Freedom

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

July 5, 2020

9 Proper A

When my sister Sarah and I were little girls, our aunt lived in a house with a small apartment in the back.  Every summer, we would go visit our aunt and our grandmother in Headland, Alabama, and if no one was living in the apartment at the time, which was usually the case, my sister and I had a full scale play house. We would spend hours imagining everything we could do if we actually lived there, on our own, at the tender young ages of 8 and 9. We could come and go as we pleased, do what we wanted, when we wanted, and in general live what we considered, at that age, to be a life of perfect freedom.  Never mind that, in Headland, Alabama in the 1960's, everyone knew everyone else and their business, so there was really no such thing as perfect freedom. Never mind that we had no visible means of support or that, short of making the bed, we had no domestic skills beyond opening a package of Oreos.  We just wanted the freedom we thought grown ups had and we were utterly oblivious to any cost or obligation that came with independence.

Independence and freedom are the theme song of the 4th of July.  In the secular world, freedom and independence tend to be primarily individual values, whether those of an individual person or an individual nation.  We value individual freedom to make choices and to live with consequences.  We think of an independent person as someone who has to rely on no one, an independent nation as one that is neither dependent on any other nation nor subject to any foreign power.  We think of freedom as the right to do what we want, when we want, to worship when and where we want, to spend our hard earned money however we want.  We admire the person who has pulled him or herself up by the bootstraps, so to speak, and lived the American dream, rising from poverty to great success.  And rightly so.  These are all admirable qualities.  On the 4th of July, we celebrate our freedom and independence as a nation.  We give thanks for the men and women who have given their lives on behalf of that freedom and independence, and we are called to work on behalf of those for whom the American dream has not yet come true: those on the margins of society in need of nutritious food, safe shelter, meaningful employment, quality education, and guaranteed access to medical care, those who cannot pull themselves us by their bootstraps because they have no boots, metaphorical or real.

Given the emphasis of this holiday weekend on freedom and independence, I find it evidence of God's great sense of humor that our gospel lesson is about a yoke.  A yoke, no matter how easy or light, gentle or humble, is still a yoke that, by definition, binds someone or something to someone or something else.  The most common definition of a yoke is "A crossbar with two U-shaped pieces that encircle the necks of a pair of oxen or other draft animals working together."  According to that definition, a yoke is clearly a symbol of bondage, not freedom, and we recoil from that image when applied in any way to any human being.  So, what kind of yoke could Jesus be talking about?

          When Rebekah left her family and her home to marry Isaac, without ever having met the man, this hardly looks like freedom to our 21st century eyes, even though Rebekah agreed to the marriage.  She is binding herself to an unknown person in an unknown land for an unknown life.  Yet in an odd sort of way, her marriage to Isaac frees her to be a part of God's ancient promise to Abraham that he will be the ancestor of a great nation and his descendants will number the stars in the sky.  In the upside down, inside out world of the gospel, where the outsiders are insiders and the insiders are outsiders, where the last shall be first and the first shall be last, and where the poor shall be rich and the rich will be poor, the binding yoke Jesus offers is actually the yoke of radical freedom.  Jesus' yoke frees us from having to make our way in the world, or into heaven for that matter, all by ourselves.  Jesus' yoke frees us from having to right all the injustices of society single handedly.  Jesus' yoke frees us from having to figure out how to faithfully follow him all by ourselves.   Jesus' yoke is a double yoke, so that we never carry our burdens alone.  Jesus and the whole body of Christ carry those burdens with us.  In Paul's letter to the Galatians, from which we unfortunately do not hear this morning, the apostle tells us to "Bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ" and the first letter to the Corinthians tells us that when one member of the body suffers, all suffer with it.  Likewise when one member of the body is honored, all rejoice.  The paradox of the gospel is that Jesus' yoke offers radical freedom as it binds us both to Jesus and to one another, freeing us from having to save ourselves and freeing us to both bear one another's burdens and to work together for the good of the whole human family.

In this time of pandemic, we are more aware than ever that what we do affects other people as the number of Covid-19 cases soars largely uncontained.  This is a burden we must bear together in order to survive, putting aside some of our own wishes and dreams to help keep others safe.  As we celebrate both the independence of our country and our freedom in Christ, Jesus reminds us that true freedom joins us together rather than separates us.  In this time of civil unrest as we face the ugly truth of systemic racism, we are called to come together as one human family, to listen deeply to our brothers and sisters of color, and to work for justice and peace, respecting the dignity of every human being as we promise to do at every baptism.  True freedom is not just the freedom to come and go as we please and do what we want when we want to as my sister and I longed to do all those years ago.  True freedom is the freedom to be the people God created us to be, to live as people connected to each other and the whole human family, and to do the work God has given us to do ensuring that  no human being is denied a life of justice and peace.  The message of the gospel is that the yoke of Jesus gives us true freedom as there is no burden anyone must carry alone.

                                                                                       Amen.

Laughter

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

June 14, 2020

6 Proper A

          Twice in the last six years, I have gone to England to learn about what the Church of England calls Pioneer Ministry or Fresh Expressions.  As a noun, pioneer means the first to explore or settle a new area.  As a verb, the word means to be the first to use a new method of doing something.  Pioneer ministry in the Church of England seeks to take the church and the gospel to those outside of the church, to engage the culture and find new ways of being church in a creative and intentional way.  This is where I learned about Pub Theology, holding office hours in coffee shops, the importance of the church being present at things like the Memorial Day parade and Ice Cream Social, and hosting events with topics of relevance to the wider community.  This is where I learned about listening to a community to see what the community actually needs rather than making assumptions about those needs.  This is where I learned the importance of the church serving as a place to bring people of all faiths together in times of crisis.  Then, last year, a group of us from Christ Church were part of the Connecting Communities project that our Diocese sponsored which focused on new ways of engaging the community.  We have implemented much of what we have learned from these various opportunities at Christ Church over the last few years.

          But had anyone told me that in 2020 we would need to take all of that learning and adapt to being the church online, working together to create and grow community in a new non-physical space and a new physically distanced way due to a pandemic, I would have laughed a deep, loud, ridiculous belly laugh-the sort where you can’t actually tell if the person is laughing or crying.  I would have laughed the sort of laugh that I imagine Sarah laughing in the reading from Genesis when she is told that, at the age of 90, give or take a couple of years, she will bear a son.  Three strangers show up, out of nowhere for all Abraham and Sarah can tell, and after they eat the meal prepared for them, they tell Abraham that when they return, Sarah will have had a son.  And Sarah laughs.  What the men propose is utterly preposterous, and biologically impossible.  The prospect of having a child at that age was likely terrifying even if it was possible.  Any way Sarah looked at it, the only logical response was laughter.

          Jesus asks something equally outrageous of the 12 brand new disciples this morning.  Jesus has gone about the cities and villages, teaching in the synagogues, proclaiming the good news, and curing every disease and sickness.  Jesus doesn’t heal just a few sick people, but he cures  every disease and sickness.  When he sees the magnitude of the work ahead, he calls his 12 disciples, and gives them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness.  In other words, he gives the 12 disciples the authority to do exactly what he, Jesus, the Messiah, is doing minus the teaching in the synagogue.  These people are fishermen and tax collectors.  I can imagine those 12 people laughing at the audacity of what Jesus is asking them to do.  Cast out demons?  Cure every disease and every sickness?  You have got to be kidding, Jesus!  Us?  Ask us to catch some fish or file your taxes! If we read on past the ending of this morning’s lesson, the task gets even harder as Jesus tells the disciples that he is sending them out as sheep in the midst of wolves, and that they will be hated because of Jesus’ name.  Suddenly having a baby at the age of 90+ actually sounds pretty reasonable!

          If we look through the scriptures, God rarely asks anyone to do something reasonable.  Noah was asked to build an ark to save the earth’s creatures from destruction.   God asked Abraham to pick up and move to an unknown place.  God asked Moses, a man on the run from the law, to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt.  Jesus asks his followers to pick up their cross and follow him and says that whoever saves his life will lose it and whoever loses their life will save it.  The list of seemingly unreasonable things God asks of God’s people goes on and on.

          But here’s the catch. God doesn’t ask any of us to do anything, no matter how unreasonable, alone.  Whether we read John’s Gospel where Jesus leaves us the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, to teach us and lead us, or Matthews’s gospel where Jesus says “And I am with you always to the end of the age,” we are promised that we are not alone.   And what God asks of us is for the sake of proclaiming the good news, casting out the demons that strangle God’s people, like systemic injustice, poverty, division, unequal access to education and health care, and on and on, healing the sick and proclaiming the Good News, all of which strengthen the trajectory of the story of God and God’s people.  In the midst of a pandemic and civil unrest, God makes the audacious request of us to be the Church, the body of Christ, to make a difference in this broken world, and God tells us that we can make a difference, even when we can’t be together in person.  We are called to take the story of God and God’s people further, just as Sarah did, and the disciples did, and God’s people everywhere through out the ages have done.  In the end, Sarah did have a child, Isaac, and the story of God and God’s people was furthered.  In the end, the disciples did preach, heal, and cast out demons and Jesus’ work was expanded and continues to this day.  In the end, we will continue to learn new ways to be the Church-to heal, to cast out demons, and to proclaim Good News to those who need to hear those words and we will do this pandemic or no pandemic, in-person and online.  We can laugh, and laughter may be the most appropriate response to something this outrageous.  And then we will move forward, trusting that just as God was with Sarah and with the disciples, God will be with us, and  we will be the body of Christ in new and unanticipated ways, and we will make a gospel difference in the world.                                                                

Amen.

Image

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

June 7, 2020

Trinity Sunday

          As a new grandmother with a just turned one-year old granddaughter and a just turned one-month old granddaughter, I confess to spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure out who these small humans look like.  As the mother of their fathers, I am also interested to see who they act like, but that will come later.  For now, I study their hair and eye color, the shape of their faces, their little lips and noses…like I said, I spend a ridiculous amount of time looking to see whose image they carry.  Evelyn, the one-year old, has baby pictures that could easily be mistaken for our son Slocomb’s baby pictures.  Sometimes she looks like my mother and other times she looks like my grandmother.  I can hope she has my son’s huge heart, my mother’s great sense of hospitality, and my grandmother’s sense of humor and love of a good time.  Little Collins sometimes resembles her father as an infant but right now she is changing too quickly to tell.  We’ve looked through photo albums and baby books to find images of family members, but she’s just too young.  Mostly she just wants to eat and sleep, which means she definitely takes after my side of the family! 

          Looking for the ways family resemblances and traits are passed down from one generation to another gives us some insight into who we are as members of a family.  This morning, in the reading from Genesis, we hear that we humans are made in the image of God.  “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”  As God looks at God’s beloved children, made in God’s own image, whose image does God see?

          Today is Trinity Sunday, the one Sunday of the church year dedicated to a doctrine rather than an event.  In today’s gospel reading we hear from one of the few passages that mentions the three persons of the Trinity in one breath.  Jesus says to the disciples “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.”  Today, the readings for Trinity Sunday call us to think about what it means that we humans are made in the image of one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer and to think about what image God actually sees when God gazes at us.

          First, as we are made in the image of God who is Father or Creator, we are called to be people who are creative, who see potential, who can work for order in the midst of chaos as God does in the creation story we heard this morning.  God’s people have always been called to be creative, especially in difficult times, whether they were finding their way through the wilderness to the Promised Land, or figuring out how to be a nation, or learning to be God’s people while in exile, or figuring out how to be the church during a pandemic.  We don’t always get that right and sometimes the image God sees back is quite distorted.  But we are called to be God’s creative presence in the world.

          Secondly, being made in the image of God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit means that we bear the image of Jesus who came to redeem the world.  We promise to seek and serve Christ in all people at every baptism, but we also reflect the image of Christ to the world.  The world learns what redemption means by our words and actions.  Redeem means taking something that is broken and making it whole.  Can the world tell that by our words and actions?  There is clearly no lack of brokenness in need of healing.

          Lastly, we are made in the image of God the Holy Spirit, the Sustainer or Comforter.  The work of creativity and making the broken whole is challenging work, and we are in this work for the long haul for the image of God is not something that wears off.  Fortunately, we are not alone.  The Holy Spirit sustains us and holds us together as one human family made in God’s image.  When the work of living as one human family is hard, when the going gets tough and the temptation is to give up, the Holy Spirit sustains us to press on in the work of living as the image of God.

          Friday night, many of us gathered with a large group of people for an Interfaith Vigil for justice and peace.  We started at the Clock Tower, then moved to Christ Church, then First Congregational, then Temple Beth Sholom stopping each time for prayer and reflection.  The crowd grew as we walked the very few blocks and we ended on the Green, gathered in candlelight and silence.  The mood was somber as we were called to realize the deep and dark ways we are broken as a human family, and the changes and hard work ahead in order to create something new, to bring wholeness and healing where there is pain, division, and fear, and to sustain the momentum and passion we feel in this moment. We were gathered as Christians, Jews, and Muslims, people of no faith and other faiths.  We were gathered as the one human family, longing for a world in which the color of one’s skin does not make one exponentially more vulnerable to violence and death.  Trinity Sunday reminds us as Christians of our fundamental call to understand the human family as one, as God is one, and be people of creativity, radical and inclusive healing, and sustained by the Holy Spirit for the long haul.  When God looks at the human family God created in God’s own image, whose image does God see?

                                                                             Amen.

           

         

Birth

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

May 31, 2020

Pentecost

          Last weekend, our Cincinnati granddaughter, Evelyn, celebrated her first birthday.  On Friday night, Don and I gathered via Zoom with Evelyn, her parents, and her other set of grandparents who live in Cincinnati, for the traditional cake smash.  We watched Evelyn’s delight as she sat on a blanket in the yard with only a diaper on and ate the raspberries and whipped cream off the top before grabbing the chocolate cake, eating some, and smearing more on her face and her father’s shirt.  On Saturday morning, there was a larger Zoom birthday party with friends and family from all over the country gathered for the opening of the gifts and the “real” birthday cake, which is the traditional family cake that I made and sent.  Zoom birthday parties are just about the only birthday parties these days, and they will do when Covid-19 keeps us apart.  But Zoom is a far cry from being there in person.

          Today is Pentecost, the birthday of the church, and here we are at another online birthday party.  Rather than being gathered here in this church to celebrate, to baptize, to hear the gospel read in many languages, have birthday cake at coffee hour, and all the other ways we celebrate this day, we’re scattered all over, gathered on Zoom and Facebook Live, being the church that was born on Pentecost in new ways most of us never imagined.

          On Pentecost, the disciples were gathered in Jerusalem for the Jewish festival of Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks, which celebrates the day God gave the law to Moses on Mt. Sinai.  On the day that the disciples were gathered to celebrate this Jewish festival, we are told that the Holy Spirit descended as wind filled the house and tongues of fire rested on each of them.  The disciples were given the ability to speak in other languages so that everyone around them could hear and understand the gospel in his or her own language.  The fire of Pentecost brought people together in a new way, creating the unity that comes when people can understand each other.    

          When the fires of Pentecost rested on the disciples and gave them the gifts they needed to proclaim the gospel to an unsettled world, the Church was born.  The reading from 1 Corinthians speaks of the gifts of the Spirit directly with a long, but not exhaustive list of those gifts and reminds us that we are one body and that all the members of the body, along with their gifts, are needed for the body to function well.  All of the gifts are needed for the Body of Christ to do her work.  But I do not want to lose the fact that the Holy Spirit came as the disciples were gathered to celebrate the Jewish feast of Pentecost and the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai.  In Matthew’s gospel, when Jesus is asked which of those commandments is the greatest, he replies “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

          I do not think it is a coincidence that the disciples were baptized with the fire of Holy Spirit and empowered to be the church in the world on the day they gathered to celebrate the giving of the law that taught them how to love God and love their neighbor.  While the apostle Paul writes about many different spiritual gifts in the reading from I Corinthians that we heard this morning, Paul also tells us in the very next chapter that the greatest gift of all is love.    

          Pentecost is a baptismal feast day, although we are not able to baptize this morning.  In the Episcopal Church, at every baptism, we promise to proclaim the gospel of love in specific ways.  We promise to be faithful in worship, to repent and return when we fall into sin.  We promise proclaim the gospel in word and action, to seek and serve Christ in all people, to work for justice and peace, and to respect the dignity of every human being.  In other words, we promise to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love our neighbor as ourselves in very specific ways.  In Luke’s gospel, when Jesus is asked “Who is my neighbor” the response is the story of the Good Samaritan.  In short, the answer is that our neighbors are those who do not look like us, believe like us, have the same background or ethnicity as we do.  Our neighbors are the whole human family.

          Today, on the day that we celebrate the fires of Pentecost, we read about fires around the country as people protest, sometimes peacefully but too often violently, the injustice of racism manifest this week in the murder of George Floyd, a black man, at the hands, or knee, of a white police officer.  Twenty five cities in the US are under curfew and five of those cities are in Ohio, by far the most of any one state.  Living with Covid-19, the over 100, 000 deaths, and all the restrictions to protect our health already had nerves on edge, causing conflict and violence.  Now cities have erupted in angry, fiery protest against the ongoing, systemic injustice manifest in the murder of George Floyd.  Into weeks like this one, Pentecost gives us the gifts we need to do the hard work of being the church as we proclaim the gospel, loving God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves by seeking and serving Christ in all people, working for justice and peace, and respecting the dignity of every human being.  Into weeks like this one, Pentecost gives us the courage we need to speak out against racism, injustice, and all that divides the human family from each other and treats some members of the human family as less than others.  Into weeks like this one, Pentecost has given us the gifts we need, as Paul says, to serve the Common Good.  This morning, Jesus says “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  Jesus is not talking about cheap, superficial peace.  Jesus is talking about deep peace, real peace, that respects the dignity of every human being and requires hard work.  For difficult weeks like these and the hard work ahead, the fire of the Holy Spirit gave birth to the Church on Pentecost.

                                                                             Amen.

Nothing

The Rev. Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

May 21, 2020

Ascension Day

            On this Ascension Day, we might expect to hear the story from Acts where Jesus is lifted into the heavens as the astonished disciples look on.  And we will hear that story on Sunday.  But the reading appointed by the lectionary for Evening Prayer on Ascension Day is the story of the Great Commission from Matthew’s gospel.  This is the last scene in Matthew’s gospel and while we don’t get to see Jesus being lifted into heaven, this passage has the same effect of bringing Jesus’ time on earth to an end. 

          In some ways, I prefer Matthew’s account of the end of Jesus’ time on earth.  We are not left with the questions of “Where did Jesus’ go?” and “How did he get there?” and “Where, exactly, is he now?”  While good and interesting questions, those questions can distract us from the main question, which is “What are we as Jesus’ disciples to do now?”  And because I am a person who likes a good set of instructions, Matthew’s story is much more helpful to me.  When Jesus meets his remaining 11 disciples on the mountain, he gives them very clear instructions about the path forward. 

          First, let’s note who is there.  Matthew does not refer to the disciples generically, saying “Now the disciples went to Galilee.”  Instead, Matthew tells us that the 11 disciples went to Galilee, reminding us of Judas’ betrayal and that this is a broken group of disciples going to Galilee to meet Jesus as Jesus had directed them.  The disciples had heard that the tomb was empty and that Jesus had appeared to the women as they fled the tomb.  The story flows like this is Easter night, but the distance from Jerusalem to Galilee is not walkable in an afternoon or even a day.  So my guess is that they were a broken and confused band of dirty and tired disciples who made their way to Galilee and to the mountain for whatever awaited them there.

          Then, when the disciples reach the mountain and see Jesus, they worshiped, but, we are told, some doubted.  So, to broken, tired, and probably confused if not scared, we can add doubting to the adjectives describing the group of disciples that encounter the risen Christ.

          To this motley crew of followers, Jesus says “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”  This sounds a lot like me saying to our sons with they were children: “I’m the mom. Don’t argue with me.”  Then Jesus tells the disciples to go and make disciples, to baptize them, and to teach them to obey all that Jesus has commanded them.  They are to go, not huddle on the mountain.  We are to go, if not physically at the current moment, then online, via email, phone call, text message, or snail mail.  We are to go outside of our comfort zones, which may or may not be a physical place.  The disciples and we are to make disciples.  Disciples, it turns out, don’t just happen.  They are made, which takes effort.  In case we are unsure about how to make disciples, Jesus tells us.  Baptize them-bring them fully into the household of God, and teach them to obey Jesus’ teachings, most of which are about how we are to love each other and the world.  If not simple or easy, at least Jesus is clear.

          The last thing Jesus says is perhaps the most important.  To this weary, broken, and doubting band of disciples, and to us in our weariness, frustration, loneliness and doubt over the current challenging situation and whatever other forces we may be dealing with, Jesus says “And remember.  I am with you always, to the end of the age.”  We do nothing alone.  We don’t leave our comfort zones alone.  We don’t make disciples alone.  We don’t try to obey everything Jesus taught by ourselves much less try to teach others alone.  We don’t have to deal with Covid-19 alone or the many ways the tentacles of the virus reach into our lives.  The message of Easter, the message of Ascension Day, and the message of Pentecost 10 days from now is the same.  While there is much we are called to do and be in this world as followers of the crucified and risen One, there is nothing we must do or be alone.  Nothing.  

                                                                             Amen.

At All Times

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

May 10, 2020

5 Easter A

          When I was a child in elementary school, Physical Education class had to be my least favorite part of the week.  The teacher had a passion for team sports.  She would choose two captains, one for each team, and the captains would take turns choosing kids for their team.  Obviously the athletically gifted kids were chosen first.  My best friend Laurie and I were chosen last Every Single Time.  We were both somewhat klutzy and not athletic in the least.  Finally, the teacher decided to try something different. She would choose the team captains who would then chose the kids for the other captain’s team.  So now, Laurie and I were chosen first.  We might have been klutzes but we were not stupid.  First or last, no one wanted us on their team.  There were insiders and outsiders, and we were definitely the latter.  I understand from my sports consultants, Will and Ben Bixby, that counting off by twos is more generally the way teams are chosen these days, which, while random, certainly seems more inclusive.

          This morning, Jesus appears to be the captain of the team and choses the members.  Jesus says “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Does this mean that our family and friends who follow other faiths or no faith wind up in hell?  Then Jesus goes on to say “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”  How on earth do we understand that claim when the world is being ravaged by Covid-19 in spite of our prayers?  If our prayers do not seem to be answered, does that mean Jesus has not chosen us?  This passage raises a lot of questions about who is in and who is out.

As with most passages of Scripture, knowing the context of the passage is helpful.  In the passage just before our gospel reading, Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet, and told the disciples that they should do likewise for each other, serving each other as Jesus has served them.  Having one’s feet washed is a humbling experience in which one person becomes vulnerable to another.  Jesus is describing how the disciples are to be in community with each other.  Then, Jesus tells the disciples that one of them will betray him.  Next, Jesus tells the disciples that he is with them only a little longer, and where he is going, the disciples cannot come.  Then Jesus tells Peter that before daybreak, he will have denied Jesus three times.

So, this morning, the scene with the disciples and Jesus is understandably quite somber.  The disciples were likely sad, confused, and feeling rather hopeless.  Jesus is encouraging the remaining 11 disciples when he says “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  Jesus promises his followers that he is going to prepare a place for them and will come back to get them.  Jesus is not abandoning them.  In fact, Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life so that they know the path to the Father.

          Taken out of context, this passage makes it sound like only those who follow Jesus have access to God.  However, a few chapters earlier in John’s gospel, Jesus said “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.”  Jesus will bring his other sheep into the fold.  Meanwhile, Jesus’ disciples are called to witness to the world through their love for each other, so there is a healthy, loving fold waiting for the other sheep.  What this passage, and much of John’s gospel insists, is that Jesus’ followers love each other with the same love Jesus has for them.  That love will spill out into love for others so that the world experiences God’s love.

At the end of the passage, Jesus tells the disciples that they will do even greater works than he has, and that if they ask for anything in his name, he will do it.  This is after Jesus has changed water into wine, fed thousands of people with a bit of bread and fish, raised Lazarus from the dead, walked on water, and healed many people of their infirmities.  Really?  Jesus thinks we can do that?

          If we read further, Jesus will tell the disciples that he will not leave them orphaned.  He will send the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to be with them forever.  While having the Holy Spirit available to do whatever we like would be lovely some days, Jesus is not promising us that.  This is not God as Santa Claus.  But Jesus is promising us that the Holy Spirit will give us what we need so that we are able to show God’s love to the world at all times and in all circumstances.  Jesus is giving his sad, confused, discouraged disciples their mission.  Those disciples include us as we are called to show God’s love in the midst of a pandemic when the burden of that pandemic falls unequally across the country and around the world, in a country that proclaims liberty and justice for all but where young black men like Ahmaud Arbery cannot go out for a run without fearing for their lives, in a place where the wounds of a university mass shooting are still deeply felt fifty years later.   Jesus promises the disciples and us, that with the Holy Spirit, we will have the ability to carry on his work in the world, demonstrating the power of God’s love at all times and in all places to even more people than Jesus did.

          At the end of the day, the question this gospel reading answers is not who is in and who is out, nor is the question about how we, too, can raise the dead to life.  The reading from 1 Peter says “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”   Jesus is telling us how we are to be that chosen race and royal priesthood and proclaim God’s mighty acts.  We are to proclaim the mighty acts of God by word and example, demonstrating the love of God at all times and in all places, like Jesus did.  We are to follow Jesus by making ourselves present to the Holy Spirit so we can make God’s love known in whatever situation we find ourselves.   Following Jesus is not about figuring out who is on the team and who is not.  Following Jesus is about humility, servant hood, and reflecting God’s love.  In other words, following Jesus is about following Jesus.

                                                                   Amen.

Abundant Life

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

May 3, 2020

4 Easter A

          On Friday morning, I woke up to a text message from my sister.  Sarah had sent me a link to a real estate listing for our grandparents’ old house outside Princeton, New Jersey.  When we were young, we spent many happy hours and days playing there, but I must say the house was a bit shabby then, with a musty smell, two bathrooms that were pretty sketchy even by 7 year old standards, and a kitchen that left a lot to be desired.  Now someone has completely remodeled the whole house and there is no trace of shabby or sketchy by any stretch of the imagination.  But looking through the photos of the house on Friday, I could clearly hear my grandparents’ voices in my head, even though they have both been gone over 25 years.  Their voices called our names to bring us inside after an afternoon of play in the expansive yard, or offered to take us to the nearby town to buy candy, or tucked us in bed.   We always felt safe, secure, and loved in that house and the memories the house holds for us are precious.

          This Sunday is Good Shepherd Sunday, which is always the 4^th Sunday of Easter.  Today, we hear Jesus call himself the Shepherd of the Sheep and tell us that he calls his sheep by name and leads them out.  The sheep follow the Shepherd because they know his voice.  Jesus also tells us that he is the gate for the sheep, and he has come that the sheep may have life and have life abundantly. 

          This passage alone tells us a lot about the Christian life.  First, Jesus tells us that he leads the sheep out and the sheep follow him.  The sheep are not meant to stay in the sheepfold but to follow Jesus out, where there is plenty of pasture to graze and move about.  Secondly, Jesus has come that the sheep may have life and have life abundantly.  Jesus has not come to steal, kill, or destroy, but to give abundant life.  And thirdly, Jesus tells us that he is the gate for the sheep.  No one else gets to decide who is in the sheepfold and who is not.  Later Jesus will give the disciples a new commandment-that they love one another as Jesus loves them.  The criteria for sheep is that they love one another as Jesus loves them.  While that is far more difficult than it sounds as first-after all Jesus lays down his life for the sheep-that is the sole criteria for being a sheep.

          Combine this passage from John with the beloved 23^rd psalm and the familiar words “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” the image of a table being set for us in the presence of those who trouble us, and God’s presence with us even in the valley of the shadow of death, and we have a comforting image of the Shepherd who calls us by name and will keep us safe, in whose presence there is fullness of life.  Add to that the passage from Acts where Jesus’ followers all seem to live together in perfect harmony, sharing all things in common, and spending their days devoted to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers, and we could easily have a very pastoral image of following the voice of Jesus who calls us by name and leads us to a life of safety, security, and love as well as peace and harmony.

          The reading from 1 Peter stops us short, however. I Peter was written to encourage faithful Christians who were suffering unjustly at the hands of their masters.  No one was setting a table for these Christians in the presence of their enemies.  I Peter was not written to glorify unjust suffering, much less condone it.  I Peter was written because unjust suffering was and is a fact.  The letter was written to encourage those who were suffering unjustly by reminding them of the unjust suffering Christ endured, and the teaching and witness of Jesus not to repay evil with evil.

          There is much unjust suffering in the world.  Right now, some populations are hit harder than others by Covid-19 through no fault of their own, but because of poverty, poor nutrition, sub-standard housing, and the inability to shelter-in place.  There are victims of human trafficking, children who are separated from their parents at the border, and people more likely than others to be incarcerated due to the color of their skin.  The list goes on and on.  I Peter puts such suffering right smack in front of us.

          On Good Shepherd Sunday, if all we hear is the part about verdant pastures and Jesus calling us by name and giving us abundant life, then we have missed the point.  The reading from Acts tells us that the early church made sure everyone had what they needed and they lived with glad and generous hearts.  What some people need is food, clothing, health, shelter, or freedom.  The psalmist says “When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.  For you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”    When we stand up to evil, we are promised that God will be with us.  The gospel reading tells us that Jesus calls us by name and leads us out of the sheepfold into the world to follow his voice where he goes.  And where Jesus goes is to bring love and justice where there is suffering and cruelty in the world.  If Good Shepherd Sunday is about safety and security and being protected by the great Shepherd of the Sheep, this Sunday is about that safety and security for all people and Jesus’ call to his followers to work for abundant life for everyone.

                                                                             Amen.