A Sepherd Who Guides Us, by The Rev Donald L. Hamer
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Trinity Episcopal Church
4th Sunday of Easter
April 17, 2016
Psalm 23 Rev. 7:9-17 John 10:22-30
Three of our four Scripture passages for the 4th Sunday of Easter take up the imagery of sheep and shepherds when describing our relationship with God. I think God is trying to get our attention here.
Psalm 23 has given comfort throughout history to all the Abrahamic faiths. We Christians picture a smiling Jesus with a cute little lamb around his neck, and we feel good. The Psalm, taken as a whole, exudes a feeling of confidence, of being cared for – a feeling that no matter what the circumstances, God has our back.
But Psalm 23 is so much richer than that! In verses 4 and 5, note that the writer goes is speaking directly to the Lord, making it more personal. It is the moment when the Psalmist lifts his eyes and meets God face to face.
It is in that same verse that the psalmist writes Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. The “rod” carries a sense of chastisement; it is used for steering the sheep back on course. The staff, on the other hands, carries the meaning of a stick to lean on for support and protect the sheep. Now sheep aren’t the brightest of animals – left on their own they do not recognize danger and often wander into it. What’s more, once in danger, they are totally defenseless – they are not exactly known as great fighters. In using both words, the Psalmist is affirming that the shepherd has two roles with respect to the sheep – to protect and comfort, as well as to guide and correct.
When we read Psalm 23, I think we usually focus on the aspects that assure us of God’s protection and comfort--- that’s one reason it is often read at burial services. And we should take comfort in God’s protection in troubled or changing times. But we often forget that as we navigate those troubled times in which God is protecting us, God often is guiding us onto new paths that will draw us closer to God or helps to experience God in new ways. And new or strange paths can make us uncomfortable or unsure in the meantime because we aren’t seeing what God is seeing.
Let’s take a look at the passage from Revelation, which also emphasizes this dual role of the Shepherd as both protector and guide. The writer asks, Who are these robed in white? To which the elder responds, These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Even though the Lord is our Shepherd and assures us of protection, pain and suffering will still be a part of any Christian life (v. 14-17). The assurance from the Shepherd is that any pain and suffering is only a part of the story, and it is NEVER the end. As Christians, we are conquerors NOT because we escape suffering or difficult times, but because in the resurrection of Jesus the Christ, we overcome those challenges and difficult times. Like those in John’s vision from Revelation, we recognize our shepherd in the Lamb who is on the throne (v. 17), who will guide us to those springs of living water where God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.
If you have been attending Trinity church any time in the past 5 years, you will probably know that the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, and virtually all church denominations, are facing changing and challenging times. Along with many others, this congregation is in gradual recovery from an addiction to drawing operating support from an endowment that is not sustainable. After kicking the can down the road for decades, we are finally, and bravely, taking on this challenge of making this congregation financially sustainable for the long term. Today’s Town Meeting is one more opportunity for us to engage this challenge: Our Vestry leaders will provide updates on what we have been up to since we last met on January 31, and it will give all members of the congregation an opportunity to share our ideas, concerns and questions. As we approach that, I would like to share some personal observations and then share one possible vision of where Jesus, the Good Shepherd, might be guiding us as members of the Body of Christ. First, observations.
In the past two weeks, I have been present at or witnessed no fewer than 4 public events at which the challenges of the present and the ambiguity of the future were the principal focus:
Two and half weeks ago, I attended a brainstorming, soul-searching meeting of church leaders in The Episcopal Church in Connecticut, gathered for the purpose of discussing how we as Episcopalians might work more collaboratively within our regions in the future. There was significant angst about what this might look like, and considerable ambiguity about how individual congregations fit into this structure. AND there was great enthusiasm for the possibilities we came up with. Please mark your calendars now for Friday evening June 10 and Saturday morning and afternoon June 11 for our North Central convocation. More to come on this after our planning meeting this Thursday.
Last Sunday, we hosted Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, himself a fellow Episcopalian, who shared with us the dire circumstances that confront the City of Hartford. As bad as it is this year it is projected to be far worse. He pointed out during our Adult Forum that one issue is that the challenges of the entire Metropolitan area – in terms of poverty, social services, schools and other human services – are centered in this small geographical area known as Hartford, while many or most of the resources to address them hop over the artificial political border to the more affluent suburbs.
This past Tuesday, I was invited back to the Annual Meeting of the Connecticut Probate Assembly at the State Supreme Court. There we heard an address by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and the Probate Court Administrator. Guess what the main topic was. . . Court consolidation. This is a system that when I entered it had 134 different probate courts, and as I was retiring to come to Trinity, we were about to shrink it to 54 courts, which serve the mission of the Probate Court system every bit as well – and far more efficiently and cost-effectively – as the original 134 courts did.
And this week, you must have heard on all the newscasts and read in all of the newspapers about the budget crisis in the State of Connecticut. Like the City of Hartford, the state is facing horrendous budget deficits this year, and even greater ones next year. Not only is the state facing massive layoffs, but it is cutting aid it gives to local cities and towns. The cities and towns, in turn, are saying they see no alternative but to either cut needed services or raise taxes. Noticeably absent from their remarks was acknowledgement that there is another, very clear alternative: To let go of our New England Puritan fetish about local control and begin to talk earnestly about the benefits of consolidating and coordinating local services so we don’t duplicate efforts, administrative personnel and expenses.
Do you see the pattern here? Economists have forever noted the benefits for businesses of “economies of scale” – providing the maximum service or product for the minimum expenditure of cost and effort. But at least here in Connecticut, the government and the church have seldom paid enough attention to that concept.
How does this concept affect the Episcopal Church? Well, for example, within 10 to 12 miles of this church, there are more than 20 Episcopal Churches, very few of them vibrant and financially stable. In an effort to address this overabundance of congregations, we are presently in the process of re-writing the map of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut, doing away with the old and dysfunctional Deanery system and consolidating into 6 regions.
The new regional convocations offer us a remarkable opportunity to apply the age-old “economies of scale” model to the work of the church in serving God’s people and God’s mission. As a major resource in the City of Hartford, Trinity has a unique opportunity to serve as a leader in this transformation of how our Church serves God’s mission. So I invite you to consider: What might it look like if:
n We talked about how to more effectively share clergy resources among our congregations, eliminating the duplication of administrative effort, and maximizing the time clergy spend on pastoral care and mission outreach.
n We Episcopalians in the North Central Region reconsidered our attachment to our more than 20 parish church buildings and began to talk about how we might bring our communities together in new ways? We could talk about abundantly providing for a rich variety of worship styles and settings. If it can be made financially sustainable, how can this magnificent and flexible worship space be a resource for our entire region?
n We considered what the Psalmist meant when he wrote, “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” What if the House of the Lord is a state of being that describes our relationship with God and communion with each other, and not a place or a building?
n The Episcopalians in the Hartford area shared what they are doing in mission and together decided to make a difference – a real difference in the world. What if we stopped settling for he limited impact that individual congregations can have? What if instead we decided to consolidate our missional efforts to promote fundamental changes that support hurting people in moving from a culture of need and dependency to a more complete sense, along with us, of being valued Children of God?
n A renewed, strengthened and, indeed, transformed Trinity Church might share its excellence in the ministries of music and the arts and education with others in our region. What if others in our region had a greater opportunity to join us in our ministries such as the Choir School of Hartford and Trinity Academy?
What if? What are your own, “What ifs?” With an infinite God, the possibilities are endless. As we seek to transform our church into a sustainable resource for God’s mission, our challenge is not thinking too big – it is not seeing the limitless possibilities God sets before us. IF, that is, we are open to follow fearlessly where the Shepherd is leading.
In this morning’s Gospel from John, Jesus tells his demanding followers that he has already told them all they need to know and they have not listened. He has not told them in words, but by his example. In Verse 25, he tells them, The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me. His role – as Shepherd and Guide – cannot be described in words or a title. It can only be experienced by following where he leads us.
The Lord is our shepherd – we shall not be in want. He makes us his sheep – we don’t make Him our shepherd. He enters our lives at our Baptism, and where he leads us is being revealed to us each and every day of our lives. Last week, Bishop Drew spoke about how Jesus entered into the lives of Simon and Saul, soon to be renamed Peter and Paul, in dramatic, though very different and unexpected ways. Both men encountered the living Christ face to face —to be bearers of the good news of the risen Jesus, leaders of the believers, nurturers of the faith. But as Drew noted last week, often, Jesus prods us more gently and subtly to move into a new place, sometimes so subtly that we might miss the message, the invitation, the nudge. This morning, Jesus tells his questioners that “my sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” In the midst of our own financial uncertainty, are we listening for Jesus’ voice leading us to a resolution? Or are we instead wallowing in the dread of change to what is familiar and comfortable?
As Drew said last week, changing the place where we are and the things that we do —whether from outside or from within — is a hallmark of knowing God in the resurrected Christ. For Jesus, the Good Shepherd, does call us always, often moving us out of our comfort zones, sometimes, like Peter, guiding us to go where we are afraid or reluctant to go.
I want to close with a meditation that I heard on Friday evening along with our confirmation class as we attended a Shabbat service at Congregation Beth Israel on Farmington Avenue. It spoke to me about where we find ourselves: This is an hour of change. Within it we stand uncertain on the border of light. Shall we draw back or cross over? Where shall our hearts turn? Shall we draw back, my brother, my sister, or cross over? This is the hour of change, and within it, we stand quietly on the border of light. What lies before us? Shall we draw back, my brother, my sister, or cross over?
Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is calling us into right pathways for his name’s sake? Can you hear his voice? We need to be listening for God, whose power working in us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine. Glory to God from generation to generation in the church, and in Christ Jesus, forever and ever. Amen.