gum from under the table!” 
I almost threw up!  Sheep are like
that.  Unless the shepherd clears the
grazing field of poisonous weeds, they’ll eat them.  As their wool gets longer, it smells like a
kid’s sneakers or well-used socks.  Being
compared to sheep is not really a compliment, but it’s probably a valid
comparison.  As with sheep and children,
the hardest thing the Shepherd has to protect us from is ourselves and our own
foolishness.  How does Jesus do
that?  Did you notice verses 2-4 tell us
that the Shepherd knows the sheep by name, they know his voice, and they follow
him.  Remember on the first Easter when
Mary Magdalene was outside the empty tomb weeping and she mistook the risen
Christ for the gardener?  How did he get
through to her?  Sure- he called her
name- “Mary, Mary.”  That’s what he does
for us.  

But what if our lives
are too busy to hear him?  Or, worse yet,
what if we don’t want to hear him?  You
know the feeling when your conscience says, “Don’t do this or go with him or
take that or use this or participate in that 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 selfish thing. 
What then?  This is when our Good
Shepherd becomes the Passover Lamb. 
Remember how- just before we 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 the world.”  There’s a
parallel for this also in the world of the shepherd.  Have you ever 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 Frugal
Gourmet Keeps the Feast,” he tells about a conversation he had with a shepherd
from the Middle East.  He learned that
very often during lambing season, the shepherd would awaken to find a dead
mother sheep with a live baby lamb and another live mother sheep with a dead
baby lamb.  The mother sheep whose lamb
has died has milk ready to feed a hungry lamb, but no babies.  The lamb whose mother sheep has died is
starving for lack of milk.  Easily
solved, you think.  Just let the orphan
lamb suckle from the childless mother sheep. 
Great idea, but it won’t work; because the mother sheep knows the orphan
lamb doesn’t smell like her baby.  Do you
know how the shepherd solves the problem? 
He drains the blood from the body of the dead lamb and washes the live
orphan lamb with that blood.  Now the
orphan lamb smells like one of her own, and the mother sheep will adopt the
orphan and feed it.  That’s what God did
with us- washed us in the Blood of his Lamb- Jesus, the Christ, so we could be
adopted 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 right now and then seal it at the altar as you come up for
Communion?  Are you allowing Jesus to be
the Gatekeeper of your life, or do you keep running after things that will
destroy you?  Do you spend enough quiet
time with our Lord so you recognize his voice, or do you keep busy, busy, busy
with the radio blaring, the TV on, the video games popping, the music blasting,
or you’re on your cell phone talking or texting?  Finally, is Jesus not only your Good
Shepherd, but your MODEL Shepherd?  Do
you just happily accept God’s blessings, keeping them to yourself; or do you
reach out and touch?  May God bless us as
we follow our Good Shepherd

For anyone who is interested, this sermon and updated
African-American wisdom statements are posted on our parish’s web site under
“Sermons & Stuff”. The address is: http://www.stpaulsepisag.org
.

Blessed
preaching,

Judy
Boli

St.
Paul's Episcopal Church

Saginaw,
Michigan

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