4B Easter
21 Apr 2024
Tomorrow is Earth Day. As a college student at ISU in the early 1970’s, I felt hope that people would see how we needed to change the way we treated the world about us. Fifty years later I have become resigned to a slow slide to an environmental catastrophe. Yet I am an Easter person and I have faith that God, as the creator of all, will prevail. I have hope because of all the young climate activists from all over the world. Perhaps, as Jesus talks today about sheep not in the fold, he is including all these people doing the work.
For the first three weeks of Easter, we have explored the meaning of the garden, the cross, and the resurrection. Now we begin to take our Easter faith out into the world. This is where we learn to bring Christ to the world as much as the world to Christ.
Let us start with a prayer written by preach Will Willimon.
Lord Jesus even though we crucified you, you rose from the dead and returned to us to resume the conversation. Even though we forsook you and denied you, you continued to speak to us.
We gather here this morning, in church, as your disciples, because we have been convened. You sought us out, as a shepherd seeks lost sheep. You called us by our very own names. You summoned us to follow you as sheep followed their Good Shepherd. And that's why we speak to you---OK because you have spoken to us.[1]
Give U.S. Open, expectant hearts. Open our ears to what you have to say to each of us. Enable us to hear your special word to each of us. And in hearing your word, you grant us the grace to respond to your word when we leave church and walk into the world. Amen
This Sunday is where the rubber starts to hit the road. This is the Sunday where we are told in no uncertain terms we are to go and love one another. It would be a great Sunday for singing They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love. That was one of my favorite hymns when I was in high school because I thought it put the Gospel message in its most basic and true form. In our reading from 1 John we are reminded of that love, the love that supersedes all else. We love in truth and in deed. That is simply the only way to love. It may sound as if all of us are called to be martyrs, but laying down our life for another can mean taking the time to visit someone who is lonely, to read to your grandchild, to give up your seat to someone who needs it more. Sometimes it means inconvenience yourself. But I caution you it does mean that sometimes you have to give up much and, in fact, some will lay down their lives literally.
An attorney named Bryan Stevenson went to Alabama to do legal work for indigent people. He intended to stay a summer but ended up fighting wrongful convictions where the accused had been sentenced to death. He is still there, having become the founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, based in Montgomery, Alabama, an organization devoted to fair sentencing and continues the fight against wrongful capital convictions, securing over 140 such reversals. He has laid down his life for others; a part of this story is told in the movie Just Mercy.
The question we may ask is, “Who am I supposed to love?” First, we are to love God and love Jesus, but it is not that abstract love that is at the heart of Christianity and the message of Jesus. We are to love as God loves us, expressed so memorably in the 23rd Psalm. The love is all encompassing. Our love for each other should then be the same response that God as for us. Open your hearts!
Today it is the Gospel reading that is close to my own heart. Jesus says a true, a good, shepherd is there for the sheep in good times and in bad. They are there until the end; they will not abandon any of the sheep. Would we be willing to lay down our life for one of our own? I think many of us would; we would not run. But the part of the reading that is most comforting to me is the part that speaks of sheep in the “other fold” .
For anyone who has ever been “outside” of the accepted norms these are revolutionary words. Did Jesus mean Gentile when he uttered those words? I think more than Gentile. I would like to have faith that he meant people anywhere and everywhere, regardless of ethnicity or religion. He lived as one of us in a time when gender excluded and ethnicity mattered. His words are revolutionary.
If you are someone who is neurodivergent, genderqueer, female, not white, not male, then these words are for you, but they are addressed to those who are of the chosen race, religion, and ethnicity. It is a comfort and not so much a warning as a statement of fact.
Jesus has shown us life and the Way to live. He had also made it abundantly clear that life is meant for every human being, and I would daresay all of creation.
[1] Willimon, Will. Lectionary Sermon Resource, Year B, Part 1.Nashville, Abington 2017 P. 284.
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