The Good Shepherd and His Gate, Sermon from May 7, 2017

The Good Shepherd and His Gate
May 7, 2017
Good Shepherd, Austin
St. James’, Austin

Heavenly Father, I humbly beseech you as I offer these words this morning, to see before you a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock and a sinner of your own redeeming. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. The day in which in all of Christendom, Episcopal and denominational churches everywhere set aside the lessons and the readings in our Scripture to dwell on the image of the Good Shepherd. And so for me, at the beginning of the week, as I started to think about my words this morning, it immediately conjured up the image of the first church that I remember, certainly not my first church, but the first church that I remember as a child. My father was an Episcopal priest and so I grew up in the Episcopal Church and the church was The Good Shepherd Church in The Heights, this is where my father served. And I think part of that is that on Saturdays, when my dad would go up to get the church ready for services the next day, and I have a sneaking suspicion he was probably working on his sermon at the last minute, but I would have free rein of the church. And so my dad would go into his study and begin to do his work, whatever that work was, and I could walk around and go wherever I wanted. But I remember many times as a six-year-old making out my way into the nave, into the center of the church in the center aisle, and looking at the back wall which had this massive stained glass window of the Good Shepherd in it, and just the beauty, just the beauty of the light coming through that into a dark nave, a dark church. And so, when I think about these lessons, it is a very warm childhood memory that is evoked. That touches my heart. That reminds me of a loving and caring shepherd, a savior who embraces around his shoulders the sweet lost lamb, that one that he went after. And what I recognize, of course, is that like any childhood memory I am of course taking, collapsing all of the gospel images of the Good Shepherd into my memory of the Good Shepherd. That they don't all exactly exist there in that same space, but in my memory, they do and what I want to say is that then I grew up. And I grew up and certainly didn't imagine that I would become a minister, but that happened and I went to seminary in order to learn very important things. Specifically, things about this parable stand out, the first being that shepherds were smelly people. That you have to understand the context in the life of a shepherd in order to break open this image of the Good Shepherd and that they were smelly people because sheep are smelly and that they live outside. And that certainly stuck in my mind, but also that in some way, shepherds were a common reference in the scriptures for religious leaders. And that bad shepherds, especially in the New Testament because there are a number of bad shepherds, were poor examples of faith and statesmanship, and that those are woven into the conversation that is happening in today's scripture. I also learned of the ecclesiastical or institutional church layer of apostleship, of the episcopacy of the bishop as a shepherd, with the shepherd's crook, the shepherd's staff, that the bishop carries.

Then there is Psalm 23, which most Christians might remember some portion of. And how Psalm 23 is really about God's deliverance of Israel being led into the Promised Land out of the Valley of Death and slavery, and how Christians have now interpolated that to speak to us of Heaven. And that's why this is so often used at our funerals services and our memorial services. And, of course, the Great I Am, the Good Shepherd, is the fourth in the seven different "I Am" statements. And lastly, that the Christians didn't invent the Good Shepherd, but, rather, it is a Greek notion of Kriophoros, the ram-bearer. The one who bears the lamb to the sacrifice. And what I can tell by looking at you is you are about as bored as that is boring, to go through that long list, and that we should name it. But then I come to this point. Right? Where the reality is that my childhood fascination with that good shepherd window and all of the jumbled gospel narrative gets mixed up in that deep theology, which does a good job of bearing all the very best stuff from the scripture, and as I was pondering all of this, I came upon this quote by an Episcopal priest and scholar, Robert Farrar Capon, and I felt as though he was talking about me and all of that theology when he says, "I don't like it." He says, "It is as if you have recently discovered two wonderful stimulants namely theology and white wine, and they have-- and that you have gone slightly ga-ga over both of them. True enough," he writes, "both thinking and drinking are delightful projects, with which to grace afternoon and enliven an evening, but as one who has kept a wine cellar since 1953, and a theology addict since well before that, I assure you," Capon says, "that neither of these repositories of my hopes ever quite delivered what I expected of them in my first enthusiasms." So, let us set aside for a moment everything that I and you have brought in this morning to our Good Shepherd story. And let us come to it again as Marcus Borg once said, let us take a look at it again as if for the first time. I think when we do that, what we find then is that there is great truth in these parables, in these sayings of Jesus that are closer to, if not nestled deep within the actual childhood understanding of the Good Shepherd but in a deep and powerful and terrible way. God and Christ Jesus stands as shepherd in our lives in a single solitary space as the gate, says John's Gospel. Upon the cross the Good Shepherd stands in our lives unmovable in good times and in bad. Its shadow no matter where we go always touches the hems of our garments no matter what we are undertaking. God's cross on Calvary, is the gate that opens to us in our green pastures and still waters and in our darkest valleys amidst of our enemies, heaven and God’s embrace.

God, as the Good Shepherd, Christ upon his cross is our rod and our staff. It is that which bridges Heaven and earth, God, and humanity. As Capon says, the content of theology is this fact of the cross and resurrection. I say the content of faith is this trust. 

What I have learned in the many years is that the world is filled with many other gates, many other sheepfolds and other shepherds and other ways, all of them promising deliverance in exchange for doing things. Jesus though, as gate and shepherd in his act of crucifixion and God's act of resurrection has put an end to all forms of religious exchange that promise you God's love if you will but behave. If you believe that doing the right things, thinking the right things, acting the right way, voting the right way, being the right person, all of that does not get you God's love and God's embrace. That is the truth of the God who stands as Shepherd at the gate. Being good and God will love you is a phrase that does not work on the Christian who holds the cross at the heart of their faith. No correct actions, speech, code of conduct is required at the foot of the cross on Calvary. No lightly bouqueted, religion chilled to our liking. It is free and it cannot be earned by you or by me. It is a single offering of God's love for us. The Good Shepherd, the God Shepherd on his cross has signaled the end to earning God's love and has opened for all creation a way to the other side where death has no victory, politics have no victory, and religion has no victory. The gate has been flung wide open, and it is held there by the foot of the cross. And you and I are free to enter. No matter by way of going the frequently-traveled or less-traveled road, no matter how we arrive, the high road or the low road. Regardless of arriving in good form and bad, we arrive, all of us. When the day is done and the last breath breathed, all of us arrive at the gate. And there, to quote Capon once more, is the "terrible goodness of it all" for everybody. And we will find ourselves safe in the power of God's resurrection. For He is the Good Shepherd, and He beckons us with His voice to come in, for all who come to Him shall be led and shall cross over into God's green pastures.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. AMEN.