April 29, 2007
The Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year C)
Acts 9:36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-30
This past week I had the privilege of hearing our Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schorri as she addressed some two hundred plus clergy from this diocese in a lovely pavilion beside the bay on the
I thought of Jesus saying his sheep know his voice, and I found myself knowing her voice because what she spoke, though not easy, rang true in a deeply resonate way, shaking my soul, causing me to rethink something that has long been troubling me. We are blessed with a gifted leader in Bishop Katherine, and I believe her leadership will allow the sheep to hear God’s voice through her.
Also this week I received one of those sappy e-mails that tells you to pass it on to ten friends or you will have ten years of bad luck. My bad luck is going to last well beyond my life span at this rate as I never pass anything on under threat or, for that matter, promise! But I read this particular one. It was a listing of children’s responses to the question, “What is love?”
One answer in particular struck me, “You shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot because people forget.”
And once again I thought of this passage from John. The sheep who know the shepherd’s voice know it because they recognize that they are loved. The voice of the shepherd reaches them in that same deep place that Bishop Katherine’s words reached me.
Bishop Katherine spoke of Episcopal Theology that stems from or begins with the point in creation when God says, “It is good,” and from the statement that God said to Jesus and says to each of us, “You are my beloved, with you I am well pleased.” If we read this passage from John this morning knowing that we are beloved and part of creation, that God looks at us and expresses that we are good, then we cannot see this as a judgment passage. It cannot be a suggestion that there is to be a time of sorting insider and outsider, beloved sheep and redeemed sheep versus the ones that are not listening or can’t hear the voice. Instead we know, as we have been told in passages around this one, that there are indeed many sheepfolds filled with the shepherd’s sheep and all hear the voice, no matter how differently.
If we begin from the point of God’s understanding of us as good, not sinful or naughty or potentially unable to hear the shepherd’s voice because of a preconditioned affinity for sin or evil or all things negative, then the realization comes crashing down on us that all those whom we would see as wrong, opponents, misguided, or whatever other adjective we come up with, all those people are equally beloved of God, equally created good, equally inside the sheepfold and listening to God’s voice – every single one of them.
When we think of the nasty person at work, God looks at them and says, “Good.” When we think of our sister who drives us nuts? God looks at her and says, “Good.” When we think of anyone we have trouble loving, anyone, remember God looks at them and says, “Good!” “Good!” That is the starting place of our self-knowledge, our knowledge of each other, and, of course, our knowledge and faith in God. Goodness! Not sinfulness, not separateness. Not in need of an extreme makeover. Goodness! That is the starting place.
And when we begin there, it’s impossible to think of violence in any form, even verbal, or thoughts left unspoken, or acted upon. And negative thoughts about any person, politics, or institution are too often the beginning of violence. Think of Imus’ words about the young women basketball players. Think of the disturbed killer on the Virginia Tech campus. Think of the nightly news. None of these begin with the inherent goodness of anyone, only separation and violent name-calling that leads to violent action. If we look around us, violence is too often the way we do business in the twenty-first century – probably has been all along. Violence is the way of our city streets, our country’s response to – well almost anything – and now violence is to be part of our children’s educational experience on campus.
Violence is so possible because so few are given the opportunity to know that they are good, as is everyone else. I believe the church, all denominations, has for centuries emphasized our sinfulness rather than our goodness. I believe that leads us to believe or think first of human beings as something inherently bad, sinful. That leads us to all sorts of ungodly and unholy places. I believe that thinking our inherent nature is sinful leads to violence, violence in thought, language, video games, entertainment, political processes, and human dealings with one another, in every family, institution and community.
Violence masks the shepherd’s voice. Violence is what we use to encapsulate ourselves in walls of armor. It is what boxes us in and prevents us from seeing ourselves and others as God sees. Violence then becomes part of a self-perpetuating circle, preventing us from believing that we are good even as it spurs us on to believe that others certainly are not! We have become incredibly good at making walls around ourselves. I believe our current social and governmental stance can further scare us, terrify us even, into creating such walls around ourselves, that we not only deny our goodness, but are prevented from seeing the possibility of goodness in those who see the world so differently from us.
The Shepherd is calling us, all of us, and all those over there – wherever over there is and however far it is from who we are and what we believe. The Shepherd is calling us and the Shepherd is telling us – and them – that we are the beloved. We are good, and so are they.
The Shepherd invites us to look at all the sheep through the same eyes of love that we use when we look at our children or our grandchildren, our beloved. The little girl was wise beyond her years who said, “you need to tell people you love them all the time, because they forget.” I believe the church, our culture, and the scary ways of the world have prevented us from hearing how much God loves us and we need to hear it! We need to believe it. We need to open the gates that trap us inside. We need to lower our walls that we might see all those who are God’s beloved, all those we have not let into our sight recently.
It is tempting when things are so dangerous in the world to put the walls up higher, to stress the division, to make the chasms deeper, and the “otherness” more distinct. But I believe that is not what the Good Shepherd wants from us. I think we are being called to risk vulnerability and openness for the gospel’s sake because we have heard the Shepherd’s voice. We know what it says and want to follow. We know following brings life and love and wholeness. We know that. So living as though we know it is, at once, our challenge and our deepest treasure.
Good people, you are the beloved. You hear the Shepherd’s voice. You know it! You are the one with whom God is well pleased. And so is the one you find most difficult in your life. So are they. Treat them with the belovedness of the Good Shepherd. And if we all do that, maybe, just maybe, it will spread, and the overwhelming tendency for violence in our world will be eliminated. Let’s try it. Open your eyes and see. Open your ears and listen for God’s voice.
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd