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.

Too Light a Thing

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 49: 1-7 and Acts 2: 1-21 Sermon Title: Too Light a Thing Preached on May 23, 2021 Week before last I had an incredible opportunity. It was career day at the Marietta Center for Advanced Academics and I was one of the featured guests. Honored to have a table right beside Dr. Bob Harper and his daughter Mandy who were there to tell those kids what being a dermatologist is all about, I laid out my Greek and Hebrew Bibles and my preaching robe, prepared to inspire some 5th graders to become a pastor. Interestingly, I think that examining moles and protecting people from skin cancer made a lot more sense to most of those kids than anything I had to say. One of those kids saw my robe and thought I dressed up like Harry Potter for a living. Noticing how many kids were confused by my vocation, about half-way through the morning, Bob asked if the kids had asked me any interesting questions, and they had. “Have you really married people?” on wanted to know. “Yes, I have.” “Have you ever cried at a funeral?” Absolutely. Or the most interesting, which was asked in just the faintest whisper: “How likely is it that someone could be possessed by a daemon?” That was a hard question to answer. I told her it was very rare, though if she wanted to talk more about it, she should give me a call, and I gave her a business card, which felt like a cold response, but I’m not used to being asked that kind of question. Presbyterians don’t often talk about such things. Among the Christian denominations we’re sometimes called the frozen chosen. We don’t talk much about hell or daemons. We don’t often clap either, we rarely lift our hands in praise, we tend to be so science led and rationally minded that we leave things like exorcisms and snake handling to those who speak in tongues. I’ve heard a woman speak in tongues only once. We were both chaplains at the Metro State Women’s Prison, and the Holy Spirit fell upon her, and she began to prophecy. For me, this was an otherworldly experience. As a white, southern, college educated, Presbyterian, speaking in tongues is not in the repertoire, however, speaking in tongues is neither foreign to Scripture nor to the Christian tradition, so today we celebrate it a little bit. Today is called Pentecost Sunday, which is a lesser-known holiday. Earlier this week Sara asked me if we were going to sing more hymns nobody knows. Yes, we are. The Pentecost hymns aren’t as popular as Christmas carols but we still have to sing them. This is the second Sunday in a row where the Church celebrates a less popular holiday. Last Sunday we celebrated Ascension Sunday, the day when we consider that line from the Apostles’ Creed: “the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven,” and today we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit given to the disciples not long after Jesus ascended. It’s called Pentecost and it’s worth celebrating too. Today we read in the second chapter of the book of Acts: They were all together in one place, and suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Can you imagine? That’s what today is all about. This momentous event. It’s a day worth celebrating, but that doesn’t mean it’s familiar or understood, for while there are plenty of Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel, no one is making any Pentecost movies. I can imagine why that is, but our brothers and sisters in the Pentecostal Churches would love a few good Hallmark movies about Pentecost, so I’ve been kicking some ideas around. Imagine a movie with a plot like this: An old man gets his house cleaned every day by a woman who speaks only Spanish. They can’t understand each other, but then one day the Spirit comes and he can speak so that she can understand. They fall in love and live happily ever after. Or a Dad has trouble connecting with his preteen daughter. He tries to sound cool, saying things he’s heard her say to her friends, like “pop-off” and “yeet” but it doesn’t work, until the miracle happens and suddenly all her daughter hears is how much her Dad loves her. I could keep going with these movie ideas. I have more, however this is what I want to emphasize. What we’re celebrating today is not only that the disciples are suddenly able to speak in languages they didn’t know before. That’s part of it. The other part is that the crowds there could understand. In the words of Rev. Anna Traynham of Shallowford Presbyterian Church in Atlanta: the miracle isn’t that people spoke. People speak all the time. The miracle of Pentecost is that people were understanding each other. That’s truly a miracle. These disciples had been all together in one place. The Spirit came and they were all given this incredible gift, but the gift didn’t just enable them to speak in languages they’d never spoken in before. They were speaking and the crowds were understanding. It’s there in verses 5 and 6: “Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.” It’s not just that the disciples could speak, it’s that others were able to understand. And so I ask you, shouldn’t we spend more time thinking about Pentecost? For how many among us are capable of speaking? How many out in the world have something to say? How many puff themselves up with their proud opinions? Who get on their soap boxes and will spout off at any captive audience? Plenty will, but Pentecost is different, because the Spirit enabled these disciples to speak in a language that the nations of the world made sense of. Now, back to Career Day at our daughter’s school. As I said, there were kids there who didn’t know anything about being a preacher, and a lot of them were a little wary of me once they found out who I am and what I do, so I had some free time. Fortunately, also with me on career day at Cece’s school was Roy Vanderslice’s daughter Rebecca. Roy and his wife Joan are longtime members here. Rebecca and I were talking about her dad, who will not only invite you to ride in his Tesla, he’s also a language student. Knowing that, I showed Rebecca this app on my phone that’s helping me to learn Spanish and I suggested she get that for her Dad for Christmas or something. She told me that he wouldn’t want it, because he doesn’t really want to learn another language. He just wants to know four or five words in all the languages. When he meets someone, he wants to be able to say, “please, thank you, and nice to meet you” in the language that they speak. Can you believe how beautiful that is? That’s a slice of Pentecost. The disciples spoke in a way that each person understood. People were so honored that God would go this far to speak to them in their mother tongue that they stopped and listened. That’s the miracle of today, and it’s a miracle that matters in a world where so many keep talking while their words fall on deaf ears. How often has it been this way with you? You spoke without fully appreciating who you were speaking with. You were talking but there was no understanding. It happened once with me while I was in handcuffs. Last Sunday I alluded to having been arrested as a college student. That’s sort of true. What happened is I got in a little bit of trouble with the campus police for climbing into a condemned building on campus. Then, by the school paper I was assigned to interview one of the officers who caught me, and for the picture I asked him to put me in handcuffs. I thought it would make a neat action shot. The trouble was that he’d used the handcuffs so seldom that he didn’t have the key. After someone took the picture, for hours I was in the handcuffs as he looked around the public safety office for the key. Then he thought maybe he had left the key at home, so he drove me there in the squad car. And this was the weirdest thing. (Yes, it got even weirder). It was when we got to his house that I really learned who this man was. Every wall of his house it seemed like was covered in certificates of recognition for his public service. Every wall, certificate after certificate, “with appreciation,” “in celebration of,” “with honor and distinction.” I tried to read them all while he looked for that key, which he never found. He never found the key and eventually a locksmith had to cut the handcuffs off of me. I remember it like it was yesterday, not just being cut out of handcuffs, but that I had been writing about this man without really understanding who this man was, and it basically took a miracle for me to get it. That’s Pentecost. A holiday we need to celebrate, for how often do we fail to understand each other? How often in this world do we fail to understand what it’s like to be a police officer? I tell you our country’s lack of full understanding doesn’t stop people from talking. Some criticize the police without understanding how hard their jobs are. Far too many talk about race without any knowledge of what it still means to be black in America. Some think they know. They really think they know, so they talk but as they talk the divide gets wider because they speak without understanding. So, what does the Spirit do? It gave the disciples the words, the words that the world could understand, which is absolutely a miracle that our society needs today. Just think about what’s happening in school boards across our state. Maybe you’ve read about it. Crowds of angry parents show up to talk over each other. If you don’t say what one wants to hear he’ll shout you down without taking the time to listen. It sounds like life as usual in our world today. Meanwhile, there are little girls in our schools who are wondering how common it is to be possessed by a daemon. What Pentecost reminds us of, is that communication, real communication, requires love. That’s what happened so long ago. These disciples weren’t talking so that they could advance their own agenda. These disciples were up there trying to communicate to the world how much love God has for every one of them, and when I say every one, that’s what I mean. Salvation to the end of the earth. Only, let it start in our own homes. Celebrate Pentecost and dare to try and understand your spouse. Dare to love her well enough to really listen. Dare to lovingly speak to the police officer who is a human too. Dare to acknowledge the racism that still surrounds us. Dare to speak of love that the walls which divide our world might come tumbling down. Dare to believe that the salvation of this church is too light a thing, and that the Spirit calls us to the 800,000 out in Cobb County, half of whom have yet to understand the love of God. Be slow to speak. Be ready to listen. Work to understand. And may your words be always abounding in steadfast love. Amen.

The Next Book

Scripture Lessons: Ephesians 1: 15-23 and Acts 1: 1-11 Sermon Title: The Next Book Preached on May 16, 2021 Today we honor graduates of high school and college, and we have an eerily appropriate pair of Scripture Lessons for the occasion, for today is what the Church calls Ascension Sunday, when we celebrate that moment when the Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven and the disciples stood and watched, staring off into the sky even after he was gone from their sight. I think about those disciples today in light of what graduation means, and I think about how maybe they were realizing that for the first time they were really left all on their own. That’s a significant feeling: realizing that you’re all on your own. Some people feel that, and it makes them excited. But I doubt they were excited, maybe they were terrified. I don’t know for sure, however I imagine that what the disciples were feeling was something like what I was feeling when my Mom left me at college. That day my Mom helped me get moved in, she attended a few of the orientation meetings, and then over lunch she said, “Well, I’m about to start crying, and once I start, I’m not sure I’m going to stop, so I’m leaving. I love you so much. Bye.” Then she gave me a hug and left. I remember watching her walk away. It was an eerie feeling. She was gone, and this was back in the old days before cell phones, so she really was gone, headed back to Marietta, Georgia while I stayed in Clinton, South Carolina, left up to my own devices. Among other things, that afternoon I set up the answering machine in the dorm room. That’s about how old I am, and Jesus leaving the disciples was something like that. Maybe you’ve heard of helicopter parents, who sort of hover around even after their kids go off to school. Jesus lifted from the earth, he was airborne, Scripture tells us, but he really left, so the disciples really were back on the earth trying to figure out how to keep the Church going without him. Do you have any idea what that would have felt like? Some people don’t, though I imagine most people do, and having had that feeling several times myself I want to stay in that feeling for a moment to really think about it, and to compare the feeling those disciples must have felt with what growing up and becoming an adult is like. What I know that every parent wants is to prepare their kids for life, so that they can get along on their own. Many parents question how successful they’ve been at doing so, but parents, compare yourself to Jesus for a moment. No one can do better than Jesus at anything, and when Jesus left were the disciples really prepared? Do they seem ready? Are they anxious to spread their wings? How responsible do they really appear to be? I remember well enough how prepared I was for college. Honestly, I was not prepared much at all. Having really focused my schedule to do as little academically as possible during my last semesters of high school, on my first days of college we took a few tests as a part of freshman orientation, and I tested right into remedial English. Apparently shop and weight training weren’t the classes I should have been focusing on in High School, because this wasn’t English 101 that I tested into. I wasn’t ready for that. I tested into this class that was something like “learning English as a second language” and our professor was helping us with comma placement and when to preface a noun with “a” or “an”. In addition to my weak English skills, I had never written a check. I had never done my own laundry. I had never taken a car to the mechanic. I had never been arrested, either, but soon enough I learned more or less what that was all about. My point here is this: even the disciples don’t seem particularly prepared. Jesus leaves, and they don’t know what to do without him. They’re just standing there looking up at the sky, and so parents, you have to say to yourself in these last few weeks before your chicks leave the nest, “If Jesus couldn’t get the disciples ready for life on their own, I need to cut myself some slack.” It’s impossible to completely prepare a person for independence, because there are some things in life that you won’t ever learn how to do until you have to do them on your own. Do you know the hymn, Jesus Walked this Lonesome Valley? It goes like this: Jesus walked this lonesome valley; He had to walk it by himself. Oh, nobody else could walk it for him; He had to walk it by himself. And then it goes: You must go and stand your trial; You have to stand it by yourself. Oh, nobody else can stand it for you; You have to stand it by yourself. That’s right. And in doing so you’ll find the strength that you didn’t know you had. You’ll learn to rely on a power that you never knew was there. You’ll begin to walk on your own. You’ll run, without waiting for someone else to lead the way. Once Jesus ascends into heaven, the final lesson can be taught and the final preparation is complete, because the disciples are now having to do what Jesus had been doing for them. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. tells his version of this same story in one of his sermons. He was in Birmingham, which you might know, was such a violent place during the Civil Right Movement that some folks called it Bombingham. Dr. King’s life was threatened. He was in danger, and he couldn’t sleep. The thought of that brick which had been thrown through a window of the house he was staying in kept him up. He knew that not only was his life at risk, but that of his wife and children as well, who were staying in the house with him. Sleep alluding him, he went into the kitchen, made himself a cup of coffee, and there he thought about how much he wanted to talk with his father, who was miles away back home in Atlanta. He couldn’t depend on his father for comfort in this moment because his father was too far away, but in this moment in realizing how far away his father was he bowed his head in prayer and he asked God for help, and he felt as though he was possibly doing this for the first time all on his own. Now I don’t think that Dr. King meant this is the first time he had ever prayed. I feel sure that he had prayed plenty of times before, but you don’t know that you’ve been leaning on your parent’s faith or your grandparent’s faith until you’re bowing your head before almighty God in a state of deep, personal need. The old preachers used to say that God has plenty of children, but he doesn’t have any grandchildren, because just being related to someone who has faith isn’t enough. You can’t inherit faith, you have to have your own, and so being in the proximity of the miracle worker isn’t enough to prepare the disciples for what they must do. Being the son or daughter of a preacher, Sunday School teacher, or a missionary isn’t enough. Life doesn’t always care who you’re related to. Your bloodline isn’t going to get you into the Kingdom of God, you’ve got to walk that lonesome valley on your own. You’ve got to walk it by yourself. Nobody else can walk it for you. Nobody else can study for you. Nobody else can take the test for you, either. Think about what’s happened when parents have tried. You’ve heard about the testing scandals. Our girls have been watching Full House reruns, and all I can think about when I see Aunt Becky is how she helped her kids cheat on the SAT. Come on Aunt Becky. You can’t do that, because not only will they get caught, but you’re also preparing them to fail at life. Now listen, I’ve had a lot of growing up to do. There was a time when I absolutely could not force myself to maintain my automobile. I was 21 years old and thought I was too busy to get the car fixed, especially because I had to get together with my friends from college for the weekend in Charleston. I left late at night, and somewhere in-between Columbia and Charleston the transmission started smoking. It was late, I was in the middle of nowhere, and the car quit on me. It just gave out. I made it to the shoulder and cut the engine, then tried to crank it again hoping it had reset or something. It hadn’t. What do you do next? This was in those days before there were cell phones, it was dark out, my car broke down, and I had on cowboy boots. What do you do in a situation like that one? You start walking. Because nobody else is walking for you. After four miles I made it to an exit that had a pay phone. I called a wreaker and asked the dispatcher if the wreaker could pick me up at the exit before picking up the car. She said, “Sir, it’s a tow truck, not a taxicab.” I’ll remember that line for the rest of my life. But I learned that lesson the hard way, because sometimes that’s the only way thick headed people ever learn. Didn’t Jesus tell them what they should do? Didn’t he? Hadn’t he already told Peter? Hadn’t he already taught Thomas? Hadn’t he already showed them all? But the only way they’re going to do it on their own is if he leaves them behind. Now, I don’t think Jesus wanted to leave them any more than my mother wanted to leave me at college, but she loved me too much not to help me learn that most important lesson, and in leaving me one chapter of my life came to an end. Just when that chapter ended, another one began. That’s maybe the most important thing to remember: the main character, the one everyone else depended on, leaves but the story keeps going. Our Second Scripture Lesson began: “In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught.” You might know that the author of the book of Acts is also the author of the Gospel of Luke. In the first book the author wrote to his friend, Theophilus, to tell him “all that Jesus did and taught.” Acts is the next book, and just because Jesus leaves, that doesn’t mean the story ends. It means a new chapter is beginning. For many of you, this month is full of celebrations to mark the end of the first book. In the midst of all that celebration, give thanks to God and be ready for the beginning of the next one, where you are the main character. And as this next book begins, don’t be afraid. Keep walking. And remember always who you are and remember always who is with you, even if you can’t see Him. You are God’s own with a new story to write.

There's a Difference Between Watching and Doing

Scripture Lessons: Deuteronomy 30: 11-20 and 1st John 5: 1-6 Sermon Title: There’s a Difference Between Watching and Doing Preached on May 9, 2021 Our Second Scripture Lesson is a good one for today, with today being Mother’s Day, because the focus of the passage I just read is love. That sounds nice. Love is nice, but as every Mother in here knows, love isn’t just nice. When I think of love I think, not only of a mother’s love portrayed in a Publix commercial. I don’t just think about a warm dinner or a cup of coco. I think about this one afternoon when Cece was a baby. She was in a stroller and we were walking back to Sara’s parents’ mountain house, when a baby bear walked by in the distance, followed by his mother. Love is nice, but love will kill somebody, right? A mother’s love is not just warm, wholesome, and gentle, and so when I read that word love which occurs in our Second Scripture lesson five times, I think about how love is an intense and active emotion. Love is a verb, and there’s a difference between talking about love and really loving. That’s why I titled this sermon: there’s a difference between watching and doing. We’ve been watching so much lately, confined to our houses. How would we have made it through this pandemic without TVs and computers? But love calls us to do. Love calls us to fight. We have to remember that, especially as Christians. I once heard a story about a Sunday School teacher who was giving her young students a tour of the church, and before they went into the worship space, she let them know how she expected them to behave. You can imagine that at their church it was something like our Sanctuary, a place to be entered with reverence and respect, therefore, before they went in, she asked her students to be quite and to walk slowly. “And you know why we must be quite and must walk slowly when we’re in the Sanctuary, right kids?” One of them, maybe 7 years old, says, “Yes mam. We must be quiet in the Sanctuary, so we don’t wake up all the people who are sleeping.” That happens. So, I admire most those who preach briefly, eloquently, and passionately. I subscribe to the preaching philosophy of Charlie Chaplain, the comedian, who once advised preachers to begin their sermon with a good joke and wrap up a really strong ending, and those two parts (the joke and the ending) should be as close together as possible. That’s good advice. But when it comes to preaching, I also subscribe to the thoughts of the great Danish Philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, who famously compared the worship space to the theater, and the preacher, not to an actor, but to a director. Kierkegaard wrote that the Sanctuary and the theater, look alike. Both rooms have a place for the director, a place for the actors, and a place for the audience. In the theater the director is backstage, the actors are on stage, and the audience is in the rows of seats where they are hopefully, well entertained. Here's the difference. The worship space is different in the sense that the audience is always God. Think about that for just a moment. The audience is God. I’m one of your directors. Up here, we are the ones who tell you when to stand, what to do, and try to inspire your worshipful thoughts. And this must always be absolutely clear: While you are sitting in the pews, you are not here to be entertained, because this is a place of worship. What we do in here is offer praise to the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of this world. Have you ever thought about it like that? The question is not just whether or not you get anything out of the service. The question is, what did you give? What did you offer God? There’s a different between watching and doing, both in worship and in life. Something I’ll always remember is how years ago, I was in Tim Hammond and Jimmy Scar’s Sunday School Class, and Tim told us that he doesn’t watch movies, because he doesn’t like to watch other people live their lives, he’d rather be out in the world living his own. I like that, because it’s true. We are not passive observers but actors on the earth, and before our short time here is over, we’ve been called on to play our part, to run our race, to glorify God and enjoy him forever, to love God and obey His commandments. In addition to our two lessons for today, Scripture is clear on this point in several places. In the Bible we are warned: Don’t be hearers of the word, but doers. Don’t just memorize the 10 Commandments or notice when your friends violate them but follow them yourself for your own good. In so doing you choose life. The author of 1st John is adamant on this point. Just two weeks ago we read: “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” That’s a good, clear, sound, and transparent admonition, which reminds us that Christianity is not a spectator sport, but a way of life marked by faith, hope, and the greatest of these: love. That’s the truth, and that makes us different from all the screeners and spectators around us, who are busy watching rather than doing. And being different from all of them is OK, because loving also requires distinctiveness. Now, not everyone wants to be distinctive. I haven’t always wanted to be. I remember being in Sixth grade and wanting more than anything else in the world, to be just like everyone else. To avoid being distinctive. I don’t think I had any opinions of my own. I don’t know what kind of shoes I actually liked. I just wanted the kind of shoes that everyone else had, even though they cost about $125. I remember asking my Mom to buy them for me. She wouldn’t, and probably said something like, “Joe, don’t you know that you don’t need those shoes to be special. You’re so special just as you are.” That’s love talking, and maybe love won’t get you through Sixth grade, but it will get you through life, and in this life, we cannot be afraid of what makes us distinctive. You may know already that the word “distinctive” is the key word Jeff Bezos used in his last letter delivered to Amazon shareholders He said that there are all these pressures to conform to this world, and conforming, while it might make life temporarily easier and less conflictual, it actually leads to death. Quoting a book called, “The Blind Watchmaker,” by Richard Dawkins, Bezos reminds us that, Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at. Left to itself the body tends to revert to a state of equilibrium with its environment. Our bodies, for instance, are usually hotter than our surroundings, and in cold climates they have to work hard to maintain the differential. When we die the work stops, the temperature differential starts to disappear, and we end up the same temperature as our surroundings. This is a powerful quote, and I’m thankful that Dr. Jeffrey Meeks emailed me the article about Bezos where it’s quoted, because it points to our Christian calling, which is: to be set apart, to be distinctive, to be citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven even while living in established countries on the earth, and the only way we’ll be able to do it is if we know so well that we are loved and accepted by God that we stop working so hard to be loved and accepted by the world. Right now, the Church is getting all torn up again about who is in and who is out. Who can be loved and who can’t be? In the Marietta Daily Journal, I read about a preacher who spoke right to his son before the congregation during the worship service, “Son, I want you to know that your father wouldn’t kiss the bishops ring or kneel to the liberal theology sweeping this denomination which is really no theology at all.” He said this to his son to thunderous applause, and it made me very afraid and worried, because the most loving things are done when God is the only one there to applaud. Love so often comes without an obvious reward. Just yesterday I heard a sermon about that from Rev. Chelsie Wait who is one of the pastors at Ebenezer Baptist Church. She told a story about a 10-year-old boy whose mother asked him to do some chores around the house, even though he really didn’t want to do them. Finally, she said, “I’m going for a walk, and when I get back, they had better be done.” Well, she walked back in the house and they were. The whole house was clean, but there was a note on the counter, which turned out to be a bill. Took out the trash - $5.00. Cleaned the windows - $25.00. Vacuumed the kitchen - $10.00. Scrubbed the toilets - $35.00. The total came in to $75.00, which this mother wasn’t going to pay. Instead, she wrote a bill of her own to her son: Carried you around in my womb for 40 weeks – free. Labored for 5 hours – free. Changed all your diapers – free. Fed you, soothed you, even in the middle of the night – free. This is what love is. Love is active. It is doing, not watching, and so often it is done without celebration or applause. Mothers know that, perhaps better than anyone. Fathers are still learning it. I started picking up our girls from school on Wednesdays, and for the first two times I couldn’t remember to bring my numbers. When I finally got it right with my pick-up numbers proudly displayed, I pointed them out to Ms. Williams who runs the pick-up line and who is the twin sister of Stacy Jenson, one of our newest members. Expecting her to applaud for having showed up well prepared she said to me, “What do you want, a parade, for doing the minimum of what’s required?” I do, because some of us want a parade, but mothers know that love doesn’t often get you a parade, and most of the time love requires sacrifice, instead, which is much more like the love of God than anything else. The Lord, who sacrificed everything for us, his love looks like a mother’s love in the sense that to love a child, you have to allow a part, maybe several parts, of yourself to die. You have to let your independence die because a little child is completely dependent on you. You have to let your freedom die, because you aren’t free. Everywhere you go your heart is tied to someone else. You have to let your privacy die because you can’t even use the bathroom alone if there’s newborn in the house. My children walked in on me when I was in the shower yesterday, and a little part of my dignity died, and their eyes are still burning. But that’s what love is, and so those who don’t know much about it aren’t dying necessarily but that hardly means they’re living. In this terribly superficial and divided world where it can be so difficult to know what to do and what to say and where it becomes so easy just to conform, I realize that the love our Second Scripture Lesson calls us to is an active and risky thing: “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments.” As you think about that verse, think about how loving feels, and the next time you are faced with a choice between staying quiet and safe or speaking the truth of your heart you’ll know exactly what you should do. I remember those times I listened to love and risked something. It was scary, but love is scary. It’s the difference between doing what is easy and doing what is right. It’s the difference between doing what is popular and what is true. It’s the difference between slowly dying and really living. It’s the difference between watching and doing what we are called to do as his disciples. On this Mother’s Day think about those women who have loved you, and don’t just think of their hugs. Think about their terribly dangerous and sacrificial love and go and do likewise. Amen.

Savior, Like a Shepherd, Lead Us

Scripture Lessons: John 10: 11-18 and 1 John 3: 16-24 Sermon Title: Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us Preached on April 25, 2021 The great religions of the world have so much in common, but there are differences of course, which, along with the many similarities, are also important to pay attention to. For example, last Wednesday morning I was honored to attend a breakfast meeting of local religious leaders hosted by Roswell Street Baptist Church. A new friend of mine, Rabbi Larry Sernovitz of Temple Kol Emeth was there, and as the two of us were talking about the incredible pair of shoes he had on, a woman handed him his breakfast: hash brown casserole and bacon. This was a moment of difference, which was addressed, politely resolved, and would have been foolish to ignore. For in order for us to eat together, we can’t ignore the reality that not all foods are Kosher and so we don’t all eat the same things. That’s important to think about. That’s how it is. We can’t allow what’s different to divide us, we can’t be ignorant of what might offend our friends and neighbors, and there are also moments when what makes us unique is worth celebrating. Think about what all makes us unique and different from Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Muslims. One unique Christian attribute among many is the image of the shepherd. It is an image of God, a metaphor for understanding the divine which we share with our Jewish brothers and sisters. The image of the Shepherd runs throughout today’s worship service from the Call to Worship, the Prayer of Confession, First and Second Scripture Lessons, and all the music that we’ve heard. This image is most associated with the 23rd Psalm which belonged to the Jewish faith long before Hobby Lobby ever put it on a wall hanging or a beach towel. You think I’m kidding about that, but you can get Psalm 23 on a beach towel, though where it really belongs is in our hearts and captured by our minds so that we can recall it when we need it most, for when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death it is imperative that we remember who is with us. Whenever a Christian thinks about what it means to know who God is, it is a comfort to go back to those most worderful words which Cheryl, Chohee, Will, and Jeffrey put to music so beautifully: The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me. I could go on reading this psalm. It is a sermon in and of itself, but I want to stop right there to point out this defining characteristic of our religion which is there in the last phrase I read. Namely, that in our faith, to survive, to have salvation, to live, is to be not alone. Think about it: What is it that comforts the sheep? It is the presence of the shepherd. And what does the shepherd do, especially for those who wander from the fold, who find themselves lost and alone? The shepherd finds them. The shepherd walks with them. The shepherd brings them back into community. The shepherd restores the isolated into the family of faith. The shepherd seeks out those who are alone so that they won’t be alone any longer. That’s different from some other religions. Being restored into the community is a different goal from what many are steadily working towards, for some are working towards the peace and quiet of solitude rather than the noise and bickering of the Father’s House. I’m thinking now of the enlightened mystic who has discovered the secrets to the universe by quieting the mind. I have this image of a hermit guru who sits on top of a mountain, resentful of those who climb up to ask him the meaning of life. In fact, this image was in a political cartoon just this morning in the AJC. These figures which we see from time to time in the movies or elsewhere are based on real people, like Vijay Gopala who recently spent 17 years living in meditative silence in an Indian forest, or the Buddha who sat under a bodhi tree for 49 days straight. They are the great adherents of Hindu and Buddhist ascetism. We know that such a strain exists in Christianity, and even Christ himself went out to the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, but salvation for us looks a little bit less like the mountain top guru’s enlightenment, because for us, we receive the answers we seek once we’ve made it back to the flock, not when we’ve removed ourselves from them. We see this in Scripture. It’s there in both of today’s Scripture readings as well as so many others. In the Bible there are so many accounts of God’s people finding their way back to community, and so there is a son who wanders off, spends his inheritance, and once he’s broke all his fair-weather friends leave him to make a living sloping the hogs. This is a version of hell in our religion. To be lost, alone, and far from home, is the opposite of where God thinks we ought to be, and so to be saved by God is something like what we see in this son’s father, who embraces him and restores him into a community. The same is true of Jonah, who tries to run away but keeps being brought back to people, even people who he doesn’t like very much. Likewise, Moses leaves Egypt but must return to his tribe because that’s just how it is. Again, and again, this is the story. Ruth and Naomi find their way to a new homeland and a new community. The lost coin is found, the lost sheep gets back to the flock, the lost son finds his way home. Our God is a shepherd who tries to get us back into groups where we’ll finally be happy. Only think about this for a minute: how many of us think that we’ll only really be happy once we’ve gotten away from everybody? I have a friend who once told me that he went to visit his father in his new home out west. His dad is retired, divorced, and wealthy, so he left everything and everyone to live on top of a mountain in a cabin overlooking a valley. Apparently, it is the most picturesque prison you’ve ever seen. My friends, in which direction is your life headed? Are you moving towards community or away from it? After 14 months of pandemic functioning, do you even remember how to be around people? That’s OK if you don’t because all of us are a little awkward right now but remember this: when it comes to our faith moving towards others is moving towards salvation while moving away is like walking towards hell. So, I worry about our culture all the time. I worry about which religion has really taken our nation over. The social fabric of our society strains under the weight of deferred maintenance on basic human relationships. The institutions which once held us together are neglected. The poor live out of sight from the rich. The imprisoned are locked behind doors and punished with solitary confinement. Add on top of that the fear of a virus, which still keeps many of us home. Plus, our response to that same virus divides us between those who wear masks and those who don’t. In the midst of all of that I can’t help but think that we have forgotten how to get along, but not only that, we have forgotten what it means to be Christian. Some people, maybe many people, believe that being a Christian can be reduced down to a few simple standards of belief, and so they’ll say that we’re no longer a Christian country because we no longer believe all the same things that we used to. However, let us not forget what lies at the core of who we are and who we know God to be: from the 23rd Psalms to the story of the Prodigal Son, we know that our God is a God of relationship, and that the divine is present whenever two or more are gathered together. We must never think that being solid in our convictions but isolated and alone is the picture of one who follows Jesus. For to be Christian means to be restored in community, and to work for the restoration of all God’s children. We cannot be Christians all by ourselves. It says it right there in our Second Scripture Lesson: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 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 to help?” That’s a good question, and we must not make it to complicated, because we don’t have to look very far these days to find people who are in need. I imagine you can think of someone who needs what you have to offer just right across the street. Just think about it. There is now a ministry of loneliness in the United Kingdom. The government has organized to do something about what some consider to be a loneliness crisis believing that being lonely for a day is as bad for your body as smoking 15 cigarettes. Have you ever thought about that? How some of your neighbors only leave the house to go to the grocery store. How some folks on your street walk outside to get the mail and just pray that someone will walk by who can call them by name. That’s true for far too many people, in our county and even in our church, but this has always been true because there have always been those who find their way into isolation and don’t know how to break out of it. There was once a priest who decided that he’d go visit the entire congregation, so house by house he went, until finally he reached a place way out on the outskirts of town. The man who lived there hadn’t been to the church in years. In ages. He didn’t have any use for it he said, but the priest asked if he might just warm up by the man’s fire. There the priest moved one coal with the poker away from the rest and began asking the man questions about his wife, who had died, and his children, who had moved away. They went on talking for a while, and then the priest drew the man’s attention to the coal, which had gone out having been moved away from the others, and he said, “the fire within us burns brighter when we join with the family of faith from time to time.” Reach out to someone today before the light goes out from within them, and when you do, feel the light burn a little brighter within you. Amen.