April 21, 2013

Fourth Sunday of Easter

Acts 9:36-43 (NRSV)

(36) Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity.

(37) At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs.

(38) Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.”

(39) So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.

(40) Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up.

(41) He gave her his hand and helped her up. then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive.

(42) This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.

(43) Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

Revelation 7:9-17 (NRSV)

(9) After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

(10) they cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

(11) And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,

(12) singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

(13) then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?”

(14) I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

(15) For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them.

(16) They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat;

(17) for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

John 10:22-30 (NRSV)

(22) At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter,

(23) and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.

(24) So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.

(25) Jesus answered, “I have told you , and you do not believe. the works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me;

(26) but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.

(27) My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.

(28) I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.

(29) What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand.

(30) The Father and I are one.”

I was blessed last week to have the opportunity to sit back and worship here with you all. It is such a wonderful experience to be able to participate in worship rather than lead it occasionally. I really enjoyed Phyllis’ words as I am sure you all did as well. In addition, not having to prepare much for last week gave me the chance to work ahead a bit. A few more weeks of school and the semester will be over so these last few weeks, needless to say, I have a bit of work. Papers are coming due, projects are getting ready to be presented. Final exams are getting a bit too close for comfort. So I entered this week caught up, and dare I say, a bit ahead. I was proud of myself.

Then, Monday happened. Monday happened and, well, everything changed. I was on my way to DC when I heard the news of the bombing. At that moment, no one was real sure exactly what was going on. I don’t know if you have ever felt like that. I remember on Sept. 11, 2001, I was starting my senior year of College. I had a 9:30am class on Tuesdays, and would walk to class with my friend who lived next to me. When we left for class, there was a report of one plane crash, but that was it. We went to class, unaware of what was happening, until 11am when class let out and we went to get some lunch and it was at that point, as we walked into the cafeteria and saw TV screens on all over the place, so many people gathered round that there was no room to move.

We got out of class and realized that the world had changed. That is what Monday felt like. I heard bits of the radio and by the time I had class, I realized that something horrible was happening, but it wasn’t until I got out of class that it really hit me.

You see, guilt strikes us in different ways. Sometimes we struggle with guilt for things we did or said that we shouldn’t. Sometimes we struggle with guilt for things we didn’t do or say that we should have. Monday mornings I have a routine. It is the one day of the week that I can “sleep in.” Eimy and Ian have to get to work and school, but i can’t take them like I usually do because I leave before they get home. So, generally, I will get up to give Ian a hug and kiss goodbye since I won’t see him until wednesday night, or he comes and gives me a hug and a kiss. This monday, for whatever reason, we didn’t see each other before he left for school. I didn’t really think about that until after I got out of class and back to my room a little before 9pm and got online to check my email and the news and that is when I heard about the little 8 year old boy who lost his life in Boston.

Just like that, we struggle with guilt for things we should have done, things that didn’t seem all that important at the time, but in all reality are the most important things there are. There is a lot of guilt to go around this week. I am sure each of you missed an opportunity to let someone close to you know that you love them. It is unfortunate that sometimes it takes a massive crisis for us to remember who is important in our lives.

We are left today, with this image of Jesus as our shepherd. I don’t know about you but when I was growing up and was thinking of a shepherd, the image I got in my mind was of a lonesome boy, out on the range guarding his flock. For that reason, it can be comforting to imagine, rather, to know that while we flock together, we have Christ guarding us, protecting us, guiding us home. Yet, it begs the question, if Jesus, if God, if the Holy Spirit is shepherding us, that means they are protecting us from something. They are protecting us from some evil. As a shepherd guards, he does his best to keep his flock safe, but to a certain extent, it is in the shepherds power to protect, but not in his power to control the evil that lurks outside of his view.

If we think of Christ as our shepherd in this light, it quickly becomes scary. We know Jesus to be part of the Holy Trinity, Jesus as man, but also as God and as the Holy Spirit. We know that as part of the trinity, all that we see and experience is part of His creation. This brings us to the ever present question, if all is created by God, why is there so much sorrow and heartache and evil. Many say that God created it. This, historically, has been a popular understanding. To us, it makes logical sense. God creates everything. Evil is something, therefore it was created and since it was created it had to be created by God. See, it makes sense. There are a couple of problems with this though. First of all, this logic has been used by some individuals who use it to scare and to blame. It is this understanding of evil that gives us those individuals who say that illness, cancer, AIDS, poverty, death, and destruction are signs of God’s vengeance upon those who have sinned. It is this understanding of evil that gives us those who say that health, prosperity, wealth, influence, and power are nothing more than blessings for those individuals who have kept God’s commandments.

Yet, here is the thing. There is one fact that blows a hole in this logic. Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. Despite the fact that this logic has been used more times than we can count, the truth is that this logic is just that, a human attempt to understand something that is to a certain extent beyond our comprehension. No matter how many times we hear this perspective on why evil exists, the truth is, when we read through the Bible, especially when we read through the New Testament, this understanding of evil is simply wrong. It is simply a way we have come to pretend that God is on our side. What it fails to do is ask the question, are we on God’s side?

You see, there are other explanations of why evil exists and what exactly evil is. I don’t want to get into a whole bunch of theology, because frankly, it confuses me just as it might confuse a number of you. However, let me give you what I believe is possibly the most likely explanation that I feel fits into the understanding we get through careful study of scripture.

Evil, in all its forms, is not something. It is not a substance, it is not a piece of matter. It is, rather, a state of mind. It comes into being in a very simple way. We don’t get our priorities straight. We order our lives and our beings in ways that are counter to what God intends. We can do this because God gives us the ability to choose what we do in life. God gives us the power to order our priorities in any way that we want. When our priorities are ordered in the correct way, our lives, our words, our thoughts and our deeds bring us closer to God. But the reverse is also true. When our priorities are not in the right order, we put distance between ourselves and God. More than this, it becomes a self-fulfilling circular habit. When we order our priorities incorrectly, we get further from God. As we draw away from God, it becomes harder and harder to realize how our priorities should be ordered and we just keep moving farther and farther away.

In this understanding, evil exists not because God creates it, but because we do. We create it and allow it. What makes matters worse is that over time it just keeps getting harder and harder for us to figure out how to get everything in order.

That is why that image we have of the Shepherd watching over us can be a bit misleading. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that Christ is not our shepherd. Rather, Christ being our shepherd is not simply a matter of him looking out for wolves. Rather, it is a matter of Him trying over and over to convince us that the only reason wolves are there is because we choose to see them. But, to a certain extent they are illusions. Created by our inability to answer our calls. He tells us that much today in his words, “You don’t believe because you don’t recognize the voice of the shepherd among you.”

We wondered if we tend to think of the image of the shepherd as an image of Jesus on a grassy hillside surrounded by fluffy white sheep.  Here we see a sharper image:  Jesus is the Lord who is the Shepherd of the Twenty-third Psalm:  "When you recite the psalm, 'the Lord is my shepherd,' Jesus says, "you are addressing me.  The Father and I are one, I am the Good Shepherd."

And now come the words, "My sheep hear my voice.  I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.  No one will snatch them out of my hand.  What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand.  The Father and I are one."

Today listen for the voice of our Shepherd, calling us away from deadly things, empowering and equipping us to raise up others who long to know the power of his forgiving love.  Let's show ourselves to be alive in Christ, raising up others in the joy of our risen Lord.

Today, we struggle with the events of this past week. Today we look to God, we call to the Shepherd, we pray that we can understand why. Maybe the reason why is that we have created something we can’t control. Maybe the reason why is that we have sinned and are being punished. Maybe the reason is simply that, sometimes, bad things happen. We also know that as Christ calls us into the fold, we too, must answer. We too must share that love that brings us home.

Today, we are humbled. We are in awe of the evil that has befallen us. We are scared that more will come. We mourn for those whose lives have been taken away far too soon. We are reminded that, in life, there is little true security. That is, except in the arms of the shepherd who calls us, who searches for us, and who loves us.

If we learn nothing else from this past week, let us learn this. We share this life with family and friends. We share this life with neighbors and acquaintances. We share in this life, a planet filled with two things. First, it is a planet filled with pain. Secondly, and more importantly, it is a planet filled with millions of opportunities every day to reach out, embrace, and love. For it is in this embrace, it is in this love, that we begin to see how we have misordered the priorities in our lives. In fact, it is the one thing that can help us see clearly when we are trapped in the downward spiral that draws us away from God. This embrace and this love, gives us enough clarity to see through the evil and recognize the love. This love, brightens our path, and together, we can walk, back into the fold, where we will be blessed to share an eternity in the fold of the creator, the only place we can be where it will be impossible to confuse evil with love.