"Where One Lives", Mountain View United, Aurora, CO 4/29/2012

Where One Lives By Rev Steven R Mitchell Mountain View United, Aurora, CO 4/29/2012 Based on 1 John 3:16-24 and John 10:11-18 How many of you have ever spent extended time, meaning from several weeks to years, caring for a sheep? Very few people in today’s culture have spent much time around sheep or a sheepherder, for that matter. As our society moves more and more into urban settings and has less and less contact with the agrarian life style, examples that we find within scripture, such as today’s lection readings make it harder to relate to the messages that those first hearers about Jesus would have understood. When taken out of context, we too easily can read this passage in John 10 through the lens that Romanizes what is truly going on. As an example, we know through history about the great battles fought on our grassy plains between the cattle and sheep barons, but have little emotional attachment because of our distance in time. Reading this section by itself gives us a Norman Rockwell picture of Jesus walking with a wool wrap around his shoulders, accompanied with four hoofs, a tail wagging, and a bleat coming from a sense of safety and love. Jesus of course is a clean cut, blue-eyed, well groomed with dark wavy locks of hair, father figure from next door. When in reality, even if our father had blue eyes, he came home from work smelly, in dirty closes, his hands and face not washed, and his hair was definitely in serious need of Vidal Sassoon! Another stumbling block with this section of scripture comes with the too often comparison of the church’s pastor to that of Jesus. When this is done, several disastrous expectations are set into play. First of all, there can be an elevating of the pastor onto an unrealistic pedestal, which eventually becomes an altar of sacrifice. The second situation, which occurs simultaneously and is just as great a crime, comes with the removal or distancing of accountability on the part of the congregation of their responsibilities in ministry. The sad truth is, many pastors love this comparison because in effect, it separates them from the congregation, giving them an edge, a degree of importance that somehow is greater than those the pastor is serving; in other words a “Jesus” complex. Congregations easily like to give this responsibility to the pastor because it lets them off the hook in respect to their responsibilities within the church setting. How would we as the church measure up to the ideals, the expectations that we have of the “good shepherd”, if the “good shepherd” is not just the pastor, but actually includes the whole congregation? Would this have any significant change in how we at Mountain View would approach ministry? This Gospel story is not coming out of a pastoral setting, where Jesus is speaking to his disciples or a large crowd about the love of God as they sit along the grassy shores of the Galilean Sea. Rather, Jesus is under attack by the religious leaders for healing a blind man on the Sabbath. Not only had he broken the law, but he also was challenging the religious leaders about their abusive interpretations of the Mosaic Laws, which were given as a guide to the Hebrew people. In chapter nine, Jesus healed a blind man on the Sabbath; it is significant that the person healed was blind, for the implication is that after the healing, he could then recognize Jesus as being from God, doing the things of God. In chapter 10, we have the confrontation between the Pharisees and Jesus, and the Pharisees are being accused by Jesus of not being the “good shepherd” to the sheep. With this small addition of facts about the setting of our text, we who claim Jesus as our role model, can begin to explore a different message, other than “pastor” as the good shepherd. When I was in my early twenties, my mother-in-law gave me a book that has become a guiding post within my spiritual walk. The book, In His Steps, written by Rev Charles Sheldon, explores the cost of following Jesus’ teachings when a young pastor challenged the members of his congregation to simply ask themselves the question, “What would Jesus do?” before acting upon any situation that they encountered. As I have contemplated that question through the years, as well as using the scriptures as another part of the basis for making decisions, I have had to wrestle with a reality that, “where two Christians are present, there you will find three opinions!” How can two people, read the same text, both identifying themselves as followers of Jesus, come up with two differing ways of interpreting scripture? The reality of the situation is, since no two people have exactly the same experiences in life, the lenses that they use to view a situation will never be the same, and in actuality, this is very good news! It is good news because this then allows a platform for discussion, an opportunity for exploration of possibilities that live outside of our own circle of reality. This past Tuesday evening, those who had gathered for the Sacred Grounds discussion of today’s readings, the questions which came up centered on “what does it mean to be open and welcoming?” This is not a new question for Mountain View, after all we state in our bulletin that we are an open and welcoming, ecumenical people. So let’s take a look at ourselves here at Mountain View. Let us look through the lens where the pastor is not the “good shepherd” but rather the congregation is the “good shepherd”. If we are all the “good shepherd” then where is the sheep pen that Jesus is speaking about? Is it within these four walls or the boundaries of this property? By changing the understanding that Mountain View is the “shepherd”, does this not also change the boundaries of where the pen is? Take a look around this room; who do you see? Who do you see not being represented here? Is the community that lives within a one square mile of this church represented here? Does the community that lives within one square mile of this church know us? I don’t mean by the name of the church, or the fact that we have a community garden available to anyone who is willing to pay to use it, but truly know who we are, our values, our hopes, our dreams? More importantly, do we know who the community around us is, their hopes, their dreams, their concerns, and their needs? As I have mulled over this week’s lectionary readings, two words seemed to present themselves to me, “emulate” and “abide”. The definition of “emulate” is: to imitate with effort to equal or surpass. It seems to me that many of us who call ourselves Christians work hard at trying to “emulate” what we understand the “word” of God to be. The church in general works hard at teaching the words and actions of Jesus; we try to emulate Jesus! Could this possibly be a reason for so many differing opinions about what it means to be a follower of Christ? Abide, has a differing slant than emulate. Abide is: to remain; continue; stay, as to continue in a particular condition, attitude, relationship. In the Hymn “Abide with Me” we hear an understanding of how Christ abides in our hearts: Come not in terrors, as the King of kings, But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings; Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea. Come, Friend of sinners, thus abide with me. I have not touched on our other reading this morning, 1 John 3, but in this Epistle we learn that it isn’t in the study of God’s word alone that makes us Christians, but also in our actions. The love of God wasn’t in word alone, but also in the action of self sacrifice as shown through the life and death of Jesus. It is the action of love, the love that “abides” within our hearts, not the “emulation” of God’s love that the sheep will recognize, but rather the voice that “abides” in the love of God. I wish to send you away this morning thinking about us as being the “good shepherd”. Are we as “good shepherd” emulating Christ or are we “abiding Christ?” Not to one another in this room, but to the sheep that are on the other side of the gate? That is just the starting question. All the answers to the questions that follow depend on how we answer this question. Amen