"I Just Wanna Be A Sheep"

Joshua J Sander
4/29/12
Fourth Sunday of Easter
“I Just Wanna Be A Sheep”

Acts 4:5-12
John 10:11-18

In case you hadn’t noticed, Emmi and I are animal lovers. We were both happy to introduce Samantha the Guinea Pig to you last week. Emmi grew up with a Golden Retriever. My family had a Great Dane. We hope to someday have a dog of our own. And as we’ve been finding our way around Biglerville we enjoy seeing the animals of the area: cows, horses, and yes, sheep. And so as I read today’s scripture lesson I realized that all of you are either responsible for the welfare of an animal or know someone who is. I’m not an Israeli shepherd, but when the smoke detector goes off in the middle of the night, rescuing our pet is one of our first thoughts. We may not all keep livestock, but on a very real level we can understand the metaphor that Jesus is using when he speaks of shepherds and sheep.

Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

The way I see it there are two important things to pull out of this metaphor. The first of these is that we are sheep. And honestly, with a good shepherd, being a sheep is a pretty good deal. The shepherd knows the sheep individually, and they know the shepherd. The shepherd calls the sheep by name and they follow the shepherd. And the shepherd protects the sheep from all kinds of danger: from thieves and bandits who come to steal and kill and destroy—from wolves who snatch and scatter.

We know that God knows what it like to be stolen and killed and destroyed—we know that God knows what it’s like to be snatched up by a wolf—because God became incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ and lived a human life and was tortured to death. This God is the Good Shepherd and he is the one who protects us… I don’t know about you, but I find that to be a very comforting thing.

But asserting that we are the Good Shepherd’s sheep begs a couple of questions. First, how well do we hear the voice of the Shepherd? It’s actually pretty easy to make an idol of the cross as the instrument of our salvation, to shout from the rooftops that Jesus died for our sins, to ask our neighbors if they’re born again and therefore saved—and forget all about the things that Jesus taught and lived. It is important to wonder What Would Jesus Do, but perhaps is would be more to the point to ask What Would Jesus Say?

I still say that it’s pretty comforting to be under the Shepherd’s protection. But it’s challenging, too. For one thing, there’s something kind of screwy about human nature. We all want to belong, but we have a tendency to get jealous as well. Put more simply, generally speaking, we all want to be members of the flock but we have difficulty playing well with others. Perhaps this is why Jesus takes the time to build a little warning into his sheep metaphor, “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.”

The truth is that human psychology strongly resists change. We want our communities to grow and be healthy, but we want everything to stay just the way it’s always been—do you see the problem here? “I have other sheep… I must bring them also.” Have you ever wondered who the other sheep are? I mean, what if they’re really, really ‘other.’ I mean, what if they’re really, really different from what you’re used to? I’m not talking about unhealthy, disruptive, antagonistic influences—those really can scatter a flock. I’m talking about those other sheep that hear the voice of the Shepherd. We each need to look deep into our hearts and wrestle with the idea of bringing in those sheep. Every church has a sign that says, “All Are Welcome.” This congregation has the vision to be a spiritually strong multi-generational congregation that reaches out to all. So look into your hearts. Are you prepared to live out that vision? What does that vision mean to you? How do you hear the voice of the Shepherd? Don’t answer me now. Pray on it. Sleep on it. And when the Spirit moves you, come tell me about, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The second part of the metaphor we should pull out, is the idea of being the shepherd ourselves. As challenging as it is to be one of Christ’s sheep, I think that attempting to live Christ-like lives is an even greater challenge. Take the example of Peter in the New Testament reading this morning.

One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, ‘Look at us.’ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.’ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

So Peter spoke to the people. He told them that their God, God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of their ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus. He told them that he was talking about the same Jesus that was handed over to Pilate, the same Jesus for whom the very same crowd had cried out “Crucify him!” He told them that he was talking about the very same Jesus who had died and was now resurrected. And then he told them that the man who had been lame from birth had been healed by faith in the name of Jesus. At which point the priests—who were responsible for handing Jesus over—and the Sadducees—who didn’t believe in any afterlife, including the resurrection of the dead—promptly arrested Peter and John.

The next day, the leaders, scribes, and elders—including Caiaphas, the very same Caiaphas who handed Jesus over to Pilate to be crucified—questioned them, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” And Peter had the audacity—I mean he had the sheer nerve—to tell them exactly in whose name and with what power they had healed that man. And Caiaphas and all the other big-wigs couldn’t do anything about it in the end because nobody could deny that healing the guy had been a powerful and good sign. I think that if I’d been standing before Caiaphas I would have been afraid that tossing that in his face would be the same thing as laying my life down, wouldn’t you? But Peter strove to be Christ-like. He stood up to Caiaphas and won.

I know it’s difficult to put yourself in Peter’s place, so I thought maybe I should share a more modern example of good Christian folk following Jesus’ example as the Good Shepherd. And to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have run across it if it weren’t for Yom HaShoah. Yom HaShoah was one of the most powerful and most important interfaith services I had the opportunity to participate in when I was serving in Stratford, Connecticut. You see, Yom HaShoah is the official Jewish holy day for the remembrance of the Holocaust.

So, what I ran across is the story of the ten Boom family, which is told in the book The Hiding Place which was later made into a film by the same name. Corrie, Betsie, and their father Casper lived in the Netherlands, in the town of Haarlem, where they owned and lived in a shop that sold and repaired watches. Then, in 1940, the Nazis invaded Holland.

Due to their strong Christian beliefs, they felt obligated to help their Jewish friends in every way possible. The shop soon became the center for a major anti-Nazi operation. Corrie, who thought of herself as a middle-aged spinster, was suddenly involved in black market operations, stealing ration cards, and eventually, hiding Jews in her own home. In fact, The Dutch underground arranged for a secret room to be built in the shop, so the Jews would have a place to hide in the event of a raid.

It was a constant struggle for the family to keep the Jews safe, they sacrificed their own safety and part of their own personal space to give constant safety to the Jews. One day a man asked Corrie to help his wife, who had been arrested and Corrie cautiously agreed. As it turned out, the man was a spy, and the watch shop was raided. The entire ten Boom family was arrested, along with the shop employees, but the Jews managed to hide themselves in the secret room.

Casper was well into his eighties by this time, and a Nazi official offered to let him go, provided he made no more trouble. Casper does not agree to this, and was shipped to prison where he died ten days later. Corrie and Betsie were sent to Scheveningen, a Dutch prison which was used by the Nazis for political prisoners. Everyone else was released and the Jews who had hidden in the secret room were safe.

After four months, Corrie and Betsie were transferred to Vught, a Dutch concentration camp for political prisoners. The work was not hard, and the prisoner-foreman was kind. Betsie, whose health was starting to fail, was sent to work sewing prison uniforms.

When a counter-offensive against the Nazis seemed imminent, the prisoners were shipped by train to Germany, where they were imprisoned at Ravensbrück, a notorious women's concentration camp. The conditions there were hellish and it was there that Betsie's health failed and she died. Corrie was later released due to a clerical error, which is how their story survived to be told.

Hear the words of Jesus: I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.

As for me, I love being a sheep. And I strive to be a good shepherd. And I hope and pray that you do too. Because that’s what being a Christian is.

Please be with me in the spirit of prayer. Oh Loving Shepherd, we pray that you protect us from the bandits and thieves and wolves of the world. We pray that you continue to speak to us so that we may recognize your voice. And we pray that you help us to be better shepherds to our brothers and sisters as we do your work here on earth. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

"Anatomy"

Joshua J Sander
4/22/12
Third Sunday of Easter
First Sunday as Pastor of Trinity UCC, Biglerville
“Anatomy”

1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36-48

Jesus was dead. He died on a Friday. Can you imagine? This man, this friend, this mentor and teacher—this great, great man tortured to death on a Friday. Gone. Just gone. Where do you go after something like that? How do you go on after something like that? Can you imagine being one of his disciples in the aftermath, waiting out the Sabbath and asking each other, “Where do we go from here?” We know that some of the women stayed in Jerusalem to take care of Jesus body once the Sabbath—when nobody traveled or worked—was over. And we know that the very same day at least two of the disciples decided to travel to a little village about seven miles outside of Jerusalem called Emmaus. And as they walked together they were talking with each other about all the things that had happened.

While they were talking and discussing, a man started walking with them. And he said to them, ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’ They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, ‘Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days? ’

He asked them, ‘What things?’ They replied, ‘The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. It’s only been three days. But now, some women of our group were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they didn’t see Jesus.’

Then the man told them that they were missing something huge—that in fact Jesus was the Messiah and therefore needed to suffer through all those things. Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about the Messiah in all the scriptures. And although they didn’t admit it to each other until after the fact, their hearts were burning within them while he was talking and opening the scriptures to them.

When they came close to Emmaus, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they insisted that he stay with them because it was almost evening. So he went inside. When they had dinner, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized that he was Jesus; and then, just like that *snap* he vanished. Well, they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. And the eleven said that Jesus had risen and had appeared to Simon. Then the two of them told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

It is while they are talking about these things that we get to today’s scripture reading, where Jesus stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." And they were all startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost.

Which is understandable, right? After all, Jesus was dead and had just appeared quite suddenly inside of a locked room. On the other hand, Jesus’ reaction, “Why are you frightened?” is also understandable—after all, they’d just been discussing the fact that Jesus had risen and appeared to the women that morning, and to Simon, and on the road to Emmaus.

Speaking of Emmaus, there has always been something very powerful to me about the idea of not recognizing Jesus. It is all too easy to forget that we were all made in God’s image, or as the author of I John puts it: See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. It is way easy to look at yourself and say, I’m too fat, I’m too skinny, I’m too tall or short or hairy or bald. It is way, way too easy to forget that you are a beautiful creation of the divine.

I hope I’m not the first person to say that to you. You are one of God’s most beautiful creations. I don’t know about you, but I frequently find it difficult to behave as if that’s true. We live in a society where only one or two kinds of bodies are uplifted as the ideal—and that leaves the rest of us out, doesn’t it? I’m never going to look like a movie star, so why should I bother with my appearance? I should bother because I was made in the image of God, just like you were. The only good and true response is for me to make it as healthy an image as I can make it. I don’t know about you, but for me that means keeping track of what I eat and exercising—two things that I admittedly struggle with.

It is just as easy to not recognize the image of God in our brothers and sisters. I don’t find that person attractive. I find that person’s personality to be obnoxious. That person does not share my views on sexuality. I don’t agree with that person’s politics. Now, I’m not saying that there isn’t evil in the world. It’s just that I don’t believe that people are inherently evil. There are people who do evil things—in fact some people seem to choose evil more frequently than they choose good. But I refuse to refer to them as evil people because that implies that they don’t have a choice. As much as it pains me to say it, even Hitler was created in God’s image and there must have been something good inside of him. If I were to say that Adolf Hitler was pure evil I would be saying that God made him for the purpose of causing genocide—and I don’t believe that.

But what really pains me is when we manage not to see the image of God in precisely the kinds of people that Jesus himself told us to: for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me… Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

When we feed the hungry, when we give something to drink to someone who’s thirsty, when we give someone clothes, when we take care of the sick, when we visit someone imprisoned—and I mean anything from criminal prison to elderly shut-ins—when we do these things it’s exactly like doing them to Jesus. That’s why I always find it so striking that the followers of Jesus do not recognize him. We all fail to recognize Jesus every day. Every day.

As for the immediate aftermath of Jesus’ sudden appearance *snap* “Peace be with you,” the Gospel writer goes to great lengths to describe all the ways Jesus proves to the his followers that he is not, in fact, a ghost, but rather a fully resurrected man with a transformed but still undeniably human body. You can’t put your hands on a ghost. You certainly can’t play with their wounds. And despite what a certain slimy green ghost did in that movie with Bill Murray, ghosts don’t eat food. Jesus clearly isn’t quite the same—after all, he seems to be able to appear and disappear at will—but he is also very clearly not a ghost.

Have you ever wondered why? Why resurrection, I mean, because God clearly could have sent visions of Jesus’ spirit to the disciples as proof of life after death, kind of like Obi-Wan Kenobi allowing Darth Vader to kill him with the promise, “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.” I know, I know, it’s a little silly to imagine the voice of Jesus echoing from beyond the grave and saying, “Use your faith, Peter.” But you get the idea—why not that instead of this whole rigmarole of having to prove that Jesus isn’t a ghost?

Well, the truth is that ever since the days of Plato we’ve been taught that there’s a physical realm and a spiritual realm and that the spiritual is the better of the two. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that in today’s day and age, we spend an awful lot of time in the physical and tend to neglect our spiritual selves—that there’s a balance to be had that we frequently have out of whack. I think that maybe that’s why the ways we get caught up in the physical realm are so unhealthy so much of the time—but that’s another sermon for another day. Let’s talk for a minute about the dangers of getting out of balance the other way—where only the spiritual matters and the physical isn’t important.

Martin Bell, an author and Episcopal priest, puts it this way:

Something like an eternity ago, human beings got all caught up in the illusion that being human is a relatively unimportant proposition. Here today—gone tomorrow. A vale of tears—that sort of foolishness. 

What’s more tragic, of course, is that in the wake of this basic error there quickly followed the idea that human beings are expendable, which easily degenerated into the proposition that some human beings are expendable. Really bad guys are expendable. Guys with low I.Q.’s are expendable. Any who disagrees with me is expendable. A long time ago, human beings got all caught up in the illusion that being human is a relatively unimportant sort of proposition.  

Well, that’s not true. It’s wrong. All wrong. And it has always been wrong. From the creation of the heavens and the earth, it has been—wrong. There is nothing more important than being human. Our lives have eternal significance. And no one—absolutely no one—is expendable.  

Jesus was dead. He was dead and buried. It was expedient that he should be dead and buried. Caiaphas had explained that to himself and to others over and over again. It is expedient, he said, that one man should die for the sake of the people. Jesus is expendable. Caiaphas suffered from the illusion that being human is relatively unimportant. And so Jesus was dead.  

What happened then wasn’t so remarkable, really. God simply raised Jesus from the dead. He merely walked into the tomb that we call insignificance and absurdity, and meaninglessness, and other such names as that—he merely walked into this tomb and raised Jesus from the dead.  

There was nothing very spectacular or remarkable about this. God revealed himself to be the same God who created the heavens and the earth and called his creation good; the same God who led his people out of Egypt to be a light to the nations; the same God who affirmed David in his weakness; who called forth the prophets; who kindled the heart of John the Baptist; and who reached out to touch his tiny children in the person of Jesus Christ.  

God raised Jesus from the dead to the end that we should be clear—once and for all—that there is nothing more important than being human. Our lives have eternal significance. And no one—absolutely no one—is expendable.

Please be with me in the spirit of prayer: God of ceaseless new beginnings, we rejoice that through your powerful love Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. In the resurrection you have shown that neither trouble nor persecution, hardship nor poverty, danger nor death can separate us from your love. Free us to trust in you that we may live in the confidence of your children.

In the resurrection you were victorious over sin, violence, and oppression. Free us to risk ourselves in the struggle for justice and peace that we may be your partners in restoring all creation to your will.

In the resurrection you have opened the gates of eternal life. Free us from the fear of death that we may serve you with courage.

In the resurrection you bring new possibilities out of hopeless situations. Free us from all despair that we may bring your hope to those who have lost heart.

Through the presence of Jesus Christ among us, draw us into a community of freedom, hope, and love. Work your new creation among us that we may serve you without fear.

God Most Holy, God Most Loving, God Most Knowing, we praise your name for ever; through Jesus our risen Christ and Savior.   Amen.