In a week already marked by anniversaries of past tragedies like the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, the shootings at Virginia Tech (2007) and at Columbine High School (1999), as well as the 1993 shootout in Waco, Texas, we witnessed more death and destruction and, while my community is hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from the tragedies that struck this week, I felt called to say the following to the people who gathered at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Asheville this morning for Good Shepherd Sunday. The Gospel text was
John 10:22-30.
When I was growing up, my parents’ generation could remember where they were when they heard that President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed.
For me, the first event that I remember in that way is the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986.
A litany of unthinkable events have happened in the years since then.
Like it or not, these incidents become waymarkers in each of our lives, like blazes on a footpath or buoys in a channel.
When new news of death and destruction hits us, like it has this past week with the bombing at the Boston marathon,
the explosion of the fertilizer plant in Texas,
the earthquake in China’s Sichuan province,
we freshly mourn the loss of lives
and try to find our true north, to regain our equilibrium,
wishing our cries of “Enough” and “Never Again” were sufficient.
But somehow, they aren’t,
and now, here we stand together again,
lost and disoriented,
deeply grieving for the hurting world around us.
We all react differently to these experiences.
Some of you may be able to neatly categorize these events as the stuff of history
while others have heard or seen so much in your lifetimes that you numbly accept yet another tragedy,
while for others, each new tragedy is a sharp jab to your gut
as the memory of “where you were when you heard” rushes back and knocks the wind out of you, all over again.
Poet Mary Oliver suggests yet another reaction, writing,
“Read one newspaper daily …
And let the disasters, the unbelievable yet approved decisions, soak in…
What keeps us from falling down to the ground…?”(1)
Indeed in today’s Gospel, I think we are called to fall down
–
called to admit that in this broken and hurting place, we can do nothing apart from God,
called to kneel before God and confess Jesus as Messiah – the Risen and Living Christ who died to restore us in relationship with God –
and called to stand and follow him,
as our Good Shepherd, confident in God’s love and care for each of us.
Speaking to a Jewish audience, Jesus takes the image of the Good Shepherd,
a familiar image known to them through the prophets Ezekiel (34; 22:27),
Zephaniah (3:3) and Zechariah (10:2-3, 11:4-17),
an image that compared the unfaithful leaders of Israel to bad shepherds who consigned their flocks to the wolves,
and tells them, "Look again!"
Recalling the promise of a future shepherd,
a good shepherd, who will gather God’s people as one flock,
Jesus says,
“Look around you! I am the Good Shepherd. My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me.” God has fulfilled God’s promise to Moses, to David, to Israel!
God has given God’s people – us – a good shepherd who gathers us into one flock,
one community of followers who know Jesus.
We don’t just know his genealogy or where he was born; in John’s Gospel “knowing” is not just a “head” matter, but a “heart” matter. Knowing is not just an intellectual task; “knowing” is “believing” – God’s people believe Jesus is the Messiah and follow him.
And not only has God given us a good shepherd;God has given us to Jesus.
Just as a shepherd knows the flock in his care, Jesus knows each one of us –
the good, the bad and the ugly.
Jesus knows us in our anger, our hurt, and our tears.
And Jesus knows us in our generosity, our mercy, and our joy.
We know his voice – his Word comes to us through Scripture. Psalm 23 tells us
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;”
His Word gives us assurance of his presence and reminds us of his promise:
that we will have eternal life – that death will not have the last word;
that we are held in God’s loving hands – no one and nothing can snatch us from God;
that God is greater than the evil we see perpetrated;
that God is greater than the powers and principalities that try to separate us from one another and from God.
And so, we follow him. United as one flock, our waymarkers are not the tragedies that we experience in our lives, whether they make the news cycle or not.
Our waymarkers are God’s commands to love God and our neighbor. Jesus, the Good Shepherd, leads us in God’s ways and keeps us on right paths.
Reassured by God’s steadfast promises in a world violently shaken by the brokenness of human sin and by death, we walk “on the rough ground of uncertainties”(2) ; we claim God’s love, grace and forgiveness and confess Jesus as Messiah.
In a message shared Friday night, Bishop Mark Hanson told us, “There are no God-forsaken places and there are no God-forgotten people….”(3) We may be “washed in life’s river”(4), but we are baptized as God’s children; our Shepherding God knows each one of us by name and loves us and cares for us.
Let us pray. (4)
O Lord, our Shepherding God, come close to us now
Come near us in our time of need.
Guide us with your voice,
Help us to listen and follow no matter where you lead.
Help us to trust you.
Shepherding God,
thank you for your son who laid down his life for those who follow him and for those who are not yet in the fold …
We pray for those who don’t know the shepherd. We pray that by our actions and our reaching out into the community, they may come to know you.
Shepherding God,
Guide us with your love and renew us with your peace. Amen.
Notes:
(1) excerpt from Mary Oliver, “The Morning Paper” in A Thousand Mornings
(2) excerpt from Mary Oliver, “A Thousand Mornings” in A Thousand Mornings
(3) ELCA, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2q4IuPQcow&list=PLC4E2E3CA2B79AA24&index=1
(4) excerpt from William Blake, “Night”
(5) excerpt from Abigail Carlisle-Wilke, "Sunday Prayer for Easter 4C", RevGalBlogPals, http://revgalblogpals.blogspot.com/2013/04/sunday-prayer-for-easter-4c.html
