Sermon for Good Shepherd Sunday

Today is the Fourth Sunday of Easter, also called "Good Shepherd Sunday." The readings for today can be found here. You will notice that the second reading comes from John's Revelation. Two years ago, during my last Sabbatical, I spent a lot of time praying and reading and reflecting on Revelation. My theory was that it's a book the Church needs to rediscover and claim - not as a code that predicts the end of the world but as a Word of the Lord that empowers the Church for mission. The sermon I'm preaching this weekend at St. Stephen's in Pittsfield represents some of the fruit from this previous labor, and my desire to reclaim Revelation as a sacred text that speaks to this time and place. 

Imagine a world where there is incredible uncertainty about the future. Yet, even in the midst of all of those signs of uncertainty, there also remains tremendous denial. It’s a way to cope, of course, when the problems seem insurmountable. So there is not just personal denial but corporate, social, political, and economic denial. The world feels like it’s catipolting toward an inevitable disaster.

Imagine a once-mighty nation where democratic ideals first took hold, but that now seems adrift. All that remains is a desperate attempt to hold onto power and control. But the problems go deeper than politics or the economy. The moral fabric of this society is coming apart at the seams. It feels like there is no longer any sense of  “right” and “wrong:” sexual immorality is rampant, injustice seems to be the norm, and violence is so much a part of daily life that it goes virtually unnoticed. The visionaries and prophets and dreamers are nowhere to be found.

Imagine a Church in this society comprised mostly of well-intentioned good folks, but who are without a clear sense of purpose. While they may be commended for their “patient endurance” and for some acts of charity, they have abandoned the commitment to love boldly in the name of Jesus. They have a hard time loving even each other, not to mention their neighbors or their enemies. They have become complacent, asleep, and lukewarm; unsure about what if anything they can do to make a difference even locally. They feel powerless and trapped.

With very few exceptions, most Christians are not being persecuted for their faith. In fact the problem is that their conformity to the world around them is so complete that there is very little to distinguish them from their neighbors, and therefore little to vilify or persecute. On those occasions when someone does take a stand that is counter to the conventional wisdom, they are more apt to be harassed or ridiculed for failing to conform to social norms and expectations than they are to be persecuted.

The society I’m describing, of course, is the Roman Empire in the latter days of the first century. You all figured that out, right? (Any parallels to our own time are purely coincidental.)  Under Emperor Domitian, the Roman Empire had become a mere shadow of the glory days of the Republic. The old days of the Senate, and the engineering genius, and thinkers like Cicero and Virgil were distant memories. And the Church I’m describing is located in one of the provinces of that failing empire, Asia Minor; what we would call Turkey today. We know something of their struggles by reading one of the most difficult books in all the Bible to interpret. The Greek name is the Apocalypse, which means “Revelation.” Not plural. Not “Revelations.” But the Revelation of John, the Unveiling by John. Think of Asia Minor as something like a diocese. Within that region, there were congregations, including Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum and Thyatira and Sardis and Philadelphia and Laodicea. Together, they are described collectively as I’ve already mentioned: as well-intentioned and patiently enduring tough times, yet without a clear vision or commitment to making disciples.

So the Revelation of John is a wake-up call that paints a picture of what genuine fidelity might look like in the context of a dying empire. Partly because of the political context and partly because of the genre of literature it is, it’s heavily laden with metaphorical language and symbols; a kind of “code language.” Cracking the code, though, isn’t like translating from Morse code, as some have supposed. The challenge isn’t about finding what the number “666” means, or the word “Babylon” means as if those had one-to-one correlations in a distant future. Seeing and hearing this message has more to do with where we stand. It’s about getting ourselves into the right place to see with John what he saw with such clarity from the Island of Patmos.

In fact, there is a lot of talk in this book about “seeing” and “hearing” and at least in this way it very much echoes the ministry of Jesus. Those who wish to understand need “eyes to see” and “ears to hear.” Jesus said. What is required is discernment. I think of that unforgettable scene in “The Dead Poet’s Society,” when the teacher played by Robin Williams has his students stand on desks to challenge their perspectives. Remember? He is inviting and cajoling them to take notice of the world from another angle. It’d be like me coming in here today and encouraging all of you as you enter into this time of transition and discernment to switch up your seats and move to a new pew for a season. Scary, huh?  

Dietrich Bonhoeffer exhorted the Church in his day (which was during the rise of Naziism in Germany – another hard time to be the Church) to “be communities able to hear the Apocalypse.” Bonhoeffer suggested that the way to do that is to stand with those who suffer violence and injustice. The problem is that in spite of Jesus’ ministry to the poor and outcast, the Church throughout its history has been prone to forget that part of the gospel. I’m not talking about acts of charity here, although those are important. I’m talking about trying to see the world from the downside up. Hanging out with the people who attend Cathedral here in Pittsfield and talking about the economy and healthcare from their perspective.  

Visionaries need to stand on the peripheries. When we risk standing with those who suffer violence and injustice, we begin to see and hear things we would otherwise not be able to see or hear from our normal places of privilege and comfort. I think about Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the gulags of the former Soviet Union. I think about Rosa Parks sitting in the back of all those buses for all those years until finally one day she said “enough already.” The seer who writes the Apocalypse stands in such a place, at the periphery of the failing empire, on a tiny little island in the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Asia Minor called Patmos. He writes as a Christian who dreams of a Church where Easter faith is practiced on a daily basis, a Church where people dream big again. When John thinks back to the fifties it’s not like us – it’s not about full Sunday Schools during the post-war boom in population. When John thinks of the fifties he is remembering the missionary vitality of a Church on the move, of new church plants in towns like Corinth and Ephesus and Philipi and even the heart of the empire itself: Rome. He imagines a Church where hope is in the air and where members strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being. A Church that knows what it means to take up their cross to follow Jesus.

John offers strange images—images made even stranger in the intervening 2000 years since they were first written down. But what he sees and then describes for his readers in the seventh chapter of this Apocalypse remains fresh even to this day, and I believe it still has power to heal and to transform and to invigorate the Church for mission. If we dare to look, and to listen, we too might be prodded and jarred from complacency. He sees a great multitude, which no one could count. That in itself is a word of hope to beleagured congregations in every age; congregations which may feel burned out and worn out and perhaps isolated, or feel that they must do it all. In that “great multitude” of disciples, that no one could count!—there is much to ponder, for it is a reminder that we are not alone and that we are a part of something here and now that is much bigger than we realize. I must tell you it is perhaps the greatest gift of diocesan ministry for me because I can picture those gathered even now not just in these pews, but in Williamstown and Sheffield, and headed east to Greenfield and Southwick and Fitchburg and Westborough. On any given Sunday, across this diocese, we may still be a small denomination. But there are more of us gathered to break the bread and share the cup even in this small denomination than we sometimes realize.  

In John’s vision, they don’t all look alike. They come from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and they speak many languages. It is the Lamb at the center that defines who they are; not their nation-states or their flags, nor their creeds nor their denominations. Not their socio-economic class nor skin-color nor sexual orientation. It is this Lamb who unites this pluralistic community into One Body singing one song: “Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb!” It is He who matters, above all else, for it is he whom these saints worship day and night.

The promise remembered is the promise foretold. And it still has the power to enliven the Church for mission. In a world where children go to bed hungry in this richest nation in the world, the seer imagines no more hunger. In a world of gun violence the seer imagines no more tears. In a world where the water in Flint, Michigan is not potable, the seer imagines no more thirst. No more hunger. No more tears. The Church is called to work from the nightmare that is, for so many, toward the dream God has for this world. The Church is called to do justice, and love mercy and walk humbly with God. That begins by learning to not be afraid.

This fourth Sunday of Easter is sometimes called “Good Shepherd Sunday.” That’s the theme for the day:

• Today’s opening collect that reminded us that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who calls us each by name; 
• The 23^rd Psalm which is almost certainly the most widely known of all the psalms even among those who know little else from the Bible—describing a shepherd whom we can rely on. 
• The gospel reading from the fourth gospel that reiterates how the sheep hear their shepherd’s voice, calling them by name.

But it’s this strange text from this even stranger Apocalypse that draws me into the meaning of this day even more than all the rest, and captures my imagination and I hope yours, too. It stands as a bold reminder to the Church in every age that no matter how tired or weak or confused we may feel in a world that seems as if it’s gone stark raving mad, we must not lose hope. That hope is always directed to us as persons, to each by name. But it’s all about us. We are part of a much larger whole, part of Christ’s Body through the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.

By keeping our eyes open, and focusing on the Good Shepherd—by listening for his voice amid all of the noise of the world—and by being willing to change our point-of-view from that of the dominant culture around us by standing with the most vulnerable on the fringes of society, we have a chance to become the kind of communities that are able “to hear the Apocalypse.”

And in our hearing, there is always the chance that we may actually become doers of the Word we hear. Followers of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who calls us still, by name. May we proclaim with our lives what we profess with our lips, as we become agents of reconciliation and instruments of peace who share even now in the work of feeding the hungry, and wiping away the tears of all who mourn, and of becoming the beloved community, for Christ’s sake.