I AM the Good Shepherd

Scripture Lessons: John 10: 11-18 and Psalm 23 Sermon title: I AM the Good Shepherd Preached on June 27, 2021 Thank you for being willing to go out on a limb with me. I know that many of you have that memorized. Others, like me need to cheat. Memorizing has always been a little difficult for me. It’s one of those things that makes me so nervous that my brain sort of short-circuits. I remember vividly an assignment to memorize and recite the Emancipation Proclamation in 9th grade history class. At some point during my recitation, I drifted into the Pledge of Allegiance. Anything like that ever happen to you? A lot of us have a sad public speaking story. I heard a statistic, that there are more people whose number one fear is public speaking than anything else. That means that there are more people whose number one fear is public speaking than there are whose number one fear is death. Quoting this statistic, comedian Jerry Seinfeld said, “That means most people would rather be the one in the casket than the one giving the eulogy.” I don’t know how exactly to make sense of that, but I believe it, because what’s true is that fears don’t have to make complete sense to hold us captive. We can be afraid of things that aren’t even real because fear isn’t entirely rational. The question I pose to you this morning is, what do you do about it? What or who bring you comfort? Years ago, before we had kids, we had a dog we treated like a kid named Ramona. Ramona was scared to death of thunder. During one thunderstorm we couldn’t find her and thought maybe she had run away. Searching the house, we finally found her nestled with some dirty clothes in the front-loading washing machine. Have you ever heard of a dog doing that? It sounds crazy, but then you think, how much safer the washing machine is during a storm than the couch. Now our dogs just snuggle up real close to us on the couch when they’re afraid, and probably, if a tree fell on the house or something like that, they’d be better off in a washing machine. But more than that, if there’s a scary storm moving over our house, the whole household might end up on the basement couch: two dogs, two girls, two adults, all together. I don’t know what any of them think Sara or I could do for them during a thunderstorm, still, they’re there with us because they’re scared and being close to us makes them feel better. That might be true in your house too. Do you have dogs or cats or kids who huddle up next to you when they’re scared? And is that true of you as well? Is there someone whose lap you remember crawling up into? Or is there a person, who just the smell of his aftershave, makes you feel safe? Is there a house that makes you breathe a sigh of relief once you walk through its doors? Does the smell of mothballs or ivory soap remind you of a person who made you feel comfortable enough to really talk about what was bothering you? “I AM the good shepherd,” he said, and his presence makes his sheep feel safe. This is the fourth Sunday in a row of a sermon series focused on the ways Jesus describes himself, and what I’ll always remember about this “I AM” statement, the fourth of eight that we’re focusing on this summer, is that Pope Francis once said, “A shepherd must always smell like his sheep.” What he means by this is that he’s close enough to smell like us. That when we’re scared, he’s near, unlike the hired hand who runs away to save himself when trouble looms. It’s because of this proximity, his familiarity, that he can cast out our fear. That’s a wonderful truth, which matters today, because today, there’s a lot to be afraid of, but what do we do about it? These days it’s like the whole world is swallowed up in fear. Just think about how often you’ve been seeing words like stress and anxiety. Those are two palatable words that adults are willing to use to talk about their fear. Grownups aren’t supposed to be afraid. No one likes to admit that they’re scared, so we use words like stress and anxiety, even though anxiety is just fear essentially. However, it’s worse than fear because anxiety is a feeling that fills your body without a clear source. Anxiety is fear without knowing what you’re afraid of. It’s always better to put a word to it or a cause. Parents know that, and so they’ll always ask their kids, “what are you so scared of?” On the other hand, sometimes the girls will notice that I’m tense and kind of quiet. They’ll ask me what’s wrong, so I’ll tell them I’m just a little stressed. It seems like I used to be stressed about certain things: sermons, projects, staffing, annual reviews. Lately some days I’m just stressed, and I can’t seem to put into words what it is that I’m stressed about. I just am. Can you relate? It’s a little bit crazy to be afraid without being able to say what we’re afraid of, but you can imagine how we got this way. When we were kids maybe we’d wake up from a nightmare and would call for one of our parents. If we were lucky one of them would rush in. Mom or Dad would ask, “Honey, what’s the matter?” “I had a nightmare,” we’d respond. “What was it about?” one of our parents would ask. And this is kind of an embarrassing question to answer. Are you just supposed to come out and say, “I was in my classroom but only had on my underwear”? Can you just say out loud, as a grown-up, “I was being followed by a legion of life-sized caterpillars who were trying to eat me”? I guess it depends. How well do you know the person who asked? Can you trust him with your fears? Can you speak it out loud in her presence? I hope you have someone you can talk to about the deepest concerns of your heart. Life gives us heavy things to carry around, while so many people won’t let anyone share the burden. Why? Because we don’t always trust the smell of the people who are asking. There’s a virus out there, sort of. Who can you talk to about it? I don’t know. That’s a scary thing to just start talking about, because if you drive into the city, they’re scared of you if you don’t have a mask on. If you drive north of here, they think you’re crazy if you’re still wearing one. Some are watching the spread of the Delta Variant while others are obsessed with getting a good deal on a Delta flight. Jobs are changing, the economy is changing, people are moving, so much is up in the air, and it’s hard to know exactly what the future holds. More than that, it’s hard to know who you can trust to talk to about your worries for the future. “I AM the good shepherd.” What does he mean by that? He means, I’m with you. If you’re scared, come on and climb up on the sofa with me, and tell me what you’re so afraid of. I won’t laugh. I’ll just listen. I won’t judge. I’ll just be here. You can tell me. “I AM the good shepherd,” he said, and he can cast out our fear so that we can get on moving towards where we are destined to go. Yesterday I read about a child of our church who hit a big milestone. James Whittingham is a baseball player and early this season he made a goal for himself: 100 strikeouts. Those strikeouts are good because he’s a pitcher. That’s a big goal that he accomplished this weekend, and I admire him for it, not just that he did it, but that he was willing to say what he wanted to do out loud. The danger in saying something like that our loud is that you might not ever do it. Voicing your dream is a risky thing because you don’t know how people might respond, and once you’ve put it out there some people will be looking for you to fail. That’s just the truth of the matter, however, if you aren’t willing to say where you want to go, I’m not sure you’re very likely to ever get there. If fear holds you captive, you’re like our dog Junebug who stands at the top of the stairs, too afraid to walk down them to get to where her food bowl is. Once again, we’ve been given a ribbon. This time the ribbon is green. Why? To represent the green pasture that the good shepherd leads his sheep to. Today I invite you to write a word down on your green ribbon a place you want to go, a thing that you want to do, a state of wellbeing that you hope to achieve. Whatever or wherever it is, write it down, and as you write it down imagine that you’re in a place where you’re safe, like a couch or a lap or in someone’s arms where you can smell their smell and sense their presence and be reminded that fear is just a feeling which only holds us captive so long as we let it. It happened to me four years ago that fear was cast out enough for me to dream by a smell. Four years ago, last weekend I was in the final stages of accepting this position to come and be one of your pastors. In order for a pastor to do that, he or she has to be examined by the presbytery to make sure everyone understands what they’re getting into. This Presbytery was worried that I didn’t understand that the church I’d be serving in was a different place from the church I grew up in. They were worried I didn’t know what I was getting into. Of course, they were right in a sense. A lot has changed over the last several years since I graduated high school, but I told that Presbytery, that this church still smells the same. I’m not kidding. There’s a stairwell in this church that smells exactly the same way now that it did when I was a kid going down to Sunday school, and four years ago that smell reminded me that the Good Shepherd I was introduced to in this church when I was a child is still with me and I don’t need to be held captive by my troubles and my fears. I remembered that this week. I had to remember it again, because it’s been a very hard year and half for me and for us all, though I’ve realized again recently that my fears are only holding me back if I let them. Sometimes I am so afraid that I forget who is with me, who is with us, and I fail to remember what’s been promised. Namely, that “nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Not famine. Not hardship. Not powers. Not height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation. Not COVID, not politics, not division, not bad news. Nothing. Why? Because he is with us. And we are in his presence now, so write a dream, a hope, a place you want to go or a state of mind you hope to achieve. Write it down on your green ribbon and remember this: plenty of people had their doubts about us, but our church has just been voted the best place to worship in Cobb County for the third year in a row, because he is still with us, and fear will not stop us from getting anywhere we are destined to go. Where do you long to go? Who do you long to be? Free from fear, write it down, and as the wind blows through our ribbons, our prayers will be lifted to Almighty God. Amen.

I AM the Gate

Scripture Lessons: Proverbs 8: 1-11 and John 10: 1-10 Sermon Title: I AM the Gate Preached on June 20, 2021 About four years ago we moved here from Columbia, Tennessee. As we moved into our new house the first order of business was building a fence in the backyard for our two dogs, Lucy and Junebug. I worked on this project with the help of a couple new Marietta friends: Clem Doyle and Paul Phillips who volunteered to help me. You can tell now just by looking at the fence which parts Paul was involved in. I remember Clem and me eyeballing the fence slats while Paul got a string and a level going to make sure things lined up precisely. You might say engineers are better at these kinds of things than attorneys or preachers. To this day, four years later, it’s still a very good-looking fence, and I can’t put into words how much it meant to me that Paul and Clem would come over to help me build it, however they couldn’t help me with everything. Even with their help there were a couple things I had to do on my own since it was our fence. For example, no one else could choose where the gates would go. “I AM the gate,” Jesus said. If you have a fence in your backyard think about it for just a moment. Where did you put your gates and what does your gate mean to you? What are the gates there for? Who goes through them and why? In our backyard one gate opens into the yard of the next-door neighbor. The day we moved in we were greeted by them. Their names are Dan and Leeanne. I remember how un-neighborly it felt to immediately build a fence between us so soon after meeting them. We didn’t mean to fence them out, we just wanted to fence our dogs in, so I put a gate there from our yard to theirs. We built the fence and the gate and, on their side, now are stones lined up to make a path. They built up a flower bed on either side of the path that leads to our gate in their yard. We built the gate, and they built a path. Today it’s like an invitation to go from one yard to the other. “I AM the gate,” Jesus said. What we know is that he is like an open invitation from God to be in relationship. What’s required? Who is fenced out? He makes the way clear and invites us all to come in. Jesus spends all this time trying to convince us that a relationship with God is not nearly so complicated as we had imagined, and I wonder if we imagine a relationship with God much be complicated because relationships with people are. We’re always asking: who should I let in? How much should I let them in? Will they disappoint me? Will they take advantage of me? Do they like me? Relationships require a lot, so I think it’s good to be in charge of the gates around our yards. It’s not good for a family not to have any boundaries or limits. If we didn’t have a fence our dogs would be eating out of every neighbor’s garbage can and our children might be too. It’s important to have a fence. Rev. Joe Brice will remind us from time to time that we humans need boundaries the same way that cells need a cell wall. Without a cell wall the cell has no identity. The same is true of us. Without some limits we become blobs of availability, victims to the circumstances around us, so we must have limits, boundaries, and fences. Right across the street from our house there was a house with a swimming pool in the back. The family put up a flagpole to send out a signal to the neighborhood: when the flag was up that meant any who wanted could come over and swim, but when the flag was down, that meant that the gate was closed. The family needed time to swim, just them. That makes sense and we must all decide on the gates of our own homes while recognizing who is the gate into the Kingdom of Heaven. There’s an old story that goes like this: A Presbyterian died. He was welcomed into heaven by St. Peter through the Pearly Gates and he met an Episcopalian he went to college with right away. The Presbyterian was really excited to see his old friend, but the Episcopalian told him to keep his voice down. “Why do I need to be so quiet in heaven,” he asked. The Episcopalian answered: “It’s because the Baptists are right over that Hill. They think they’re the only ones who made it up here and we don’t want to spoil it for them.” You can make that joke about Baptists or whoever you want. It’s true in one sense for all of us. We all get tied up in debates over who is in and who is out as though the Kingdom of Heaven were a bigger version of our own back yards. It’s not. “I AM the gate,” he said, and we could all stand to learn a thing or two from him when it comes to the gates around our own homes and lives for leaving people out can hurt them. Have you ever been left on the outside of the gate? Years ago, this church supported me as a missionary intern to Argentina. There I lived with several Argentinean college students who were nice enough to befriend me and help me make my way around the city of La Plata. One Saturday night they thought it would be fun to take me to a dance club. It was the only time I’ve stood outside of a club hoping the bouncer would let me in. My friends encouraged me to speak English very loudly so that the bouncer would notice that I was American. Being American will get us in a lot of places, but not this particular club in Argentina, apparently, because we never made it inside. Have you ever been fenced out? “I AM the gate,” Jesus said. In one parable he spoke of great banquets hosted by a bridegroom who invited wealthy, upright, wellborn guests to a party though they chose not to show up. The bridegroom went to the streets then, and invited society’s cast-a-ways. The poor, the homeless, the rejected, the ones who are left out and left behind. The ones we are slow to invite in ourselves. “I AM the gate,” he said, and we must consider what kind of a gate this savior is. We all need to think about who he invites in and who has been kind enough to invite us in. “I AM the gate,” he said, and I’m prone to believe that what he means here is something like what author and journalist, Kelly Corrigan meant in her graduation speech at the Walker School just a couple weeks ago. She told the graduates to remember that more than wealth, influence, or career accomplishments, the true source of human happiness comes from meaningful relationships. “I AM the gate,” Jesus said. In that simple statement he reminds us that there is something sacred about walking into our neighbor’s yard. That there is something miraculous that happens to children when they know they are safe to run from one house to another. That something special happens when we fire up the charcoal grill. The smoke doesn’t respect our fences. Our neighbors wonder what we’re cooking, and it makes us happier to share of our abundance than to eat it all ourselves. Years ago, I cut grass for a living, and I cut grass for a company who never wanted to pay us over time, so on Fridays we’d often get sent home early, having already worked our 40 hours. That meant that sometimes the men I worked with would invite me over to their apartment for lunch. These guys were from Mexico. The six or seven, they all lived in a one-bedroom apartment to save money so that there would be more to send back home to their families. After going to the liquor store to cash their checks we’d have lunch, most often tacos, cooked by who ever happened to be in charge of the meal that day. Only once did I invite the group over to our place, also a one room apartment that just Sara and I shared. I cooked something and offered them a beer I had made myself. I was into homebrewing beer back then, and I thought that was a special thing to share. Only one of the guys said to me that the special thing about it was that this was his first time being inside a white person’s home. “I AM the gate,” Jesus said. What he means by this is not exactly clear, but I believe it is clear enough to point us towards thinking about large and small ways that our lives might change if we spent more time thinking about who we let into our homes and our lives. I think that’s important, because when I think for just a minute about those moments where I felt the genuine hospitality of a stranger, the genuine hospitality of a stranger who would become a friend, I could feel that something sacred was happening, because genuine hospitality is nothing short of a miraculous thing. “I AM the gate,” he said. Too often we go looking for God on pilgrimages to the Promised Land. Too often we think that finding God demands climbing to a mountain or fasting and praying for days on end. But let me remind you that Jesus said, “when two or more are gathered, God is present,” so if you want to glimpse Jesus this week, just think about the places in your life where there is a fence now but there could be a gate. Once again you have a ribbon. This is the third Sunday in a row when your pastors are asking you to do a little something different. Each Sunday this summer we’ll be asking you to write something on a different colored ribbon and to tie those ribbons on the chicken-wire structure just outside the church. Today your ribbon is gray or silver, to help all of us think about the gate, and today I’d love for you to write the name of a person who you pray would let you in. On this Father’s Day I’ve been thinking about John. John is not my father. My father’s name is George, but were it not for my father, there would be a fence between John and me, but instead there is a gate. What happened is that John and I were playing baseball in Laurel Park when we were 8 or 9. He was playing catcher without a facemask. I was batting without knowing how to lay my bat down after I hit the ball. The pitcher pitched, I swung and hit, then slung the bat right at John’s front teeth. I couldn’t get out an apology. I just remember all John’s blood on the grass and all my shame in my belly, but Dad was sure John would not hate me forever, we didn’t need to move away, and I could play baseball again. Dad was sure there could still be a gate and with those simple words that he pushed me to say, “I’m sorry” miraculously there was one. Where do you long for a gate? With whom? Write their name down on your ribbon, and as the wind blows through our ribbons our prayers will be lifted to the one who by his grace is “the gate.” Amen.

I AM the Bread of Life

Scripture Lessons: Deuteronomy 8: 1-9 and John 6: 35, 41-51 Sermon title: I AM the Bread of Life Preached on June 6, 2021 Today begins a sermon series that will last the summer based on what Bible scholars call the “I Am” statements. On several different occasions Jesus tells those who are listening who he is using statements like the one we just read: “I AM the bread of life.” On this communion Sunday we recognize that this statement is both a metaphor and a fact. When he says, “I AM the bread of life” we know that he’s not just like bread. He is the bread. Even more than the mother bird who made a nest outside our kitchen window and flies back and forth all day feeding her two chicks, we don’t just thank the one who “gives us this day our daily bread” today. We gather around the table remembering the one who loves us so much he offers us his body and his blood. I AM the bread of life. That’s love in a most profound sense, and we know he loves us by this gift that he provides. Not everyone loves us that much. “I AM the bread of life,” he says, and as he says it we know he loves us even more than the waitress at Red Lobster who brings those delicious biscuits to the table ruining our appetite. Do you know the biscuits I’m talking about? In the ancient world, in the culture of ancient Israel and Palestine, bread wasn’t like that. It wasn’t a treat. It wasn’t something that you had on special occasions. Back then, when people thought of bread they weren’t thinking about carbs, they were thinking about the most basic form of sustenance. The most basic staple at the dinner table. When Jesus says bread, he’s talking about the grain of life. It’s what rice is to so much of Asia, what grits were to our Southern fore parents, not what French Fries or chicken nuggets are to our kids and grandkids. Bread isn’t junk food in the sense that Jesus means it, though sometimes we think that the ones who provide us with junk food must love us the most. That’s why, when I make the girls desert, I give them as big an ice cream scoop as I can. I do that because I want to be their favorite. I also want them to know how much I love them, but there is another parent who loves them so much she wants to make sure their teeth don’t rot out. “I AM the bread of life.” Bread is solid, it’s nourishing. It’s not what you want but what you need. The ones who love us the most supply us with bread. I think about Jesus saying, “I AM the bread of life” and I remember this story that author Ann Lamont tells. She said that she was at a women’s Bible study and the leader invited the women at the table to think of someone who was like Jesus to them. Who embodied the Gospel to you? Who revealed to you God’s love? Well, they went around the table and you can imagine what people said. One woman talked about how when she was growing up her grandmother lived right next door. When she’d had a bad day at school, she’d first stop at her grandmother’s house on her way home and somehow her grandmother seemed to know that she would be coming, and just as she walked in the door grandma would be pulling chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. “She was like Jesus to me,” she said, and you can imagine what she meant. Another told about her old golden retriever who was always there, bringing comfort, all through her divorce. Another talked about her sister. Another her faither. On and on, amazing tales of kindness until the last woman at the table spoke: “Who has been like Jesus to me? That’s a hard question to answer because Jesus loved people so much that he always told them the truth even if they didn’t want to hear it. To answer this question, I have to think of someone who loved me so much that he was so honest with me that I wanted to kill him?” That’s bread. That’s a particular kind of nourishment. Certainly, we all need the warmth of a grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies or the comforting presence of a good dog, but there is a powerful love in honesty. There’s a love in bread that’s more than the love in junk food. Have you ever thought about how much junk food there is in the world? How many people, how many of us, only read the journalists we already agree with? How many of us think we’re watching the news, but it’s not really the news because it’s not really the truth? I tell you, if you can watch it without it making you uncomfortable it’s not bread. It’s junk food, because it doesn’t nourish us though it tastes good. It’s not bread and it’s certainly not love, because the people who have really loved us sit us down to tell us those uncomfortable truths, like: “You’re just wrong, and I don’t love you any less but you’ve been wrong for a long time.” “I hate to say it, but you really have been drinking too much, and I’m worried about you.” “I don’t want to be the one to tell you this, but you’re showing up late and leaving early, and I love you and this organization too much not to bring it to your attention.” Of course, it’s easier for me to be told that I’m doing a great job all the time and that I’m perfectly wonderful, but that’s not enough and it’s not the truth, so, I have two kinds of friends. One kind who will take my side no matter what and are glad to tell me that Sara is always wrong, and my boss never appreciated me, and another kind of friend who I call when I’m ready to hear the truth. This is the kind of friend we have in Jesus. He is the bread of life. He is not the fast food, fill you up then leave you empty, tastes good but clogs your arteries kind of savior. I AM the bread of life he told them. That’s different, and people don’t always like it. The religious authorities of the day certainly didn’t like it. Our Scripture Lesson just calls them the Jews. That’s not an exact title, because not all the Jews were giving Jesus a hard time, some of the Jews were following him and one of the Jews was him. What we know about the Gospel of John was that it was written so long after Jesus’ death that the author had distanced himself from the Jewish community and wasn’t familiar enough with all the major players to call them by name. I say that just so you know that some people within every community don’t like the truth tellers. People haven’t changed very much over the last 2,000 years, so even today some people try to silence the truth tellers. They’d rather be fed fast food all the time. I guess we all would, though a diet of fast food doesn’t give us the energy we need to change, and like the Hebrew people, wandering around the desert, not sure how to get to the Promised Land, for months now we’ve been living in a Pandemic. There’s a way out it seems, and I tell you how to find out which of the voices in our world are telling us the truth. It’s the ones who don’t tell us what we want to hear, but what we need to hear. Who loves us enough to tell us take our medicine? Who is like the bread of life? When you walked into the worship service this morning, with your bulletin came a brown ribbon. This is my first time buying a whole bunch of ribbons. It’s hard to find enough brown for this many people. I tried to convince some church staff members that the colors I was able to find easily, tan and burnt orange were close enough to brown. They didn’t buy it. Then I tried to just cut them straight across and if you got one with ugly edges, I cut it, if you got one with a nice diagonal cut Natalie Foster probably did it. What I want you to do with those ribbons is think for just a minute about someone who has been like bread to you. It could be a doctor who told you a hard truth and helped you to make some changes. A teacher who wouldn’t put up with your excuses. A friend who dared to hold up a mirror to you and held your hand as she did it. It might not have been what you wanted but it sure was what you needed, to paraphrase the Rolling Stones. Think about a person who has been a gift from God to you, not because they were just kind, but because they helped you become a better you. Think about someone who has been like Jesus, the bread of life, and use a pen in the pocket of the chair right in front of you to write their name on your ribbon. As for me, I’ll be writing my wife Sara’s name, because she always loves me enough to tell me the truth, but I’m also writing George on my ribbon today. Back at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church, the first church I served as a pastor, a mother once asked me to baptize her baby. I told her I would, but then the Senior Pastor told me she wanted to do the baptism. I said that would be fine, but no one ever told the mother which pastor would be doing the baptism. Right up at the front of the church, this mother tried to hand me her baby but the Senior Pastor took the baby instead. She baptized him in front of the whole church, while his mother starred me down like I’d just broken her heart. I told George all this the next day over breakfast. He was a young pastor then too, and I said, “Can you believe that Senior Pastor? Can you believe she wouldn’t just let me do the baptism? And why didn’t she call the mother?” George wasn’t hearing any of that. He just looked me in the eye and he said, “Joe, you messed up. And I mean, you really messed up. But it’s going to be OK, because I know you’ll make it right and you won’t make this same mistake again.” In that moment, George was like Jesus to me, because he told me the truth that I needed to hear. He spoke the words that helped me do better be better, both as a better man and as a better pastor, and so today I’ll be writing George’s name on my ribbon, giving thanks to God for him. At the end of the service, we’ll all go outside and will tie our ribbons on a structure that has chicken wire that Tim Hammond and Howard Swinford built for us. As the wind blows through our ribbons in the coming weeks, the wind will lift our prayers of gratitude to God for those who have been like bread to us. Our prayers of gratitude for nurturing us with the true bread from heaven and food of eternal life. Take just a moment now, as a prayer of thanksgiving, to write down the name of someone who has been like bread to you. Amen.