Easter 4b 2018
Ps 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18
22 April, Jack Hardaway
Make no mistake, we are more than sheep. We are all either hired hands or wolves as well, or both.
But there is only one Good Shepherd. That is the whole point of this day.
Jesus. He is the shepherd of souls, the shepherd of all creation.
He is good because he alone can lay his life down and take it back up again. The death and resurrection of Jesus is the green pasture and the still water. He is the table prepared. He is the anointing oil. He is the cup that runneth over.
This isn’t about us.
It is about who God is and who Jesus reveals God to be.
Jesus, the heart and soul of God laid bare before us, sacrificial love that cannot be stopped. Unstoppable. Relentless. The juggernaut of grace that follows us all our days.
Jesus the Good Shepherd.
The audacious thing is that we are to become like him. The longer I live with this audacious expectation the crazier and the more wonderful it becomes.
As he has done so are we to do. Sacrificial, relentless love
We are to be like that because God is like that, because Jesus does that, so are we to do.
God’s little Shepherds, all these sheep and wolves and hired hands are being raised up with Jesus to love like God loves.
It is kind of a silly picture, all these sheep dragging around shepherd crooks, all these wolves dressing up and tangled up in shepherd robes, all these hired hands growing brave beyond reason refusing to run away before certain danger. A crazy picture gathered around the Good Shepherd. A new kind of nativity. A new kind of ark.
Today is symbolically loaded at Grace Church.
Global mission.
An International festival.
Earth day.
The blessing of the Jeff Batkin-Tom Davis community garden.
The Eucharist.
The Gospel.
The children.
And the Good Shepherd who gathers all this into one flock.
The relentless love of God always turns us outward, away from ourselves.
Little shepherds tending the vulnerable, tending creation.
The clothes don’t quite fit.
I suppose we’ll grow into this vocation of being God’s little Shepherds.
So we are gathered into this crazy flock where to believe in Jesus is to love.
And the reverse as well: to love is to believe.
To be clear this is not some warm and tingly feel good sort of love.
To be clear: Love changes diapers and bed pans.
It props up falling homes and failing families.
It feeds the hungry and the thankless.
It risks all for that chance that someone else will become free.
It heals the earth.
We have taken up a relentless confession of faith.
It is a creed with dirty hands and soiled clothes.
If it isn’t, it isn’t belief in Jesus.
Make no mistake, to believe in the Good Shepherd is to be relentless in love.
It is audacious and crazy and wonderful.
Be that. Be relentless in love.