A 300-Pound Gorilla on Good Shepherd Sunday?

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is sometimes referred to as “Good Shepherd Sunday.” The collect and readings for this Sunday are so overwhelmingly about the Good Shepherd that it seems that a good preacher should not ignore this. But here’s the thing: I don’t really feel like blogging about sheep this week. Lots of my colleagues will do that and will no doubt preach very fine sermons about shepherds and sheep this Sunday. I look forward to it. 

I want to talk about the 300-pound gorilla in the room. 

Do you know the invisible gorilla test? You can read about it here. I've already ruined it for you, though. You can Google the video if you like; I'm pretty sure I am not supposed to post it here because of copyright laws, but it's easy enough to find.

Basically the original experiment is that the subjects in the study are told to watch a video with people dressed in white and in black, passing a basketball back and forth. They are asked to count the number of passes made by the players in white uniforms. So they need to concentrate. They need to stay focused. One. Two. Three...

And then a gorilla walks right through the middle of the players - there are maybe eight or so who keep moving around. (Well, to be more precise, it's some guy dressed up like a gorilla.) Half of the people don’t see him because they are so focused on the people passing the ball.

Half of them! Do. Not. See. A. Gorilla. I know that seems unbelievable. I know you assume that you would see the gorilla and you would now if you went and Googled that video because you can't miss it if you know to look. Knowing what the study is about I can no longer un-see that gorilla when I watch that video. Even so, I trust the study. More importantly, I know that sometimes I do not see what is right before my very eyes. Why? Because I'm focused (or even fixated) on the task at hand. And I most definitely know when other people do this. It's so amazing to me when that happens! How can you not see that?! 

We assume that we see what is reality. But in truth, we see what gets our attention. So why am I telling you this on a day that's supposed to be all about shepherds and sheep? Well, this is my point. When we are so busy counting sheep, there are things we miss. And there is a subtext here that rarely ever gets talked about during the Easter Season when we get (over?) focused on the gospel readings, and that is what is happening in these readings from Acts. I blogged about Peter last week even though the gospel reading was the story of Emmaus. The week prior to that we were tuned into Acts because of Thomas, and the others. But generally speaking, it’s harder to notice what's unfolding in Acts because we are so focused on Jesus. Which makes sense, of course. I'm not suggesting we not focus on Jesus! We are Christians and it is Jesus, after all, who was raised from the dead. We follow Jesus, not Peter or Thomas or the other apostles. And the task we have been given is to reflect on what that means to say that Christ is alive. And how, as one hymn writer puts it: 

Christ is alive! No longer bound / to distant years in Palestine / but saving, healing, here and now / and touching every place and time. 

Concentrate. Focus. First, we noted Jesus’ absence at the empty tomb on Easter Day. And then we saw him encountering Thomas on the Second Sunday of Easter. And then on the Third Sunday of Easter, known in the breaking of the bread. Did not our hearts burn within us? And now, on the Fourth Sunday of Easter, we recall that Jesus is the Good Shepherd of the sheep. He knows us by name.

But here is the thing: in the meantime, there is this story slowly unfolding in Acts each and every week. And maybe it's possible to be so focused on Jesus that we miss it. Peter was boldly preaching on Easter Sunday about the God who “shows no partiality.” The same Peter we saw telling the servant girls by the fire that he did not know the man. As we have been reading through the second chapter of Acts, we've seen Peter, standing with the eleven. And he has found his voice. 

And then today we get a glimpse of the community that he helped to shape and that shaped his emerging spirituality: a community where no one claimed private ownership, where all things were held in common. There was not a needy person among them. Can you even imagine that? 

The disciples have changed. It’s like when you run into someone who used to have a beard and has shaved it off; or used to be clean shaven and now has a beard. Or has gained thirty pounds or lost thirty pounds. Or has gone gray or found their original color in a bottle. You look at them and you think: I know you, but something has changed. The disciples used to be kind of bumblers. But they have clarity and purpose and courage and creativity now. And the narrator is clear about what it is that has changed in them: it’s the Holy Spirit, working in and through them to do infinitely more than they could previously ask or imagine. 

What I would suggest, however, above all else, is that they are not so scared anymore. Faith (that is to say, trust in the living God) has cast out fear. Peter has stopped twitching every time the rooster crows.  He will no longer be defined by his past. Instead, he and the other disciples are now doing the work Jesus called them to do in the first place, when he called them by the Sea of Galilee. They really are fishing for people now. And healing the sick. And bringing good news to the poor. And announcing God’s salvation for the world. I truly understand that God shows no partiality...

They are putting first things first. They are baptizing and forming faithful followers of Jesus. They are devoting themselves to prayer and study and the breaking the bread. Which leads them to share their stuff. Not out of duty or obligation but with "glad and generous hearts." They are taking care of each other. Wow! 

We spend so much of our lives fearful of what will happen next. Well maybe you don't, but I do. What will happen if we do this or if we don’t do that. We might get sued or we might get reprimanded. We might lose our job. If we are not careful we start to measure our lives out in teaspoons. 

Those early followers of Jesus model for us a different way to be in the world. They are no longer afraid of what people will say about them or even do to them. The old Peter said: “I don’t know the man, I don’t know the man, I don’t know the man.” But now, filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter says, “let me tell you about my friend Jesus. Let it be known to you all that this isn’t about me, this is about Jesus Christ. The one you crucified. The one that God raised from the dead…” Alleluia! 

Now here is the thing about this 300-pound gorilla: I think it’s the Easter story we need to start living and telling again as we find ourselves in the midst of this pandemic. As horrible as it is on so many levels (and in other posts I've spoken of grief and loss and trauma and that's all true) this may also be an opportunity for the Church to rediscover our sense of purpose and true vocation.

My bishop has shared on more than one occasion with the clergy of our diocese recently that his spiritual director used to say (rhetorically) that maybe the Church needed to stop doing everything else and just learn to pray again for a year or so. Well, that is happening right now. We are all a bit more monastic right now.  I see it on Zoom and Facebook Live, of all places. Can anything good come from social media? Well, yes. Actually. Even in the midst of physical distancing, Episcopalians (at least in my diocese) are rediscovering the Daily Office by praying Morning Prayer and Noon Day Prayers and Evening Prayer and Compline.  

And relationships are being strengthened. We used to try to get our folks to church two or three Sundays a month for an hour or so. Now people who could not get to Church on Sunday are there (virtually) every week. We used to be nostalgic for the days when we had no competition on Sunday mornings from sports and family activities. Now we have no competition. And oh, yeah...in a lot of places they want to stay on for a virtual coffee hour. It turns out that coffee hour doesn't have to be just for weak coffee and too many carbs or catching up with our friends. It can be for building up the Body of Christ: for getting to know one another at a deeper level. For strengthening koinonia. 

Now there are definitely challenges and it's not ideal. But life is not ideal. We are, in these weeks of pandemic, discovering and rediscovering how to be Church and seeing that "wonderful and sacred mystery" alive and well is an extraordinary thing to behold. 

The question is, what will we do next? What will we do when we are able to return to our buildings? What will we have learned? If we aren't careful, before you know it we may be sharing everything in common, not out of duty or obligation, but with "glad and generous hearts." Or at the very least re-setting priorities so that we put first things first. And be careful, because once that happens we may start "leavening" the world around us as we find our own voices again. And acting boldly with resilience and courage and hope. 

Here's the thing: we can tell people with our lips that Jesus is risen from the dead. We can tell them that the tomb is empty or that Thomas put his hands in Jesus’ side or that Jesus was known in the breaking of the bread. We can even tell them that Jesus is the Good Shepherd. And we should do all of those things. But until people actually see us living like Easter people - until they see us changed - Easter will not much more than an idle tale. When they see us coming and they think, "alleluia, Christ is risen indeed" then we will know that like those early followers of Jesus, the Holy Spirit has taken hold of us. 

The story we see unfolding in Acts during these fifty days is about what it means to form an Easter people - a people after God's own heart. A community focused on the risen Christ. Not on the past, but on the present. A community where people are finding their voices and living their lives not rooted in fear, but in trust. Now here is the thing: not everyone will be able to see that. Even if it’s right before their very eyes. But that is not our concern. Our concern is to be living it out. Our work is to become an Easter people. And maybe even to be as obvious as a 300-pound gorilla about it. Our job is to proclaim Easter with our lives, not just our lips. And then those with eyes to see, will see, and those with ears to hear, will hear.