The Rev. Dr. Austin Leininger
Sermon of the 4th Sunday of Easter
22 April 2018
Readings:
Acts 4:5-12
1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18
Psalm 23
The Good Shepherd is one of the most familiar and beloved images of Jesus that has carried down to the contemporary church. Frequently paired with the familiar and comforting words of Psalm 23, as we also heard this morning, this image of God as the one who cares for us each, individually, as members of God’s flock is also one of the most common refuges Christians seek in times of hardship or trouble. But what about during this celebratory season of Easter?
The reading is anachronous to our Easter celebration, coming well before the crucifixion in John’s gospel, yet paradoxically, it carries within it the same good news of the resurrected Christ that we celebrate throughout this festive season.
In the context of this morning’s reading, Jesus had recently healed a man blind since birth. The Pharisees, upset because blindness was believed to be punishment for a deeply sinful nature, questioned the man and his parents extensively, surmised that Jesus was a sinner and not of God, and after pressing the formerly-blind man to credit God alone with the healing, drove him out of the synagogue for proclaiming that Jesus must be a prophet of God to be able to do such great deeds of power.
Jesus’ healing of the blindness was seen as an abomination by the Pharisees – a transgression of the boundaries of the natural order. The man was innately sinful, so God afflicted him with blindness from birth. By reversing God’s intention, Jesus was suspect. Jesus’ response, demonstrating the love compassion, and unconditional forgiveness of God is beyond their understanding of God. Addressing the formerly blind man, Jesus likens the Pharisee’s lack of comprehension to spiritual blindness, which offends them.
Switching into metaphoric language, Jesus describes the uncomprehending Pharisees as thieves and bandits, who come to the shepherd’s sheep by sneaking past the gate, and who bring death and destruction. After proclaiming himself to be the gate by which the true shepherds come and go, Jesus changes his metaphor, where we pick up in this morning’s gospel, to being, himself, the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. In this context, the Pharisees are given a leg up as hired hands instead of thieves and bandits, yet they still abandon the sheep to the wolves, so the death and destruction of the previous metaphor is carried into our Gospel this morning not so much as an intention, but as a result of their lack of comprehension of the true intention of God in love, forgiveness, and compassion.
Jesus, as Good Shepherd, proclaims himself as the one who willingly lays aside his own agenda, his own intentions, his own life as an individual in favor of taking it up again in loving service of others. It is a voluntary laying down that is played out many times throughout the gospels, tying into Christ’s willingness to face even the cross rather than compromise his mission of radical love and forgiveness, heedless of the consequences, and which, demonstrating the fathomless and infinite nature of God’s love for all of creation, triumphs even over death itself. It is a choice that God made from the very foundations of time, to lay aside a solitary omnipresence where God’s eternal and infinite love had no means of expression, in favor of creating all the vast splendor of space, time, and life, entering into a loving and compassionate relationship with humankind and all of life along with us.
This is the love that was commended to us by Jesus before his death and resurrection, and which John’s epistle expands upon in exhorting John’s community to follow in Christ’s example and to lay down their lives for one another. It is not necessarily, nor even frequently, a life or death example, but true to Christ’s life and ministry, it is a preference toward relationship, community, and the loving service of the other that values and loves neighbor and self equally. It is the love and compassion that reaches out with the abundance of God’s kingdom to offer healing to the sick and infirm, food to the hungry, companionship to the lonely, estranged, and outcast, clothing to the naked, and extends the love of Christ to the world beyond our own selfish needs, ambitions, and intentions. In our real, everyday lives it is the moments in which we step outside of ourselves and risk encountering the need of the world surrounding us with Christ’s eyes – not with the unrealistic expectation that we can cure the ails of the world, but with the compassion simply to make what difference we can, even if it’s no more than recognizing the dignity of a fellow human being who has lost everything by meeting their eyes with compassion.
I have an old friend named Bobby who lived in Davis for a number of years. He and his shaggy black dog, Jake, used to sit by the driveway of the University Mall near the Church where I worked, with his sign, seeking donations. Bobby is one of Davis’ “homeless.” He was also one of the first people to welcome Jane and I to Davis when we were discerning whether or not to move there. He spoke to us about the greenbelts, about the pet friendly attitude of the town, and of the collective ethos and good nature of Davisites. Bobby made that strange new land personal and gave it a kind, albeit weathered face. Over the two years I lived in Davis, I frequently made time to go and sit with Bobby. He told me about his history, his family, his disabilities resulting from his time in the service. He also related that his time on the street had become a difficult choice for him since he had turned his life around ten years earlier. His dog, and best friend, Jake, was one of the only reasons he survived the life he had been living. Now that he was healthy, sober, and was in control of his life, he took odd jobs to supplement the donations of strangers so that he could keep gas in his car and keep it in repair, so that he and Jake didn’t go hungry, and so that on the hottest and coldest days and nights he could afford a hotel room. He admitted that although he could likely qualify to move into a half-way house so he could seek a real job and get a place of his own to live, it would be at Jake’s expense – that he’d have to leave him behind in order to take that first step, and after everything that Jake had seen him through, it was worth it to him to wait it out until Jake’s life was over before he rejoined the gainfully employed. Few people love their best friends – even the human ones – enough to make that kind of sacrifice, and Bobby’s example taught me a lot about where we place and misplace our values in today’s world. As John exhorts his listener’s in today’s epistle, it is to and for our own hearts that we ultimately answer. “If our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from God whatever we ask, because we obey God’s commandments and do what pleases God.” 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?”
Remarkably, I only know Bobby because of another important lesson that I learned second-hand from a friend’s encounter with a homeless man about seventeen years ago. At that time, I worked in San Francisco – another of the homeless capitals of California. Every day as I made my way through the city, I joined with hundreds of others who would carefully avoid the helpless stares and pleading eyes of the practiced panhandlers between the train station and Grace Cathedral, where I worked. I don’t honestly remember the context in which my friend told me this story, but it is one that changed my perspective permanently. One Easter, my friend, Fred, was working at one of the larger Episcopal churches in San Francisco, when he was approached by one of the city’s homeless for a donation. He was amidst a very busy day, trying desperately to get the church ready for the “Sunrise” Easter service, and was already feeling tired and stretched thin. Without paying much attention to the man in need, he inattentively apologized, brushing off the man’s request for assistance. Not to be brushed aside so easily, the panhandler persistently suggested that anything would help, even a few coins. Still without looking at him, Fred more firmly said, “No, I’m sorry,” and continued his brisk walk toward his destination. Faced a third time by this persistent and now annoying person who was making a nuisance of himself, Fred uncharacteristically turned around and shouted at him, “I have nothing to give you!”
Wordlessly, the homeless man stuck his hand into his own pocket. Grabbing Fred’s hand, he pressed a fistful of coins into it.
“What are you doing?!” Fred asked in apprehensive shock and surprise.
The man responded, saying “This is so you will never again have to tell someone that you have nothing to give them.”
As the homeless man walked off into the bustle of the city, Fred stood stock still, his jaw agape. He said that in that moment, he realized he’d just come face to face with Christ and had sent him away without so much as having had the decency to look him in the eye and recognize his humanity.
Since that day, I have never again avoided the eye of someone in need. I may not be able to help every person I meet with something from my pocket, but at the very least, I can take the time to recognize their humanity and offer a few kind words rather than telling them by my actions that I have nothing for them. I have never been sorry. In fact, Bobby isn’t the first homeless person who has touched my life much more deeply than I’m sure I’ve touched theirs in return.
This is the Good News of this morning’s Gospel. As we’ve heard in some of the other readings this blessed season, we may not always recognize the face of Christ, even when we come face to face with him in this world, but in hearing his voice unexpectedly in those around us, in catching a glimpse of the divine in the sparkle of a stranger’s eye whom we have laid down our own lives for a just a moment to reach out to in compassionate love, in the profound truths uttered by our own children, in each moment of our lives when we find ourselves suddenly in the presence of God, we enter into the mystery of the resurrected Christ—we know and are known by the One whose love spans the ageless depths of eternity.
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.
Amen.
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