The Good Flock
The Fourth Sunday of Easter
April 22, 2018
Texts:
The Epistle
1 John 3:16-24
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 help?
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.
And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.
The Gospel
John 10:11-18
Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
A couple of weeks ago I saw this gospel story in a new light. In the past I have wanted to explain this passage in terms of the Good Shepherd – like what can we learn about Jesus comparing him to a good shepherd – that Jesus leads us, guides us, feeds us, protects us and seeks out the lost sheep.
But this year I was drawn to talk about the flock. This shift for me in focus was motivated by an experience I had while I was at Wellesley College for a breakfast for an event called Spring Open Campus. This is the event where accepted students, and, some parents, from all over the country and world come to visit or revisit Wellesley College to see if they really want to commit to four years at an all –women’s college, where it is really cold most of the year, and they have to study really hard, all the time. And I talked to several parents – but one stood out to me in particular. She was from a different part of the country, and I should add that the mother was not with her daughter during this conversation. What she told me is that her daughter and her family were very involved in her church as well as their denomination. Their daughter was even entertaining the idea of taking a gap year and working for the denomination as an intern before college. And the mother asked me what the Protestant Chaplaincy did – and I explained that we had a weekly lunch, an afternoon tea, and a Holy Communion service on Mondays, and then on Wednesdays we have our fellowship dinner where we share a meal that I cook, and then study an aspect of faith together, and we pray. And if there is a birthday, I will make or most usually buy their favorite dessert – I mentioned, our weekly dinner is like a little visit to home every week. And mother looked at me, with what looked like tears in her eyes and said, “you cook every single week?” I replied, “I mean it’s only, like, soup, and bread and cheese.” And she said again, “you cook every single week?”
And what that conversation said to me, and the other conversations with parents of faith, whether it be Muslim, Hindu, Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Universalist-Unitarian or Buddhist or even atheist, is that although they really did not want to let go of their children, what they really did not want is for their daughters to become lost sheep. They could live with their children growing up and moving out if they could just find a safe pasture with some kind safe flock and some kind of benevolent shepherd looking out for them. And they want it because deep down in their hearts they know what all people of faith know – it is a hard world, and truth be told, most of the life lessons we learn during the courses of our lives, we never really wanted to learn. It does not matter how good your grades are, how much prestige you gain, what kind of impressive resume you pull together in 4 years at college with a stellar GPA and three summers of dazzling internships – it will not save you, and it will not comfort you when things get tough. However, having a faith will help, and, even more than that a lot of times, being part of a good flock will help.
When the word “good” is used in the New Testament – it does not mean just “a little less than great” and “a whole lot better than bad”. Good means ordered, sound, noble, ideal, model, true, competent, faithful and praiseworthy. And so with that in mind – what does a good flock look like?
Our Epistle from the First letter of John describes just that type of flock – and this is really important for our children, our own, if we have them, as well as those we are blessed to share here in this congregation. In this portion of scripture, and in the First Letter of John as a whole, is the description of the quality of a Christian community – first of all, we need to believe in the name of Jesus, and what that means is that when we pray to God, ask things of God, that we can have faith that God will be there to protect and guide us through whatever uncertainty and hardship comes our way. And what this also means is that whenever we feel our own faith fail us, we can first of all have confidence that God is far stronger than our faith. And second, that when our faith wavers, and we just don’t feel strong enough to persevere we can borrow faith from the rest of the flock to help us get by. Allow others to borrow your faith, lean on your faith for a while.
The second theme in First John is that the practical manifestation of faith is to love each other – demonstrably. And this is why this is important – when we love each other in word and deed as a Christian community, it leads people to the Good Shepherd. It leads then to the Good Shepherd because they have been nurtured, loved and received into the Good Flock which is our church and hopefully all communities of Christian Faith.
Amen
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