St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen, Jersey City NJ
April 26, 2015
Year B: The Fourth
Sunday of Easter
Acts 4:5-12
Psalm 23
1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18
The Voice of the Good
Shepherd
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
As
many of you know, once a month we – usually Gail, Vanessa, Dee Dee and I - go
over to the Liberty House Nursing Home on Montgomery Street and offer a healing
service.
We
pray and sing together, hear one Bible reading, and then I go around offering
to anoint each person with Holy Oil and to say a short prayer for healing.
We’ve
been going over to Liberty House for more than a year now and I have to admit
it’s become a highlight of my month.
It’s
a hard place – like every nursing home I’m sure the residents wish they could
be in their homes, with their families and friends, living the lives they used
to live.
Over
the past year we have gotten to know some of the regulars.
The
old woman who sits in the front row, always delighted to see us, quick to talk
about her deep faith in God and how good God has been to her. Sometimes she
seems completely engaged with us in the present and then other times she gets
confused, talking about her parents as if they are still alive, still keeping
her in line.
There’s
the woman in the wheelchair who is always eager – super-excited, really - to
show off her bracelets or sometimes just the service bulletin we’ve just given
her.
There’s
the man who always brings some kind of percussion instrument and happily plays
along with Gail.
There
are a whole bunch of regulars and it’s been great to build a kind of
relationship with them, even if we only see them once a month and don’t even
know their names.
There’s
another a woman – an older woman, always nicely dressed, always seated in the
back – she seems pretty alert until you try to communicate with her – then it’s
just a blank stare.
Each
month I ask her if she’d like to be anointed and each month she just looks back
with no expression – no sense that she hears or understands the question – so I
just move on to the next person.
Anyway,
as part of the service each month we say the 23rd Psalm – the King
James version - which is more familiar to an older crowd than the more
contemporary translation we said in church today.
This
past Wednesday when we were saying the 23rd Psalm I happened to look
back at the woman in the back who stares blankly at me and I saw she was saying
the words:
The
Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
I
thought about that woman joining us in saying the 23rd Psalm when I
reflected on the words of Jesus in today’s gospel lesson.
Jesus
uses an image that has become most familiar to us Christians – we are the sheep
and Jesus is the Good Shepherd.
In
today’s Gospel passage, Jesus says that there are other sheep who don’t belong
to this fold but they will listen to my voice and we will eventually be one.
Listening
to the voice of the shepherd.
I’m
sure that the old woman at Liberty House reciting the words of the 23rd
Psalm has heard the voice of the Good Shepherd throughout her life – has the
heard the voice of the Good Shepherd so often and so clearly that the words are
still shining in her mind and heart, still clear even in the fog of dementia.
Of
course, I’m sure she heard and learned those words - they were planted deeply
in her mind and heart - thanks to other good shepherds who guided her in her
early years – maybe her parents, or pastors, or Sunday school teachers – she
learned about the Good Shepherd thanks to other good shepherds in her life.
And,
the truth is that the Good Shepherd calls all of us to be good shepherds, too.
People
hear the voice of the Good Shepherd in and through us.
How?
In
today’s reading from the First Letter of John we hear this:
“We
know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down
our lives for one another.”
“How
does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or
sister in need and yet refuses to help?”
“Little
children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth or action.”
People
hear the voice of the Good Shepherd in and through us when we pass on the faith
to our children and grandchildren, teaching them about God’s love, teaching
them the Lord’s Prayer or the 23rd Psalm, planting those words deep
enough for a lifetime.
More
important even than that, people hear the voice of the Good Shepherd in and
through us when we lay down our lives for each other, when we love in truth and
action.
People
hear the voice of the Good Shepherd when we donate 1,239 diapers to families
in need – giving to people we will never even know.
People
hear the voice of the Good Shepherd when – even when our own budgets are tight
and our cupboards aren’t as full as we’d like – we still bring a can or box of
food for someone in need.
People
hear the voice of the Good Shepherd when we organize with people from across
the city, determined to get our voices heard, to improve our schools, parks, and
streets - especially in the long neglected neighborhoods of Bergen-Lafayette
and Greenville.
And
people hear the voice of the Good Shepherd when we gather here week after week,
even when – especially when – we don’t feel like it, supporting one another in
prayer, friendship, and love.
People
hear the voice of the Good Shepherd through other good shepherds – they hear
the voice of the good shepherd in and through us.
So,
who knows, maybe 90 years from now, in the early 22nd Century, when
nearly all of us are long gone, some of our St. Paul’s kids will, thanks to us,
still know the voice of the Good Shepherd – will still know that the Lord is
our shepherd and we shall not want.
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
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