How Can These Things Be? (Sermon)

“How Can These Things Be?”

John 3:1-15

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

5/30/21 — Trinity Sunday

 

Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. ² He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.”

³Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.”

⁴ Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?”

⁵Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. ⁶ What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.  ⁷ Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

⁹ Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?”

¹⁰ Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

¹¹ “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. ¹² If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. ¹⁴ And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵ that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. (NRSV)

 

         Nicodemus, a Jewish leader of some standing and influence, comes to talk with Jesus. Because this encounter doesn’t happen in a vacuum, let’s remember that Jesus has just done something unthinkable. Immediately prior to today’s text, Jesus runs the moneychangers out of the temple.

The moneychangers were there to facilitate Passover rituals. They were there to help pilgrims who had traveled from far and wide to exchange their local currencies for the currency they needed to pay taxes and to purchase animals for the sacrifice of atonement. This long-standing tradition was considered, for the most part, both necessary and helpful for the temple and the worshipers.

We can imagine how, in the minds of the Jewish leadership, Jesus’ actions attack the legitimacy of temple authority, the sanctity of Passover, and, therefore, the integrity of the Jewish faith itself. With this grave offense still a raw wound for religious leaders, Nicodemus’ desire to meet Jesus as something of an equal constitutes a significant risk. So, while concealing himself under the cloak of night may seem cowardly, it only says that Nicodemus understands the potential consequences of his actions.

Having said that, Nicodemus’ questions also suggest that his faith lacks depth and heart. Sure, he’s curious enough to go see Jesus, but self-preservation appears to be his first concern. And even when he hears directly from Jesus, he’s unwilling to commit himself to Jesus.

It seems to me that such is often the case when what we desire in matters of faith is a level of certainty that faith, by definition, does not offer. Thus does Nicodemus ask his frustrated question, “How can these things be?” Thinking literally and selfishly, he can’t imagine what Jesus means when he speaks of being “born from above” and “born of water and Spirit.” He can’t see the connection to his own life when Jesus says that “the wind blows where it chooses” without needing any kind of permission or explanation from human beings.

To Nicodemus’ question, Jesus says something that may sound insulting, but which I consider revealing and empowering. “Are you a teacher of Israel,” he says, “and yet you do not understand these things?”

The implication is that, as “a teacher of Israel,” Nicodemus has all the spiritual, theological, and priestly tools he needs to make sense of what Jesus is saying. If Nicodemus will listen with his heart to the stories he tells, and if he will feel, with his whole body, the rituals he practices, then what Jesus says and does should make sense. At their core, all those stories and rituals are sacred portals between this world and the eternal kingdom of God which Jesus has come to announce and reveal.

The same is true for us. Our stories and our communal rituals of prayer, worship, communion, service, and care for one another, and our work for justice in the world are not ends in themselves. We listen and look through these things to experience and to share the dynamic mystery we call God.

John seems to be saying that, for first century Jews, the rituals themselves had become idols because they had become the focus. Like closed windows, they kept the unpredictable but life-giving Spirit-wind at bay. So, when their faith had been reduced to religious business, the temple became a “marketplace,” a place consumed by consumerism, a place where profit and power rather than God were deified. And when Jesus called the status quo into question by clearing the temple of all of that well-intentioned but heart-darkening sin, then perhaps, somewhere deep within Nicodemus’ atrophied spirit, something began to stir. With the veil still covering his eyes, he creeps through the darkness to acknowledge that Jesus has some special connection to the holiness that the Jewish leaders were supposed to teach, but which they apparently don’t understand.

This returns us to Nicodemus’ honest but rather feeble question: “How can these things be?”

In The Message, Eugene Peterson paraphrased Jesus’ response to Nicodemus this way: “You’re a respected teacher of Israel and you don’t know these basics? Listen carefully. I’m speaking sober truth to you. I speak only of what I know by experience…There is nothing secondhand here…Yet instead of facing the evidence and accepting it, you procrastinate with questions. If I tell you things that are plain as the hand before your face and you don’t believe me, what use is there in telling you of things you can’t see, the things of God?”

In this encounter, Jesus invites Nicodemus—and all of us—to experience God in the concrete realities of human existence. That’s why the Judeo-Christian tradition tells stories and practices things like Passover and communion. Stories have characters, plot, humor, conflict, tension-and-release. And our rituals hinge on concrete elements—bread, wine, water—things that can be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted.

The material stuff of Creation is itself a spiritual gift from God. It’s an outpouring of God. It’s only when we divorce the “flesh” from the “spirit” that the flesh becomes problematic, something to exploit, or worse, something to judge and condemn. So, while we proclaim Jesus to be the incarnation of God’s eternal Christ, the “earthly things” Jesus speaks of are the first incarnation of God. That’s why Paul can say to the Romans, “Ever since the creation of the world, [God’s] eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things that [God] has made.” (Romans 1:20) Being human, Nicodemus saw all those concrete realities. He just seems to have missed the holiness in them.

In his book The Universal Christ, Richard Rohr echoes Paul, saying, “Everything visible, without exception, is the outpouring of God.”¹ And the Christ, whom John and others call “the light of the world,” is the one through whom human beings see that innate holiness in the Creation. Light, observes Rohr, is not something we see, but that by which we see.² The Christ, then, is the light by which we see that same Christ in other people and in the created order as a whole. So, Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, Until you’re willing to see God through me, no explanation I give you will help you.

In refusing to let Nicodemus off the hook, Jesus invites him to claim the gracious gift of faith, that is, the spiritual eyesight that sees the holy, eternal, and affirming presence of God in all things. For Nicodemus, and for us, that means taking the risk to trust something that cannot be proven, but which can—through faith, hope, and love—be seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted in the joys and the challenges of human existence.

As human beings, and as people of faith, we have the tools to experience God’s holiness. So, may we open our eyes, ears, hands, noses, and mouths to the presence of God and of God’s eternal Christ. And may we remain humbly aware of the holiness in ourselves and gratefully aware of it in those around us, so that our hearts become sails that catch the wind of God’s Spirit as it moves us from darkness to light, from apathy to action, and from clay-footed certainty to bright-winged faith.

 

¹Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope for, and Believe. Convergent Books, NY, 2019. p. 13.

²Ibid. p 14.

Here I Am (Sermon)

 

“Here I Am”

Exodus 3:1-15

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

5/16/21

 

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ²There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. ³Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.”

⁴When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!”

And he said, “Here I am.”

⁵Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

⁶He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

⁷Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, ⁸and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ⁹The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. ¹⁰So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”

¹¹But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

¹²He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.”

¹³But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?”

¹⁴God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.”

He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

¹⁵God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.” (NRSV)

 

      There’s a gospel connection lurking in this ancient text. Listen to the revealing harmony as we overlay portions of two biblical stories:

      “Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro…”

      “In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night.” (Luke 2:8)

      “There an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire…”

      “Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them…” (Luke 2:9)

      “[God] said, ‘I will be with you; and this shall be a sign for you…when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.’”

      “This will be sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God…” (Luke 2:12-13)

      “Then Moses said, ‘I must turn aside and look at this great sight…’”

      “The shepherds said to one another, ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place.’” (Luke 2:15)

      “Then the Lord said, ‘I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry…I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them…’”

      “My soul magnifies the Lord, for the Mighty One has…brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly…” (Luke 1:46 & 52)

      Jesus is often called the “Second Moses.” It seems fitting, then, that the stories of Moses’ call and of Jesus’ birth mirror each other so closely. What’s more, they are two of many biblical reminders that God’s call tends to surface in the midst of wilderness—whether geographical or spiritual. And that call often evokes an eager response.

      “Here I am,” says Moses.

      “Here I am,” says Samuel.

      “Here I am,” says Isaiah.

      “Here I am,” says Mary.

      “Here I am,” says Ananias.

      In most of these stories, the Here I am character experiences a kind of existential hiccup. Moses hiccups when his Here I am becomes, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh…?”

      Does that feel like familiar ground? To say, “Yes!” then, “Wait! Who am I to do that?” If it does feel like familiar ground, it is also, says God, “holy ground.” And a fruitful journey through the holy land of Here I am to Who am I? and back again requires openness, humility, and a fierce hope.

We see that in the conversation between God and Moses. On the holy ground of call and response, the Who am I? question marks the moment when Moses confronts the demands of new responsibility. And it’s a profoundly intimate moment. Take your shoes off, says God. Moses receives his call barefooted—that is to say, exposed, vulnerable, and dependent on grace.

      After getting Moses’ attention with a sight that defies reason, God turns and calls Moses to work that is even less plausible than a burning bush, and far more frightening—Go tell Pharaoh to free the Hebrew slaves.

God then assures Moses with a sign that isn’t particularly assuring. When Moses has completed his task, he and the Hebrews will worship right where he now stands barefooted and overwhelmed. This “sign” is not some good luck charm or a compass to guide him. It’s a promise toward which Moses must both live and lead others. It’s an invitation to pure trust. And isn’t that appropriate? Forgive the cliché, but the life of faith really is a journey—a journey of risk, and discovery, and hope. And Moses isn’t buying it.

      The Hebrews won’t believe me, he says. I was raised in Pharaoh’s house! Plus, I’m wanted by Pharaoh for murdering an Egyptia!. Can you at least give me a letter of reference or something?

      Getting all existential, God says: Tell them my name is I AM WHO I AM. Tell them I AM sent you—the I AM of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I AM the one who was, and is, and is to come. Now go.

      Having been raised in an Egyptian household, Moses’ well of Hebrew memories isn’t even damp at the bottom. But maybe hearing God say I AM stirs something elemental within him, something that begins to remind him of the old story of Abram who leaves when God says, “Go.”

      God’s call for Moses to free the Israelites is also a call to establish a brand-new set of memories by which God’s people may live into new hope. And through the long and ragged arc of Here I am’s and Who am I’s, I AM eventually speaks another word: Emmanuel. Through Jesus of Nazareth, God says, I AM with you, in person. And so, the ongoing Exodus of Creation continues.

      Humankind is always somewhere on the Exodus continuum. We’re either slaving away in some Pharaoh-possessed kingdom. Or we’re crossing some sea trying to escape it. Or we’re chasing former slaves and trying to capture and oppress them all over again. Or we’re building golden calves because pillars and clouds don’t persuade us anymore. Or we’re simply wandering about, and complaining about the food.

Sometimes, though, we’re settling in to new ways of life, new and more edifying ways of being in relationship with God, with each other, and with the earth. Remembering the faithfulness of God, we look hopefully toward a future we can’t yet see, but which we trust because we trust that we didn’t get to wherever we are completely on our own.

      Here in the early 21^st century, being the Church is no easy calling. Sometimes the best we can do in our wilderness is to throw up our hands and say, “Here we are,” then work through every “Who are we?” moment with memoried grace. So, we keep telling the stories, trusting that God is creating, through us, new and renewing memories for generations to come.

      The issues that plague our wilderness may seem irresolvable, but they will, in time, find resolution, because just as God called Moses to address the issue of Hebrew slavery and oppression, God is calling us to address the issues of our generation—issues which do, in part, define our era. And because Jesus himself did, as Mary said, bring down the mighty from their thrones and lift up the lowly, the Body of Christ must, in my opinion, exercise a voice in addressing things like poverty, violence, racial injustice, and environmental justice.

Having said that, the issues themselves do not define us. We are defined by how we deal with one another in the midst of them. And until we, as followers of Jesus, answer God’s call to deal with each other as God deals with us in Jesus, we may never truly experience the peace that passes understanding.

      To use Mary’s words again: “In remembrance of [God’s] mercy, according to the promise [God] made to our ancestors,” (Luke 1:54b-55a) let us say to God, Here we are. Then let us be resolved to be defined by our Here I am of openness to God, and by our Christlike love for each another and for all Creation.

Future Tense (Sermon)

“Future Tense”

Isaiah 40:1-11

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

5/9/21

 

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. ²Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

³A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. ⁴Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. ⁵Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

⁶A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. ⁷The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. ⁸The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.

⁹Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah, “Here is your God!” ¹⁰See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. ¹¹He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep. (NRSV)

 

         The Babylonians had conquered Jerusalem and scattered the Israelites to every corner of the empire. Nebuchadnezzar wanted to re-program the Hebrews, to breed the Jewishness right out of them. That is to say, he wanted to erase their memory. The formative people, places, and events of the past would no longer be part of their identity. From that point on, the Hebrews would have one endless Babylonian present.

It didn’t work. The people kept telling their stories.

The Israelites passed the stories of their faith from generation to generation not to mire themselves in the past, not to hold onto some impossible wish that things would return to “the way they used to be.” Sharing their spiritual history was an act of subversive faith. It prepared and empowered the community for embracing God’s ever-changing and always-becoming Creation.

The Hebrews’ God-memories followed them like a dust cloud and led them like a pillar of fire. Their spiritual memory transformed despair into hope and defeat into new beginnings. It said that while today may be burdened with suffering, nonetheless, we trust that the future is rich with possibility because we have experienced God’s faithfulness over and over.

Memory is crucial. It’s the soil in which faith grows. And the future is the harvest, so, the future tense is the mother tongue of faith.

         Isaiah 40 begins what most scholars call Second Isaiah, and this new voice speaks directly to Hebrews languishing in exile. It starts with encouragement, “Comfort, O comfort my people.” Then Second Isaiah shows his prophetic empathy saying that things are so painful as to be unjust. In what can sound like an indictment of God, he says, Israel has “received…double for all her sins.” Nonetheless, despair does not define Israel's future.

         It’s interesting, faithlessness often comes disguised as pragmatism. That's just the way the world works. It is what it is. Learn to live with it. Because the future can’t be known or guaranteed, pragmatism won’t trust it. From time to time, most of us wallow in that empty place of seeing only what seems to be. In a place of faithlessness, one can justify all manner of fearful speech, violent behavior, self-righteous prejudice and certainty. Life often seems safer and more reasonable when we avoid the future tense of faith. And yet, to people in exile, Isaiah offers a word to counter the apparent reasonableness of hope-choking faithlessness.

         “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level…Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together.”

         Such hope can sound foolish. And it certainly isn’t the experience of the Hebrews’ day-to-day existence in exile. As Isaiah speaks, though, his words flood their hearts like light flooding into a house that has been shuttered for years. By invoking the future tense, the prophet invites the people to return not just to Jerusalem, but to a posture of expectant faith. Empowered by memory, gratitude, and hope, faith declares the future to be a realm in which all that is broken will be healed, all that is unjust will be made just, and all that is violent and destructive will be redeemed by God’s promised Shalom.

         Today’s text from Isaiah is a staple of Advent, and during Advent we focus on waiting and preparing. Advent is about more than preparing for Christmas, though. Advent is a liturgical metaphor for the life of faith itself. It’s about committing ourselves to the long, difficult work of living today in the light of God’s promise that exile is not forever. So, when Isaiah says, “Get you up to a high mountain…lift up your voice with strength…say to the cities of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’”, he’s saying that God’s future has begun. And he’s calling Israel to live in God’s future—today.

         No, things are not perfect, not for the Hebrews, and not for us. And while we’re made in the image God, we’re only an image. We wither and fade like flowers and grass. Yet even now—inasmuch as we live with humility, love with compassion, and work for justice—we do proclaim to the world, “Here is your God!”

         The past year has burdened us with a kind of captivity. We’ve had to mask, distance, quarantine, Zoom, and wait throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. And the experience isn’t over, but we’re finally hearing words of comfort. We’re finally hearing intimations of a new future opening up. Just like the stories of exile would remain with the Hebrews, stories of the pandemic will remain with us. Indeed, all indications are that the virus itself will remain with us. But thanks be to God for modern medical science, we and our descendants will be able to receive vaccinations against and, perhaps, increasingly effective treatments for Covid-19.

         The few individuals present in this sanctuary today represent this congregation’s first steps toward a return of the whole to public worship, fellowship, and service. Jonesborough Presbyterian hardly has the same significance to the Christian faith that Jerusalem did to Hebrew exiles in Babylon; nonetheless, today is a future-tense utterance of our collective faith that God is always with us.

Two things about that: First, there’s a very real sense in which today is less a return than a continuation. I’ve been delighted by, encouraged by, and at times in awe of the way this congregation has not stopped doing ministry. You haven’t stopped having ministry team meetings. You haven’t stopped loving and caring for each other. You haven’t stopped supporting the food pantry, Family Promise, Loaves and Fishes, the Day Reporting Center, and other outreach ministries. You haven’t stopped tithing. You haven’t stopped caring for this building. Those of you who can, haven’t stopped worshiping online or in the parking lot. In short, you have not stopped being Jonesborough Presbyterian Church. And I thank God for all of you!

Second, while today marks a return, it’s not a return to the way things were. It’s a new beginning. Too much has happened over the last year. Our faith stories and our human story have experienced too much since March of 2020. As we return, then, let’s expect to find some new life to live and to share. Let’s expect some new work to do. God doesn’t see us through painful times just to return us to some comfortable status quo. When God redeems the past, God also prepares us for some new and deeper calling. And whatever that calling may be, it has to do with lifting up valleys and leveling rough places.

It has to do, as Amos said, with doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God.

It has to do with participating in God’s ongoing redemption of the Creation.

It has to do with welcoming all human beings into God’s fold of holiness and wholeness.

I’m different than I was a year ago, and I bet most of you are, too. As we, one step at a time, move beyond pandemic exile, let’s discover our new selves. And let’s embrace our call to bear a bold new witness to the already-and-not-yet realm of God’s justice and peace.

A Model of Goodness (Sermon)

 “A Model of Goodness”
John 10:11-17

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

5/2/21

 

¹¹“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. ¹²The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. ¹³The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. ¹⁴I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, ¹⁵just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.¹⁶I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. ¹⁷For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.  (NRSV)

 

         It’s an affirmation all of us have heard in one context or another: “She’s a good woman.” “He’s a good man.” “They’re good kids.” I really like it when someone says to a specific individual, “You’re good people.” When spoken to one person, that folksy phrase affirms not only that person; it affirms that person’s community. It also embraces and welcomes that person and his/her people into the community of the one pronouncing goodness.

         Goodness, though, is a relative concept. Different people and groups can have diametrically opposed understandings of goodness. What I consider good, someone else may consider foolish or even bad. Such variances are all-too-evident in today’s world. And while it is truly good to span the gulfs of disagreement, the true goodness of reconciliation and redemption never happens quickly or easily. Such goodness requires that those in conflict surrender to principles and practices that will lead them in ways of reconciliation and redemption. And that takes the leadership of people who have committed themselves to doing good work, to living as agents of goodness, even when they, in their imperfect selves, aren’t always as good as the work they do.

         In today’s text, Jesus calls himself the “good shepherd.” And it’s interesting: While the Church has, for millennia, taught that Jesus was “perfect,” according to Mark and Luke, Jesus rejected the goodness label.

Mark and Luke record an encounter Jesus has with a man (traditionally called “the rich young ruler”) who asks, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Why do you call me good?” says Jesus. “God alone is good.” And look, you know what to do, anyway—follow God’s commandments.

Oh, I do that, says the man.

Then Jesus broadsides the man’s self-assured ego saying, Okay. So, now you lack only one thing. Go, sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and then come and follow me.

The man walks away in distress. He’s too comfortable in his wealth, too secure in his public influence to embrace the kind of deep goodness into which Jesus calls him and desires to lead him. (Mark 10:17ff and Luke 18:18ff)

In John 10, Jesus appears to embrace the label of goodness. Twice he calls himself the “good shepherd.” According to most commentators, though, the word usually translated “good” is better translated as “model.”¹ Jesus is the model shepherd. To model something means to enact behaviors consistent with an ideal. Goodness is itself an ideal, a deep and abiding essence.

Now, I’m not saying that Jesus wasn’t good. I’m saying that, according to the text, when Jesus claims to be the “good shepherd,” he declares something very specific. He declares himself trustworthy. He promises to lead by example—by demonstrating justice, righteousness, and love. Like a “good shepherd,” Jesus will lead his followers to green pastures and still waters. He will reconcile them with their enemies. And he will accompany them through every painful, death-shadowed valley.

Returning to the rich young man: As he walks away, we can almost hear him saying to himself, Give up all my comfort, power, and privilege, and actually, physically follow Jesus and live like him? No thank you! I’m no sheep!

We can understand his reluctance, can’t we? As citizens of a nation that consumes far more than its share of the world’s resources, and that has the capacity to exert planet-altering influence, we don’t like to think of ourselves as sheep, either. The steep down-side to privilege and self-determination is the sense of entitlement that comes with those luxuries, and which usually presents as the sin of pride.

In the list of the seven deadly sins, pride is almost universally considered “the original and most serious” sin. It’s regarded as the source of and inspiration for all other sins.²

Those who claim to be leaders but who lead people from a posture of pride, are, according to Jesus, “hired hands.” And hired hands are concerned only for themselves.

Hired hands committed to wealth and power seldom lead. They manipulate and coerce.

Hired hands don’t make contributions to causes or communities. They make investments. They do favors for which they expect favors in return. 

Hired hands don’t really make friends. They just make allies for future endeavors.

Averse to real responsibility, hired hands will take credit, but will almost never admit fault.

Because hired hands must win at any cost, reconciliation and redemption are signs of weakness.

And when the chips are down, hired hands abandon the flock. They never learn what it means to save one’s life by losing it. 

Prior to the resurrection, Simon Peter was a hired hand. He claimed to follow Jesus, but he refused to accept that Jesus would die. He refused to accept that Jesus should wash the disciples’ feet. And on Friday, in undeniable hired-hand fashion, he denied Jesus three times. After the resurrection, Peter, still brash and flawed, begins to live into a new way of being, a new way of leading the people whom Jesus led. Eventually, Peter himself becomes a model of the “model shepherd.” And according to tradition, he also lays down his life on behalf of the good shepherd and his flock.

One thing that makes the good shepherd truly good is that he recognizes the universality of his flock. “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold,” says Jesus. No single sheep and no one fold can claim exclusive right to the “one shepherd.” The voice known by all sheep, whoever they are, is the good shepherd’s voice—the voice of compassion, justice, community, and peace. And by peace, I mean that wholeness and holiness that come from recognizing the sacredness in all Creation and working to reveal it and preserve it. When we share the peace of Christ with each other, it is that reconciling, redeeming peace we share.

When Jesus says that his sheep hear and know his voice, he affirms our essential nature as creatures made in the image of God. So, he’s saying to each of us, “You’re good people.” He lays claim to and welcomes every one of us.

         While Jesus’ voice does comfort us, even more so does it challenge us. It calls us to lay aside our selfish pride and to follow him—completely—in humble and grateful service on behalf of those whose lives are tortured by poverty or oppression, who are tormented with mental and emotional despair, who are burdened with physical pain, and even those who are blinded by hired-hand pride.

Friends, the “good shepherd” knows you and claims you. He claims all of us, because he knows that deep down, beneath all of the suffering and all of the bluster, beats the heart of the Beloved.

May you listen for and hear the shepherd’s voice.

May you model your life after his life and his ways of seeking, evoking, and embracing the goodness in yourself and in those around you.

And in following the good shepherd, may we all be reconciled and redeemed.

 

¹Sarah Heinrich, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Year B, Vol. 2. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors. Westminster John Knox Press, 2008. p. 451.

²https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins#Pride