Grace and Peace from the one who is, who was, and who is to come, Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
This week, our texts have a theme, sheep and shepherds, probably the reason this Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Easter, is also known as Good Shepherd Sunday. Our Psalm reading today was Psalm 23, the lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. A few weeks ago, on the fourth Sunday of Lent, Psalm 23 was also read. I even wrote my sermon concerning that text.
A quick recap: I spoke that Sunday of how the Psalm shows God not only as a shepherd doing the minimum to keep the sheep healthy but provides abundantly for the sheep. God brings us to green pastures, beside good clean water, and restores our souls. God makes a table even amid our enemies, anoints us with so much oil our entire head is covered, and our cups are filled to overflowing. Yet, even with God’s provision, still there is suffering, still there is doubt. Even though I walk in the darkest valley, your rod and your staff they comfort me. (also, the whole setting a table for us in the middle of our enemies alludes to the fact that suffering still exists). God remains with us even in the face of hardships, when it is difficult to see or to experience God. God still walks with us in the Holy Spirit and in the community of Faith that surrounds us. God is here, now, in the midst of physical distancing, in the midst of the economic hardships some of us might be facing, God is with us even as our very safety and livelihoods are placed in question as the coronavirus continues to affect our nation and the entire globe. Yes, even now we are hearing some good news. Vaccines are being tested, drugs are showing promise for use with COVID-19, others are being designed and might soon be available. In some places COVID-19 cases seem to have peaked and the numbers of infections and casualties are going down.
Our gospel reading today leaves me scratching my head though. I think that I might be in a similar space as the pharisees. You see, this follows after Jesus has healed a man blind from birth. The pharisees ask about how this guy came to see, they ask his parents, they respond, he’s an adult, ask him how he was healed, they again ask the blind man, and he asks them if they ask because they want to follow Jesus too. At which point the once blind man is cast out of the temple and synagogue. Now the Pharisees come and can overhear Jesus talking to the man who was once blind,
“I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” 40 Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.
Our reading this week picks up right there.
"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. 2 The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." 6 Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
Yep, I am right there with the pharisees. How does this have anything to do with seeing or not seeing. Great image, Jesus, but what’s the point here. Now, surprisingly I am in a place much like the Pharisees, they were city folk. Sure the world around them is agricultural, they might have some basic ideas about these fluffy clouds on four legs, but further knowledge than they stink, seemingly some of the dumbest creatures on the planet, and that they are usually easy pickings for predators, is unlikely. What I know about sheep is limited to what I have heard other pastors say about these sheep texts and the occasional excited bursts from Kymberly as she extols the incredible nature of these critters and how we just must have some so that we have a ready supply of wool for yarn and knitting.
I am also at a loss, because, I think that I know this text. Jesus is going to say he is the shepherd that the sheep follow because they know his voice. Jesus is the one leading the flock out of the relative safety of the enclosure, into the world. But who is the stranger, who is the gatekeeper? Huh?
Then, Jesus realizing that they don’t get what he has said goes on:
7 So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
WHAT?!?!?!? Jesus is the gate (more literally the door). Okay, Jesus is mixing some metaphors. Through Jesus we will come and go to safety and nourishment. We are saved because of Jesus Christ. Jesus here is being a little cheeky, as one of my professors would say. Essentially Jesus is calling the pharisees thieves and bandits. Saying that the religious leaders are coming to care for the sheep only to have personal gains.
What is really important in this text is the last verse, we, even those of us who are lost in the rest of the image can understand this, I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
We are a lot like the pharisees, Jesus is talking about sheep, shepherds, and gates, but the pharisees only really know about rites, rituals, scripture, then socio-economic aspects of faith. They are there arguing about whether or not the blind man who is no longer blind was once faking being blind, and if Jesus really is someone to follow or if he is a danger to the system that benefits the Pharisees. We on the other hand are right now wrapped up in zoom meetings, social networks, facemasks, iv lines, ventilators, and attempts to avoid going crazy or hungry as we wait out the coronavirus.
This whole time, I think it has been 6 weeks, since we last worshiped together in the church, has been odd. But this week, the, as my professors and fellow students have taken to calling it, COVID brain has set in for me. I have found it difficult to focus or find motivation to work, to read, and to write the 6 or so papers that remain in my classes. I find myself constantly questioning what day it is and rather quickly forgetting whatever list I had made for myself to accomplish.
Wednesday, I think, I got a call from Porter’s asking if I would perform a funeral / burial for Jean Klemp, a 98 year old from Topeka, Kansas. She had been born up here and lived between Rock Valley and Doon from 1921-1948, she had been a teacher at the school in Doon after completing High School. Her only remaining connection to the area is that 27 years ago, her husband passed away and was buried in Valleyview Cemetery (he had never lived here, so I can only assume that Jean had purchased a plot in the 40’s or the family has had a plot here in town.) So, when after years of battling dementia, she returned home to Jesus, her family made the pilgrimage to have her buried here beside her husband. In different times, they would have asked her pastor back in Kansas to make the trip up, or one of her nephews who is a pastor in the St. Louis area to come over and officiate the services. Instead, they had to ask a stranger to memorialize and lead the services to honor their mother. The Children came from Kansas and Texas, to this little town, and relied on strangers, Sean Smith, Ric Porter, Rod De Kam and me, to see to their mother’s memory and to help them through this time of sorrow.
COVID has been a very real test of my abilities, and my endurance, especially since we have been told by the governor that all is well and we can return to worship, when everything reasonable says no, things are not well, new cases continue to be found in our area, numbers continue to rise, and when the Bishops of the ELCA in Iowa and our ecumenical partners say no, we are not going to return to worship.
Yet, COVID is also showing us the goodness of God and the provision of God as neighbors continue to find ways to meet and help each other and strangers step into our lives even at the darkest moments to lend a hand and insure that safety, security, nourishment, and care is offered. We are reminded of the final words of our reading from first Peter, Jesus “himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”
God, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, through faith by the power of the Holy Spirit, has done what we cannot, ransomed us from sin and death, defeated death and the devil, not in a show of great power or military might. Not by an executive order or royal decree, but through humility, weakness, and sacrifice, Jesus Christ has freed us from sin and the consequences of sin, so that we can lead lives of abundance. Abundant welcome, abundant love, abundant service to our neighbors and to strangers alike, showing through our actions big and small, that God is still here, God is good, and God has been victorious on the Cross and the empty tomb.
May God’s love abound in your lives and fill your cups to overflowing, so that you might pour out God’s love and grace, which you have received as a free gift, freely to a world which sorely needs reminders that God is here, God is love, God is leading us home.