Grace Episcopal
Church, Madison NJ
April 21, 2013
Year C: The Fourth
Sunday of Easter
Acts 9:36-43
Psalm 23
(Revelation 7:9-17)
John 10:22-30
Hearing the Good Shepherd
This
may sound strange and surprising, but when I was in seminary I often found the
chapel to be a very tense place.
It
was probably caused, at least in part, by my own insecurity. But in the chapel
I was careful not to make a misstep. I was nervous that if I made too many mistakes
– if I mispronounced something, if I stood when I was supposed to kneel, if
(God forbid!) my cell phone rang during a service, if, if, if – then people
would think that maybe I wasn’t really cut out to be a priest – that I had
misheard God’s call – that the whole thing had been a big mistake.
What
made me most nervous in the chapel was singing.
I
remember the first services I attended there – I remember being surrounded by
so many beautiful voices – the beautiful voices of people who had grown up in
the Episcopal Church – who had been in church choirs their whole lives – people
who knew the repertoire and who could really sing.
And
then there was me.
As
most of you know, I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church – a tradition that
gave me many gifts, but singing wasn’t one of them.
In
my memory, it feels like in church we sang maybe a grand total of five
different hymns. I use the word “sang” loosely. And, often, we didn’t sing the
whole hymn – just whatever was needed to cover some liturgical action, like the
procession or recession.
One
of those five hymns was called “I the Lord of sea and sky” – maybe better known
as “Hear I am.” I bet all of you former Roman Catholics know the refrain:
Here I am Lord. Is it I Lord?
I have heard you calling in the
night.
I will go, Lord, if you lead me,
I will hold your people in my
heart.
It’s
a hymn that never fails to make me tear up, because of the words themselves
and, I admit, a sugary dash of childhood nostalgia.
“Here
I am” isn’t in our hymnal but it is in a supplement called “Wonder, Love, and
Praise.”
Anyway,
back to the seminary. One day we sang “Here I am” one day during a service in
the chapel. As I was croaking it out and trying not to cry, I heard whispers
behind me - and some chuckling.
I
shouldn’t have, but I turned around - and saw it was two professors.
They
noticed my look, I guess, and after the service they explained that during the
hymn they had asked each other if they ever had heard the Lord “calling in the
night.”
And
the answer was no.
I
was reminded of this story when I reflected on today’s lesson from the Gospel
of John.
Remember
that John is the last of the four gospels to be completed, probably around the
end of the First Century – several generations after the earthly lifetime of
Jesus and his first followers.
So,
John is a complex and profound product of divine inspiration working through
decades of Christian reflection on the meaning of Jesus’ life, death and
resurrection.
And
the Gospel of John also reflects some of the painfully divisive issues and
challenges facing at least one Christian community near the end of the First
Century.
The
passage we heard today is especially dense with rich theology.
We’re
told that Jesus is walking in the Jerusalem Temple at the festival of the
Dedication – better known to us today as Hanukkah.
So
that’s the setting for this little exchange between Jesus and some people
described as “the Jews” – representing the many people who did not accept Jesus
as messiah.
They
want to know, “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”
Jesus
reminds them that he has told them. And,
he tells them, “The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me.”
After
Jesus dismisses them as not part of his fold, he says:
“My
sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.”
“My
sheep hear my voice.”
And
that’s what reminded me of the hymn…
“Here
I am Lord. Is it I Lord?
I
have heard you calling in the night.”
And
I wonder: when do we hear the call of the Good Shepherd?
How
do we – how would we - hear the call
of the Good Shepherd?
Last
week here in church we heard the dramatic story of the conversion of Saul, when
on the road to Damascus still breathing threats and murder, he was knocked to
the ground, blinded and heard the voice of the Risen Christ: “Saul, Saul, why
do you persecute me?”
Saul
heard the call of the Good Shepherd in a startling, life-shattering way, sending
his life hurtling in a totally different direction, on his way to becoming St.
Paul.
But,
few, if any, of us hear the call of the Good Shepherd quite like that.
And,
we all know, it’s hard to hear the call of the Good Shepherd – or anything
else, for that matter, in our modern world with its many, many tempting
distractions, relentlessly drawing our attention to computer screen, cell
phone, texts, facebook, twitter, and other social media I’m sure I haven’t even
heard of yet.
It’s
hard to hear the call of the Good Shepherd in our lives – lives often filled
with work and worry, with loneliness and longing, with pressure and pretending.
And
it’s hard to hear the call of the Good Shepherd in our fallen and broken world
filled with senseless, heartbreaking, violence – in a world armed to the teeth,
in a world where some people are willing and able to use both crude and
sophisticated means to maim and kill people going about their lives – running - or cheering on runners – in a
marathon.
In
our lives – in this fallen, broken and messed-up world – it’s hard to hear the
call of the Good Shepherd.
But,
the Good Shepherd continues to call us.
In
today’s gospel Jesus tells the people who question him, “The works that I do in
my Father’s Name testify to me.”
And
in today’s reading from Acts we heard about Peter – good old flawed, bumbling,
often misguided Peter, raising Tabitha from the dead. The point is that the
Risen Christ continued to do his works through a flawed vessel like Peter. And
the Risen Christ continues to do his works through flawed, bumbling, often
misguided people just like us.
And
what are those works? It’s the work of self-giving. It’s the work of
self-sacrifice. It’s the work of transforming seeming defeat into triumphant
victory. It’s the work of turning death into life.
These
past few days I’m sure we were moved by the selfless acts of courage, heroism
and skill by police and FBI agents in Boston – the people whose job is to run
straight into danger.
I
think I was most touched, though, by the stories on Monday of the marathon
runners who kept right on running – not home, not to their hotel, not off to
hide and collapse somewhere - but straight to the hospital to donate blood for
the victims.
I
bet those runners are just as flawed, bumbling and imperfect as the rest of us.
Yet, on that horrible day they were willing to give of themselves – to
sacrifice – to transform seeming defeat into triumphant victory – to turn death
into life.
In
and through them and so many others, we can hear the call of the Good Shepherd
– the call to love one another, the call to give away our lives in service to God
– the call to give away our lives in service to our broken, fallen, messed up
world.
May
the world hear the call of the Good Shepherd in and through us…
And,
then, maybe, this can really be our song:
Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?
I
have heard you calling in the night.
I
will go, Lord, if you lead me.
I
will hold your people in my heart.
Amen.
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