Monday, April 26, 2021

My Sheep Hear My Voice

 John 10-:11-18

April 25, 2021

 

One odd thing about being a pastor

is that you end up knowing a lot about sheep.

Even a city-dwelling pastor like me.

I think I’ve met just a handful of sheep

in person in my life, but I feel like

I know a lot more about them than I do other livestock.

 

That’s because there is a lot of of talk about

sheep and shepherds in the bible.

Moses was a shepherd before he

Talked to a burning bush and told the Pharaoh

to “Let my people go.”

 

David was a shepherd before he

was found by Samuel and killed Goliath

and was made the greatest king of Israel.

 

You would think that Jesus would have been

a shepherd by profession instead of a carpenter.

 

But Jesus is known as THE shepherd. The good shepherd.

Not because he cares for sheep, because he cares for people.

We are the sheep.

Now most of the time people would be insulted

if you call them sheep, but the bible does it all the time.

 

One thing I have learned about sheep is that they

are not great by themselves.

They need someone to help them,

someone to guide them to food and water.
They need someone to lead them to these places.

They are kind of helpless in some ways.

They often get lost and they are libel to drown

if they accidentally go into moving water.

 

And they have no real defense against predators.

They can’t bite or scratch,

they don’t have a shell that they can curl up into,

they can’t change colors,

they can’t squirt a terrible smell, They can’t roar

they just go BAA which is not a threatening sound at all.

They are just fluffy and delicious animals.

 

The only defense they have is to run

And when one runs in fear the others tend to run too.

 

Most of the time, when a sheep moves it is

because it is running from something.

It is trying to get away from a real or perceived threat.

 

I think that might be something

we can say about people.

As a species, our movements are often dictated by fear.

 

We lock ourselves up in our homes and

don’t talk to strangers

we arm ourselves to the teeth,

we look on anyone different with fear and contempt

 

And we might not always literally run,

but we run metaphorically.

We run because we’re afraid of being poor or unsuccessful.

We run because we are afraid of loneliness

we run because we are afraid of failure,

or because we are afraid of pain or rejection.

 

There are lots of churches whose whole

ministries are based on fear

fear of the other, fear of the unknown,

fear of change, fear of the future,

fear of the end of the world,

fear of the world in general.

 

And when we live in fear we make decisions based on fear,

we become irrational and so, like sheep, we run.

 

But running never works.

Because once we’ve run from one thing,

we find that there’s always something else

to run from again.

 

And like those sheep end up getting in the greatest trouble

when we’re running away from some perceived danger.

 

So sheep really do need someone to lead them

they really do need a shepherd that cares for their

well being, someone who can see the big picture

someone who has the sheep’s best interest at heart.

The sheep really need the shepherd.

Like we really need Jesus to guide us to help us

to show us the way.

 

One other thing I found out is that sheep

really do respond to the voice of their shepherd.


The shepherds of Jesus time

would have a hundred or so sheep.

And there were always other flocks of sheep around

with their shepherds, and they tend to all look a lot alike.

 

Sometimes the shepherds and flocks would meet to go to sleep

and they would all get mixed up at night.

But in the morning, the shepherds could call

their flock and their sheep would follow them.

 

So Jesus is saying that the sheep

do just know his voice and we respond.

But how do we know which voice is really Jesus voice?

 

There are even so many voices that say they belong to Jesus.

People use Jesus name to justify so many stupid things,

that it’s hard to know what Jesus voice sounds like.

People take snippets of scripture out of context

to support whatever fears and prejudices they have.

We’ve got some pastors who say that Jesus told them

that the sheep need to buy him a 65 million dollar private jet.

Other people is saying that Jesus wants them

to keep everything for themselves and forget about any one else.

Other people say that Jesus is telling them to

condemn, to judge, to suspect, to hate, and even to kill.

But we know that Jesus isn’t like that.

How do we recognize Jesus voice?

 

The one thing that Jesus says

the most in the scriptures

are these four words, “Do not be afraid”.

 

We know the voice of Jesus

because it will never lead us to run away,

Never leads us to suspect or hate others.

It never leads us to hoard all our things and money

and keep them all for ourselves.

It never leads us to stockpile weapons

in our attics waiting for the apocalypse.

We know the voice of Jesus because it never leads us to be afraid.

Jesus never leads his sheep to run erratically in fear.

 

Jesus voice leads us beside the still waters.

It leads us by the green pastures.

 

Even when we’re in the presence of our enemies.

Jesus voice tells us to pray for them.

Even though we may be in hostile territory.

Jesus says “do not be afraid, I am with you.”

Even though we might not actually be safe.

Jesus says that death will not have the last word in our life.

Even though the world may be falling down around us.

Jesus tells us to seek God’s kingdom first.

 

There is much that we could be afraid of in this world.
And without a guide in our lives,

we are libel to run and find ourselves lost,

drowning in the moving water.

 

But the good shepherd tells us

“Do not be afraid.”

The good shepherd has laid down his life for us.

 

We are Christ’s sheep. We are Easter sheep.

We are formed by Jesus life and death and resurrection.

We are guided by our Shepherd’s voice,

the good Shepherd’s voice.
It is the one that says “do not be afraid.”

It’s the one that leads us beyond our own fears.
The one that leads us from death to life.


 

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Wounds of Authority

 Luke 24:36b-48

April 18, 2021

Easter 3

 

I have a friend in Texas who’s a pastor.

He works in the Texas prison systems

with victims of violent crimes,

Specifically, those who want to meet the convicted offender.

He does a lot of preparation work with

some of them on death row.

 

His work was actually featured on the

48 hours news program

so there was video of one of these meetings

that he showed us in a class.

The person they focused on was

a woman who’s name was Paula.

 

Paula’s 18 year old daughter was killed

about 17 years earlier by a man named John.

He had stabbed her and her roommate in her apartment

He was on drugs at the time.

 

Paula had been trying to convince the Texas

prison system to let her speak with John for 13 years.

And she finally got her opportunity,

with this pastor’s program

John was on death row for the murder

and he was going to be executed in a few months.

 

We saw a bit of video of my friend working with her before the meeting

She was hard and tough. 

She was understandably bitter and angry.

She didn’t know how it would go.

Her family was not in favor of the meeting.

We also saw video of John, the offender.

Over time he had become extremely remorseful.

 

They met through a plate glass window in the

death row area of Huntsville prison.

 

When they finally met, she spent the first half hour just crying.

She reminded him that her daughter was a person.

He repeatedly said he was sorry,

but he knew sorry would never be enough.


Then they talked for the next five hours.

Paula asked John many questions about what had happened.

He learned about her life,

and she learned about him.

 

In my mind, I had thought that they were

on completely opposing sides of this equation and

they would never have a connection.

But the truth is their lives were completely interconnected.

Through this terrible event,

they shared more together than other people.

They shared the same wounds.

 

Her wounds were the mirror image of his wounds,

the pain of her daughter’s murder that she lived with

was the shame that he lived with too.

They discovered that through this pain,

they knew each other intimately.

 

She kept on saying to him,

like so many mothers have said to their own difficult children.

“I don’t know what to do with you, John.

I don’t know what to do with you.”

 

One of the most startling things to me,

at the end of their meeting

they were separated by a piece of glass

and before they left, they each held their hands up

to the glass, touching their wounds.

 

Imagine this meeting with Jesus and the disciples.

The last time the disciples had seen Jesus,

they had run away and left him.

One of their own had betrayed him.

Peter had denied knowing Jesus at all.

They abandoned the leader that they had

pledged undying devotion to.

They had been completely and embarrassingly human.

They were surely full of sadness at Jesus passing

and they were surely also full of guilt that they didn’t do more to stop it.

The last time Jesus was alive, everyone who loved him left him to die.

 

Jesus came back, but what would his reaction be?

Would he be infuriated?

Would he condemn them?

Would he scold the disciples?

 

No, he enters the room with them and says:

“Peace be with you.”

He declares peace between them.

Their wounds were the same.

Jesus’s wounds of pain were their wounds of shame.

He comes to them to be with them.

Asks to share a meal with them.

To bring them peace.

 

The risen Christ appears to the disciples

still in possession of his own wounds,

and understanding their wounds as well.

 

Forgiveness has often been touted as one

segment or one program of Christianity.

Just one thing that Jesus does

and that Jesus asks us to do.

 

But the appearance of Jesus raised

is the embodiment of forgiveness,

it is the avenue to rebirth in God’s name. 

And the time we have experienced real forgiveness

We have witnessed the resurrected Christ on earth.

 

Jesus says that “repentance and forgiveness of sins is

to be proclaimed to all nations beginning in Jerusalem.”

Starting with Jerusalem,
the city where Jesus was crucified.

The city that also shared his wounds with him.

 

Hands of Proof
Hyatt Moore

Forgiveness is the whole of the mission that Jesus give to his people,

Not just something that’s done at the beginning of worship

and then we’re done with it.

But forgiveness and all it encompasses.

 

Forgiveness – the belief that all things can start again.

That a relationship that’s been harmed,

even by the worst, can be restored.

That people are never forsaken

That nothing is lost, no one is hopeless

not even a murderer on death row.

 

In church, we throw around

the word forgiveness a lot

so much so that we might think that it is simple

or that it happens all the time

or even that it’s expected

that each of us will experience it on a regular basis.

 

The actions and tasks that come with forgiveness might come easily:

But I think that true, deep felt, freeing forgiveness,

is nothing short of a miracle.

When it happens to us, when we experience it,

when we forgive others, or ourselves,

we are experiencing a miracle.

The miracle of the resurrected Christ.

 

I think that when Paula first thought about talking with John,

she was not planning on feeling compassion for him.

I don’t think she was planning on really forgiving him.

I think she wanted to give him a piece of her mind and leave him.

As I was watching, I don’t think I could have forgiven him.

But I think the Spirit intervened.

 

She stayed with him.

She met with him repeatedly over the next few weeks.

She was still torn, she was infuriated with him at times.

But she was came to his execution when his own mother wouldn’t come

and the last thing he heard was that she loved him.

That is nothing short of a miracle.

 

There was a soldier who

was terribly wounded in the Vietnam war.

From his torso up to his head he was burned.

His face and his whole upper body was terribly disfigured.

 

He spends his time now working at hospitals

in the burn unit talking to recent burn victims.

He tells them that somehow they will live.

They will get through.

 

Doctors and nurses have told the patients before,

over and over again but the patients don’t believe them.

The doctors and nurses saying it didn’t carry the same

weight as this person who had been through it.

This man was a testimony in his life.

This man’s authority is in his wounds.

 

Paula’s authority is in her wounds.

Forgiveness is possible.

There is hope.

 

Jesus authority is in his wounds.

Jesus with his real flesh and bones,

stands among us saying,

“Peace be with you.

 I have those wounds just like you.”

But these wounds are not the end of the story.

Tuesday, April 13, 2021

Forgiveness is Our Business

 
John 20: 19-31  
Easter 2  April 11, 2021

 Christ is Risen!

 The Resurrected Christ pays a visit to the disciples this week.

They are hiding together behind a locked door in fear.

And Jesus enters their locked room.

 We read this gospel lesson every year on

the second Sunday of Easter and most of the time

we focus our time on Thomas and his doubt.

The Doubting of St. Thomas
Rocco Normano

Now, I happen to like Thomas.

He left that locked room when no one else would.

He went out to get everyone coffee or lunch or whatever he was doing.

He was the brave one in the group.

He just happened to miss all the action.

I don’t have a problem with his doubt at all.

But we can talk about him another year.

In all the hubbub about Thomas, we often of miss

a very important thing here.

Jesus whole purpose for being there.

 

So what did Jesus come to the disciples for?

Just to haunt them like a ghost?

Just to catch Thomas while he was out?

No, of course not, Jesus has a purpose in his visit.

He says to the disciples,

“Peace be with you,

As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

 

Jesus has returned to give the disciples peace in their fear,

to give them the presence of the Holy Spirit

And at this point in the narrative, he also gives them a clear mission.

 

For a long time many in the church have believed-

or acted at least – that Jesus sends our churches out primarily for two things:

For recruitment, so we can increase the number of Christians in the world

And/or to tell people about the rules and about morality –

teach right from wrong.

 

Those are noble causes for some to have to be sure,

But neither of them are what Jesus tells them to do

here at this very important moment after his resurrection.

He doesn’t say to the disciples, “make sure you get a lot of new members,

OR make sure you teach everyone knows what the rules are.”

 

Jesus sends the disciples out into the world with one main purpose:

That is forgiveness.

as the Father has sent Me, I also send you." He says,

"Receive the Holy Spirit.  If you forgive the sins of any,

their sins have been forgiven them;

if you retain the sins of any,

they have been retained."

 

Forgiveness. This is what Jesus sends the disciples out to do.

To forgive one another and to let others know about God’s forgiveness.

This is Jesus’s gift to his disciples and this is the disciples gift to the world.

And this is what we uniquely have to offer.

 

There is an Episcopal priest named Robert Capon

who writes wonderful thing mostly about Jesus’ parables. He writes:

 

The world is in the morality and rules business and they succeed at that.

What the world cannot get right, however, is the forgiveness business –

and that, of course, is the church's real job.

She is in the world to deal with the Sin

which the world can't turn off or escape from.

She is not in the business of telling the world

what's right and wrong so that it can do good and avoid evil.

She is in the business of offering, to a world

which knows all about that tiresome subject,

forgiveness for its chronic unwillingness to take its own advice.

But the minute she even hints that morals,

and not forgiveness, is the name of her game,

she instantly corrupts the Gospel and runs headlong into blatant nonsense.

The church becomes, not Ms. Forgiven Sinner, but Ms. Right.

Christianity becomes the good guys in here versus the bad guys out there.

Which, of course, is pure tripe.

The church is nothing but the world under the sign of baptism.

 

On this second Sunday of Easter, we and the disciples

are sent to the world to tell it of God’s forgiveness.

We are sent to act out own forgiveness of others.

We are sent to forgive.

And why?  Because we believe in the Resurrection.

Not just in the stark fact that Jesus was raised from the dead.

But we believe that the Resurrection of Jesus was just one big example

of the new life that God offers the whole world.

 The Resurrection tells us that God is not spending time

writing down when we’ve been naughty and when we’ve been nice.

God is not saving up and will make us pay for them one day—

The Resurrection says that if God could forgive

the crucifixion, God can forgive anything.

 

We believe in the Resurrection which tells us

that God won’t check the list twice or once,

God has thrown out the list all together.

Resurrection tells us that no matter what has taken place,

God can and will create New Life.

God will forgive the old and make the new.

No matter how bad it has gotten, God will redeem the world.

 

And that is Forgiveness.  That is what the church is sent out for.

Because we believe that Christ is risen,

we believe that redemption is possible in all situations.

 

For decades, people suffered under the

horrible racist oppression of Apartheid in South Africa. 

The white government sanctioned stiff segregation, kidnappings,

killing and torture for any one who rebelled against it.

 

After being released after 30 years in prison, once in power,

Nelson Mandela did not call for retaliation and uprising against

the white government oppressors. Although no one could have blamed him.

He didn’t even call for a Nurenburg type trial – although they may have deserved it.

With Bishop Desmond Tutu’s help,

he called for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

 

In this commission,

people would admit to being a party to the oppression,

then they would listen to the stories of the horror told by the victims.

In turn, they would be forgiven.

 

This commission did its work for two years.

It hasn’t been perfect in South Africa,

but there has been a noticeable absence of

bloody, civil wars which have arisen in other places in Africa.

There has not been an attempt at ethnic cleansing which certainly could have happened.

And  there is a presence of Justice.

Black people and white people are working together.

There is hope for that nation.

 

Bishop Desmond Tutu, the Episcopal archbishop who lead the commission:

“Forgiveness is an act of much hope and not despair.

It is to hope in the essential goodness of people

and to have faith in their potential to change.

It is to bet on that possibility.

Forgiveness, is not opposed to justice,

especially if it is not punitive justice, but restorative justice,

justice that does not seek primarily to punish the perpetrator, to hit out,

but looks to heal a breach,

to restore a social equilibrium that the atrocity or misdeed has disturbed.

Ultimately there is no future without forgiveness."

 

Jesus has come into the room. The pain is still visible,

the crucifixion has not been forgotten

and swept under the table.

The wounds are still there for Thomas to see and put his fingers in.

But Christ still comes with a word of forgiveness.

“Receive the Holy Spirit. 

If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them;

if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”

 

Our own former presiding Bishop, Mark Hanson asked:

“Do you think by that Jesus could possibly mean

that if I fail to tell my neighbor, my colleague at work,

my son or my daughter,

the Good News that God in Christ forgives you,

then their sins are now mine?

It’s an interesting way to look at what Jesus said.

 

Forgiveness is what we are sent out to share with the world.

God’s forgiveness and our own forgiveness.

Forgiveness is new beginnings. Forgiveness is hope for the future. 

Forgiveness means that the past won’t hold us back.

Forgiveness means relationships can start again.

 Forgiveness means that life can start again.

 Forgiveness is hope for all of God’s people.


When we share forgiveness with a friend or a relative

or with a stranger, or an enemy,

or with those who have done us harm –

it is the Resurrection of Christ made real to the world.

It is the hope and promise of New Life.

Forgiveness is God’s gift to us.

Forgiveness is our business.