![Picture](/uploads/5/3/1/4/53145165/published/l23-goodshepherd-large-1_1.jpg?1524495227)
Peter JB Carman
Emmanuel Friedens Church,
Schenectady New York
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Readings: Psalm 23; I John 3:16-24
I.
Half a lifetime ago, when I was just starting as a minister, Julie, a woman about age thirty, let us know she was ready to be baptized.
Julie, who attended the church for years, there in Pittsfield Massachusetts, had Down’s syndrome. She was someone who lived in a group home, after having been “de-institutionalized,” as they used to say. She was an active participant in our “Friendship Class”. The Friendship Class was an adult Sunday School class made up of about a dozen people who were residents in local ARC houses. The Friendship Class also hosted dances once a month at the church. These dances were the social highlight of my time in Pittsfield.
But we were talking about Julie. And wanting to be baptized and join the church. Someone was concerned. Someone thought: Julie might not understand what baptism meant or what joining a church meant. Someone else thought she was doing this to please others, and it wasn’t something that meant anything to her. It wasn’t many people, just a couple. But the talk caused a minor stir.
Dale Lock, our pastor, was pretty unflappable, and, having served in the military in two wars, and as a pastor amongst the Baptists for twenty years, rather experienced with conflict. When he heard the controversy around the edges on Sunday morning, he got serious. He said simply, “Let’s ask Julie how she understands who God is…” So, Dale went to Julie then and there. Dale never walked slow. We flew up two flights of stairs. I tagged along. Dale found Julie, sat down with her, and asked her in a straightforward and loving and non-inquisitorial way, “Julie, who is God to you?”
Julie didn’t hesitate at all. One word came from her lips. But she spoke it with power and clarity. “Love.” That was all she said. That was all she needed to say. “Love.”
I remember after Julie spoke there was a brief and sacred pause. And then Dale spoke clearly, spoke with the same love he had heard. “That’s plenty good enough for me.”
You could see that Julie had met love—though not so much from the hands of human beings, for her life had been full of rejection, touched by neglect and abuse. I don’t know where Julie had met love. But she knew it inwardly and outwardly. Julie could live love. Julie knew God more directly than most of us. Maybe it just came down to a simple relationship of trust placed in a power who is there when nobody else is, yea, even in the valley of the death-shadow. Maybe she had met the One who is the real thing, the one willing to give up life itself, for the sake of the flock, for the sake of friends of every shape and every family and every unfair label. Love.
II.
The question that Dale asked Julie, and the one word answer she gave him, have blessed me for years. They have also provoked a second simple query for me and you today. How do we respond to this love we have received? How can we share this love?
The first letter of John raises the same question and offers a deep answer in the same breath: “We know love by this, that he [Jesus] 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 help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”
It’s time to reclaim the God of love, in these troubled days. It is urgent. So much of Christianity is broadcasting the wrong message. So many American Church leaders seem to have lost their way, lost touch with the good shepherd and the good path-. We are in danger of trading back the 23rd psalm and the marvelous vision of John’s first letter for a hard, mechanical, terrifying God: a God who justifies wars, plays chess with human life, and turns the children of God into rejects, instead of welcoming each one to the banquet table of mercy and grace!
It’s been for generations this way: those who do not fit classified out; those who follow another faith branded heretics or infidels; those who disagree called names like radical and traitor. We can’t pooh-pooh it. The attitudes of leaders trickle down. When leaders spew suspicion and fear, the people listen and do the same. Money rarely trickles down, but bad attitudes do.
It is important that you and I be very clear, in word and attitude and deed—In the name of Jesus of Nazareth… in the name of friends who have taught a better way, we insist. We claim the message of love in truth and action. We live it like Jesus, dance it like my friend Julie.
Everywhere we go we meet people who feel their lives are worthless or worth little, who are convinced that the path they are on is random or ugly or must be walked under compulsion and guilt. Some days that might even describe you or me!
But there is a God, a living Spirit who wants better for us. The traditional translation of Psalm 23 says “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” But try interpreting it this way: “surely goodness and mercy will chase me down, will search me out and find me…” When you are feeling far from anything holy, anything lovely; when you are feeling lost and afraid, here’s the good news: love will find you. Love will search you out. Love will carry you home.
You and I need to be part of the affirmation crowd. We need to say to those who have been shut out, put down, labelled sinners: “I apologize for all the church voices of condemnation you may have heard, and that echo in your head—these are full of lies. I am sorry the denomination to which I belong has hurt you in the name of Jesus. And you many not trust me, because I too carry that Christian brand-label which has been misused, to hurt…. But I know you are the beloved child of God—I know you are welcome at the table. I know you know Love as well or better than I do.” We need to be part of the affirmation crowd, the love crowd— even on days when we need to receive it, as much as give it.
III.
We each choose a path in our life. Some of us walk the path of the good shepherd, the path of love lived in truth and action, because we have been loved. Sometimes our actions, our words of truth as best we know it, must say no to the powers that be. But the real reason we say NO is not to be negative. This No is rooted in a profound YES! We place our trust in a God who is goodness and mercy, forgiveness and justice. This is Love.
This is the path I still claim, thirty years later, as Julie’s path. My teacher one day was a woman who had nothing, but who understood love, inside and out. For her it was one word that said everything. It was who God was to her. And it was who she was to us, especially when we didn’t notice.
Those who want to can use the bible to justify all kinds of things. And yet, there is an emphasis in the bible stronger than judgment, condemnation and war. It is the movement of grace, the power of liberating deliverance, the path of mercy. There is a good word that says yes to humanity, yes to our maker and yes to the whole good green earth. There is a good path, even in death’s shadowed vale.
Julie—and a lot of other often invisible people—have taught me something else, as well. The pilgrimage we are invited too isn’t found just in the good book. Our theology is written on lives. The textbook for this pilgrimage of love in truth and action, is written on the life stories of the travelers right close around you, etched on your life and mine too. It can be read in the momentary hint we have of love, in a world that seems all unloving. We can feel it in the moment of clarity we have, about speaking up, when all around us seems agonizingly wrong. We experience it, in the gift of friendship all unexpected. We know it in the breaking of bread, the reminder of a friend who gave his life in solidarity with all of humankind. We admit it when our hearts burn with in us, when we get that fire in the belly…. We know God is real—because we know love is real. We know what truth is, because we know what love is. We know when we must act. Because we meet Love, every day.
We started out today with music to remind us of unexpected encounters with the risen Christ, resurrection in the face of death’s power, resurrection through friendship. Proclaim that Christ! Every act of love, every word of friendship, every deed of justice, every gesture of mercy proclaims the best kind of resurrection. Be the hands and feet, however imperfectly…be the body of the resurrected Jesus.
Graphic: Catacomb of Callixtus, Rome, The Good Shepherd, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. Photo courtesy of Jim Forest, on Flickr.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution.
Emmanuel Friedens Church,
Schenectady New York
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Readings: Psalm 23; I John 3:16-24
I.
Half a lifetime ago, when I was just starting as a minister, Julie, a woman about age thirty, let us know she was ready to be baptized.
Julie, who attended the church for years, there in Pittsfield Massachusetts, had Down’s syndrome. She was someone who lived in a group home, after having been “de-institutionalized,” as they used to say. She was an active participant in our “Friendship Class”. The Friendship Class was an adult Sunday School class made up of about a dozen people who were residents in local ARC houses. The Friendship Class also hosted dances once a month at the church. These dances were the social highlight of my time in Pittsfield.
But we were talking about Julie. And wanting to be baptized and join the church. Someone was concerned. Someone thought: Julie might not understand what baptism meant or what joining a church meant. Someone else thought she was doing this to please others, and it wasn’t something that meant anything to her. It wasn’t many people, just a couple. But the talk caused a minor stir.
Dale Lock, our pastor, was pretty unflappable, and, having served in the military in two wars, and as a pastor amongst the Baptists for twenty years, rather experienced with conflict. When he heard the controversy around the edges on Sunday morning, he got serious. He said simply, “Let’s ask Julie how she understands who God is…” So, Dale went to Julie then and there. Dale never walked slow. We flew up two flights of stairs. I tagged along. Dale found Julie, sat down with her, and asked her in a straightforward and loving and non-inquisitorial way, “Julie, who is God to you?”
Julie didn’t hesitate at all. One word came from her lips. But she spoke it with power and clarity. “Love.” That was all she said. That was all she needed to say. “Love.”
I remember after Julie spoke there was a brief and sacred pause. And then Dale spoke clearly, spoke with the same love he had heard. “That’s plenty good enough for me.”
You could see that Julie had met love—though not so much from the hands of human beings, for her life had been full of rejection, touched by neglect and abuse. I don’t know where Julie had met love. But she knew it inwardly and outwardly. Julie could live love. Julie knew God more directly than most of us. Maybe it just came down to a simple relationship of trust placed in a power who is there when nobody else is, yea, even in the valley of the death-shadow. Maybe she had met the One who is the real thing, the one willing to give up life itself, for the sake of the flock, for the sake of friends of every shape and every family and every unfair label. Love.
II.
The question that Dale asked Julie, and the one word answer she gave him, have blessed me for years. They have also provoked a second simple query for me and you today. How do we respond to this love we have received? How can we share this love?
The first letter of John raises the same question and offers a deep answer in the same breath: “We know love by this, that he [Jesus] 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 help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”
It’s time to reclaim the God of love, in these troubled days. It is urgent. So much of Christianity is broadcasting the wrong message. So many American Church leaders seem to have lost their way, lost touch with the good shepherd and the good path-. We are in danger of trading back the 23rd psalm and the marvelous vision of John’s first letter for a hard, mechanical, terrifying God: a God who justifies wars, plays chess with human life, and turns the children of God into rejects, instead of welcoming each one to the banquet table of mercy and grace!
It’s been for generations this way: those who do not fit classified out; those who follow another faith branded heretics or infidels; those who disagree called names like radical and traitor. We can’t pooh-pooh it. The attitudes of leaders trickle down. When leaders spew suspicion and fear, the people listen and do the same. Money rarely trickles down, but bad attitudes do.
It is important that you and I be very clear, in word and attitude and deed—In the name of Jesus of Nazareth… in the name of friends who have taught a better way, we insist. We claim the message of love in truth and action. We live it like Jesus, dance it like my friend Julie.
Everywhere we go we meet people who feel their lives are worthless or worth little, who are convinced that the path they are on is random or ugly or must be walked under compulsion and guilt. Some days that might even describe you or me!
But there is a God, a living Spirit who wants better for us. The traditional translation of Psalm 23 says “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” But try interpreting it this way: “surely goodness and mercy will chase me down, will search me out and find me…” When you are feeling far from anything holy, anything lovely; when you are feeling lost and afraid, here’s the good news: love will find you. Love will search you out. Love will carry you home.
You and I need to be part of the affirmation crowd. We need to say to those who have been shut out, put down, labelled sinners: “I apologize for all the church voices of condemnation you may have heard, and that echo in your head—these are full of lies. I am sorry the denomination to which I belong has hurt you in the name of Jesus. And you many not trust me, because I too carry that Christian brand-label which has been misused, to hurt…. But I know you are the beloved child of God—I know you are welcome at the table. I know you know Love as well or better than I do.” We need to be part of the affirmation crowd, the love crowd— even on days when we need to receive it, as much as give it.
III.
We each choose a path in our life. Some of us walk the path of the good shepherd, the path of love lived in truth and action, because we have been loved. Sometimes our actions, our words of truth as best we know it, must say no to the powers that be. But the real reason we say NO is not to be negative. This No is rooted in a profound YES! We place our trust in a God who is goodness and mercy, forgiveness and justice. This is Love.
This is the path I still claim, thirty years later, as Julie’s path. My teacher one day was a woman who had nothing, but who understood love, inside and out. For her it was one word that said everything. It was who God was to her. And it was who she was to us, especially when we didn’t notice.
Those who want to can use the bible to justify all kinds of things. And yet, there is an emphasis in the bible stronger than judgment, condemnation and war. It is the movement of grace, the power of liberating deliverance, the path of mercy. There is a good word that says yes to humanity, yes to our maker and yes to the whole good green earth. There is a good path, even in death’s shadowed vale.
Julie—and a lot of other often invisible people—have taught me something else, as well. The pilgrimage we are invited too isn’t found just in the good book. Our theology is written on lives. The textbook for this pilgrimage of love in truth and action, is written on the life stories of the travelers right close around you, etched on your life and mine too. It can be read in the momentary hint we have of love, in a world that seems all unloving. We can feel it in the moment of clarity we have, about speaking up, when all around us seems agonizingly wrong. We experience it, in the gift of friendship all unexpected. We know it in the breaking of bread, the reminder of a friend who gave his life in solidarity with all of humankind. We admit it when our hearts burn with in us, when we get that fire in the belly…. We know God is real—because we know love is real. We know what truth is, because we know what love is. We know when we must act. Because we meet Love, every day.
We started out today with music to remind us of unexpected encounters with the risen Christ, resurrection in the face of death’s power, resurrection through friendship. Proclaim that Christ! Every act of love, every word of friendship, every deed of justice, every gesture of mercy proclaims the best kind of resurrection. Be the hands and feet, however imperfectly…be the body of the resurrected Jesus.
Graphic: Catacomb of Callixtus, Rome, The Good Shepherd, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. Photo courtesy of Jim Forest, on Flickr.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution.