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April 13, 2008
The Rev. John Auer
Scripture: Acts
2:42-47, Psalm 23, 1 Peter 2:21-25, John 10:1-10
“Parsonage Pot
Lucks, et al: Voice of the Shepherd, Life of the Flock”
Sometimes we say with a casual candor: We are
all dying a little all the time. Nobody gets out of life alive. Then comes the
time we actually know we are dying, how and almost when. Our dying becomes our
last gift of life to others. Some of us do works of ministry and of hospice --
helping each other die the best deaths we can. Often we receive more than we
give. Our sister Janis Siemon offers us all the gift of her dying. She is
surrounded by family. One would have to ask how much more and new company she
needs. Call her, write her, keep her and Dick and all their loved ones in
prayer – prayer not only of commiseration but of celebration -- for a life, and
a death, so fully lived, so freely given -- for all.
Jesus dies and rises in us – again and again – in us, for us, with us, around
us. Dying and rising lie deep in the nature of things and of every life.
Are you in a dying and/or a rising time of your life this morning? Is your
glass half-empty and/or half-full? Don’t worry; our lives can be more than
one way at a time! Most of our lives are jumbles of contradictions!
We are one body made up of such different parts! We seem to be trying at
all times to get back to that original body of Christ -- filled by the Holy
Spirit on Pentecost Day, fulfilling the promise of resurrection: that Jesus will
be at the head, at the lead, of our body -- forever!
The original church is this church described in
the early-church history of Acts. It is devoted to what the first followers of
Jesus taught -- to engagement and fellowship with one another, to communion, the
breaking of bread and prayers. It embodies, makes real in everyday life, and
shows forth God’s way of loving in all the world! The quality of love in the
early church – the miracle of the way they share their whole lives and their
life together – makes such an impression on others that day after day they are
joined by new ones. The new ones sell off their own possessions and goods.
They distribute the proceeds to all in need. They worship each week in the
temple, but they live their faith out at home and in everyday life. The ideal of
this life together remains the hope of the church today.
As preacher Phil Lawson concluded last Sunday in memory of the life, death and
unfinished business of Dr. King, the church in our culture today may be in a new
“Constantinian captivity.” The early church grew into that when the
Emperor Constantine became Christian and ordered everyone else to do the same!
His point was not so much the virtue of Christianity – which some say has not
been tried and failed so much as has never been tried! His point was
subservience to the emperor. In many ways ever since, reformers of the
church – from St. Francis to Martin Luther, from John Wesley to Dorothy Day and
to Dr. King – have been calling us back to early essentials of dying and rising
in Christ.
Peter and all the first followers end up dying
like Jesus – and rising again in the life of the body, the church. Peter says
to us here, we are invited into the very same life Jesus lived! To risk the
very same love and respect in action. To suffer everything that came Jesus’ way
-- because he put God before either church or state. To know that it is
possible to do what Jesus would do – and to do it! To suffer whatever others
may say about us because we trust God to make new and make right. To let Jesus
take away all our sins – so we may be free to live the way we know is right in
the sight of God – saved and set free, the healed and made whole – the way that
knows the difference between leaders who are “good shepherds,” Jesus say, not
thieves and bandits!
Jesus attacks any leader, religious or political, who does not put first the
real needs of the people – even of the weakest and sickest, the poorest and
neediest people. Jesus knows what it costs to be such a shepherd as God
is. Making sure that we do not want! For green pastures, still
waters, restored souls. Making sure that we do not want – for right paths,
clean consciences, creaturely comforts. Making sure that we do not want –
even for a table in the presence of our enemies! Where we may share the
oil of healing and cup of communing. Making sure that we do not want – for
goodness, mercy, belonging forever.
Jesus knows what the life of a shepherd is like in his time and place – how
little grass there is, and how seasonal. How flocks are constantly roaming
and risking falls into rocky terrain. How shepherds are never off duty but
always on alert – to predatory attacks, to thieves and robbers, to flash floods
and landslides. How a shepherd carries only a bag for food -- a sling and
a club for protection and rounding up strays -- a rod or staff for rescuing and
for stopping each sheep to examine their health as they enter the fold –a horn
of oil for treating wounds.
Shepherds live with and for their flocks and for
years at a time. Most sheep are meant for shearing not slaughtering. With
about a hundred sheep per shepherd, shepherds literally give their sheep names
and words to communicate with! At night shepherds bring their sheep to a fold
shared by many flocks – bounded by a stone wall in which there is a single gap
just wide enough for a sheep to enter – so each can be counted and inspected at
the end of each day. A shepherd or gatekeeper then lies or stands in the gap
through the night. A sheep can get out, or a wolf or a thief get in, only over
or through a body! Good shepherds are moveable doors of care and concern,
trustworthiness and tenderness. In the morning they form an arc around the
fold. Each calls their sheep out by name to gather together as “family” for
whom shepherds are ready lay down their lives.
Good shepherds know and respect what all it is
like to be sheep. In fact, good shepherds are sheep as well – as Jesus is
called both shepherd and lamb! Those of us who would be pastors are no less in
need of shepherds ourselves! We are all parts of one body – commissioned to
various functions – but sharing the same essentially flakey “flocky-ness” of the
church! Wherever we are in our journeys, however long we’ve been at them, on
this day when we welcome new members – each of us may ask ourselves –
Where do we stand with the gatekeeper? How are we seeking God and trying
out God’s truths in our very own lives and works? With whom are we
praying, crying, laughing, learning, acting, reflecting together? Who is
our “base” of care and concern, sustenance and support, as well as of challenge
and change? Who do we really know “by name” – not by label, not by
stereotype, not by assumption but really by name? The precious name given
by God – in baptism and confirmation? Remember how Phil Lawson taught us
the road to Emmaus last week – not to see in another just what we think we
already know, but to know in another what we see in them each time we meet them
– as if for the very first time! Discerning the very God-given uniqueness
and completeness of each one!
In the spirit of our open conversations with
SPRC these past few weeks -- and with Church Council a week from tomorrow -- we
address ourselves to the “angel,” the spirit, the God-given character of each
one of us – as of the congregation! Each and all of us are to be seen again
every time as the first time. For Jesus is not in the grave, but is dying and
rising each day – are we? Are we learning each other’s stories, experiences,
convictions, opinions, conditions, occurrences, growing edges and places of
pain? By what are we measuring and evaluating our life and work – individually
and together? Do we fall for the “scarcity” line about God – that keeps us
divided and conquered by fear of each other diving for crumbs from the table of
power and plenty? Or do we lift up the “abundance” of God that suffices for the
early church – everyone side by side and eye to eye at table together – none
looking down or over another – with plenty for all and more!
Phil Lawson teaches the opposite of “slavery” is not “freedom” but “community!”
Freedom is a prerequisite of community. Community cannot be made or forced
on another. Each one of us must choose and shape community for ourselves.
Community is for us a new way of belonging – no longer to one who lords over us
with power and wealth – but belonging to one another, to community together.
Belonging to church both is and is not like belonging to any other organization.
No matter how traditionally “organizational” we may be – and Methodists are good
at that! It’s why we are called Methodists! – with all our concern for the
institution we share – we remain always at heart a movement of God’s Spirit –
never knowing just what the future holds, only knowing who holds the future!
One commentator on the life Jesus rises to in
the body of the church puts it, “The system could not contain or domesticate
him. In a world based on competence, possessions, and achievements, Jesus
creates the new space – friendship, sharing, and service. . . . Samaritans,
women, tax collectors, lepers, outcasts, and the poor gather around a common
table and the whole body is discerned. Sisters and brothers experience
face-to-face encounters with themselves, one another, and with the spirit and
power of the risen Christ.”
Where is that happening for us? With whom are
we sharing the bread and cup? Breaking our selves and pouring selves out for
each other? Do we need inviting to table? Including all parts of ourselves –
that we tend to fear and deny and check at the door? Who else needs in inviting
– that we might be healed and made whole? Who needs to do the inviting? Who
belongs to this community of faith? And who does this community of faith belong
to anyway? The dying and rising of Jesus this season remind us our life and our
work cost us everything! We heard so poignantly once again yesterday in the
wedding of Cherie and Ron what it means for each of us to join the church: “With
all that I am, and with all that I have, I honor you.” We honor each other --
the life and work we all share.
Julie and I love sharing the church’s parsonage and pastor’s home on Marsh
Avenue – for monthly pot lucks and otherwise. It is the scene of much
enjoyment and much enrichment. Our home belongs to you. We hope you
feel you belong to it. We live there year to year, by appointment.
I’ll be working from there quite a bit these next few weeks. The infamous
Bennett sisters call it the “Nancy Drew house.” They are happy to give you
a map or a guided tour! Come on by. We are family! And your
home is family, too. When is the last time you blessed your home?
Whatever your homes? Some words and some actions to use appear in today’s Word
for Meditation. Invite someone over to share it with you. Again we
pray, as in marriage, our homes be “havens of blessing and places of peace.”
We have to say the parsonage pot lucks are not
traditional “membership classes” by any imagination. In fact, this congregation
clearly defies all such “class-ifications ” And that’s what we’ve been
discovering in congregational “family meetings” with one another. Such
gatherings in more open, honest awareness and appreciation of one another are
not just the means to some other ends. They are valued ends in themselves – as
in the early church. It’s part of what we hope to bring to our community with
Dr. King Weekends – as with other events we offer. The family that stays
together not only prays together – but meets together, and talks together –
sometimes endlessly it seems! – and loves together, and works together –
forgives together, and starts over together – again, and again, and again. An
elder of the civil rights movement told me, an impatient seminarian in Chicago,
years ago – “Freedom is one long meeting!” Freedom is one long meeting.
Freedom is one long meeting! Amen.
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