Pastor Detweiler’s sermon for Sunday, April 13, 2008:

The Good Shepherd comes to us in the community of faith

John 10:1-10

Christ is risen!

A woman awoke in the middle of the night to desperate cries of “Help! Help!” Thinking her husband next to her was in distress she shook him violently. Then, realizing that he was still asleep and not calling out, she wondered if she was in the midst of a frantic dream. The cries persisted. She got out of bed, turned on the light, and headed toward the sound, into the living room.

“Where are you?” she asked. “In the fireplace” came the reply. There, dangling in the flue upside-down, was a would-be burglar. Police and fire-fighters had to partially dismantle the fireplace to get him out. While the woman waited for them to arrive, she turned on the living room lights and videotaped the scene. Who knows what the two of them talked about while they waited. Maybe John 10, where Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.”(Peter Marty, “The Christian Century”) 4/17/1996)

It is intriguing how attractive this image of the Good Shepherd remains in a culture where the only acquaintance most people have with sheep is on a menu in a restaurant. It is a very agricultural reference, and not a particularly complimentary one. Sheep are dumb and relatively helpless. They follow their noses in any direction that leads to grass to eat, without much awareness of potential danger. They need a shepherd to guide and protect them and to give them direction.

It says something about our basic human needs that even in a culture where we are encouraged to be self-sufficient, at some point we are looking for someone to lead us, someone who will recognize us - know our name - and provide purpose and direction. We long for that enough to identify with sheep who need a shepherd. We need to know we belong, and we need to know that our lives have direction, a purpose.

That’s the promise God gives in Jesus’ death and resurrection. Our first lesson today - from Acts - tells us how that promise - that we belong to him and that our lives have purpose in him -becomes real through participation in the community of faith, the Church. We read, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” The promise of the resurrection is not given to us directly. Instead, it is given through baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection, an act that makes us part of the community of faith in Jesus we call the Church.

The writer of Acts is telling us that it is through participation in this imperfect community of people that the promises of God become real - that Jesus is our Good Shepherd through his people. We know we belong to him, we see the difference the promise of the resurrection makes, we have hope for the future and a direction for life as we participate in the things that Christians do: read the Bible daily, study it with others, pray, give generously of ourselves and what we have, and participate in worship every week. It is the gathering around the reading of the word and communion that are referred to by “the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Those are the basic elements of our worship today, from which the rest of our life as a congregation flows through the week.

The Christian faith is incarnational, meaning it takes human form - in Jesus, and in the Church. It is easier to accept the first than the second, because the church, as a human institution, is imperfect and often annoying. But, like it or not, we are baptized into the church of Jesus Christ. It is through this very human institution and its book - the Bible - that we know Jesus and we know God loves us and promises to be our shepherd. We can’t have God’s promises without participation in the church because without that community of faith, there is no one to remember and teach the promises.

Much as we might think we can believe on our own, it is only because someone - a part of the community of faith in him - the church - told us about Jesus that we know about him and can belong to him. It is only because of the church’s proclamation of Jesus’ death and resurrection over the years that we know we do not need to fear the future because it is the place where God awaits us - it is the time of our resurrection. God has provided this community of faith to fulfill our need to belong, to matter, to make a difference, to be lead toward him.

Psalm 23, a version of which we are singing as the hymn of the day, is the best known psalm because it expresses the fulfillment of our need to belong, to be recognized, to be lead. Near the end of his life, the great preacher of the 1950s, Joseph Sittler, said he noticed something in the psalm that he hadn’t when he was younger. It doesn’t talk directly about death, but about God with us “walking through the valley of the shadow of death.” Sittler said he was especially aware of walking through that valley now he was old, but that we are actually walking through it all the time. Life is shadowed by death. That is the reason belonging and having a direction as so important to us. If life is headed only toward death, what difference does anything make?

But Jesus walks us through that valley toward the hope of the resurrection, a hope that becomes ours through baptism and participation in the Church. God promises to be our shepherd - to guide us all the time. It is the Church - the community of faith in Jesus - that reminds us of the Good Shepherd’s care, and is the embodiment of it, however imperfectly.

I was 9 when my older sister died, so my memories are almost like old photographs. One of the clearest images in my mind is of the end of the viewing just before the funeral service began. We were in the church fellowship hall, the casket against one wall. My parents took me and my brother by the hand and we walked across the empty expanse of the floor away from the other people for one last look. Nine isn’t a bad age to be introduced to death close up because of the wonder that is very much a part of that age. As they looked into the casket I turned around and looked at all the people standing against the other wall: our relatives, friends, the people of our church. To me it was one community of faith in Jesus, and I was not afraid because of them.

It was through them that the Good Shepherd walked us through the valley of the shadow of death. It is because of them that I believe that our purpose in life is to praise God for his love in Jesus, and our direction in life is toward the future and eternal life in Jesus Christ.

The Good Shepherd cares for us by creating, calling, and sending a community of faith that is defined by Jesus’ death and resurrection. We become part of that community of faith through baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection. There we are called by name, marked with the cross of Christ, and sealed by the Holy Spirit. We belong eternally to the God who raised Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

The Good Shepherd comes to us, not down the chimney, but through this imperfect community of faith. He leads us and calls us to invite and welcome others to join us in following him in this journey toward the future - toward death and resurrection to eternal life.

Christ is risen!