Sermon preached by Anne Watkins, Associate for New Member Ministry

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

The Fourth Sunday of Easter – April 13, 2008

In the name of God, Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer. Amen.

 You have heard it said, no doubt, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” You have also heard, no doubt, the adage “Location, location location.” Today, indeed, “the more things change, the more they stay the same” and we might consider turning that adage into: “Context, context, context.”

 John’s gospel was likely written toward the end of the 1st Century, in a Hellenistic culture dominated by the Roman Empire, after the destruction of Jerusalem. It was also likely written as Jewish leaders – the Pharisees – were expelling from the synagogue those who were espousing a theology and attempting to follow a way of life known to them in the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth. Thus, the Gospel of John comes from the perspective of an ostracized community in the midst of defining its identity apart from the Jewish community from which they originally came. What we have then is one marginalized, persecuted, religious minority at odds with another marginalized persecuted religious minority, living side by side in a world whose culture was largely hostile to both of them.

 The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 Here we sit, with one segment of the Church with an understanding of an open, affirming and inclusive God of all creation who are trying to live faithfully into that stance and another segment of the Church, seeking to live faithfully within their understanding of scripture that calls for the exclusion of some persons from full participation in the life of the Church because of gender or sexual orientation or both. So here we sit in a post-Christendom age– that is, a time when neither of these segments of the Church sit squarely at the center of culture as they did two or three generations ago. And each sit in cultures that are largely ignorant of, dismissive, or ambivalent, if not outright hostile, to them both. To make matters more complex, we are left with scripture that paints pictures largely foreign to us. There just aren’t that many sheepfolds in and around Norwalk, CT these days. And as if that weren’t enough, our denominational practice of dividing scripture into a three-year lectionary means that this rich chapter in John is chopped up in order that each year we might hear another snippet and have our so-called “Good Shepherd Sunday” on the fourth week in the Easter season.

 It may help, then, to call our attention to and keep in mind four things: (1) a little of what sheepherding and sheepfolds were like in ancient Palestine; (2) the verse that ends this section of the Gospel telling us that Jesus came so they [we] might have life, “and have it abundantly”; (3) the picture of the Church that our first lesson from Acts offers; and (4) an important verse not included in today’s snippet of John’s gospel.

 As far as shepherding went in 1st Century Palestine, it is useful to note that we are not talking about individual sheep farmers here, who take their flocks out to their private pastures and corral them at night back near their private farmhouses. Rather, a sheepfold was an enclosure, often made of stone walls, in which several shepherds and, therefore, several flocks might find safety at night from predators.

 Animal behaviorists have been known to comment that sheep are none too bright – so that we might imagine in such a setting how easy it would be for the sheep to get mixed up into another’s fold. On the other hand, sheep are not totally stupid either. And so, we might further imagine a whole cacophony of bleating animals each morning, rested and hungry again for good pastureland. Not so unlike the cacophony we hear in our everyday lives, with competing agendas and demands on our priorities and our time as we seek out good pastureland. The shepherd’s voice then, is paramount. And for sheep, the trust and association with that voice go hand in hand. It is the shepherd, afterall, who leads the sheep to good pastureland and clean water day after day after day. If the shepherd were not to do that, it wouldn’t take long for the sheep to follow another voice out of the sheepfold one morning to see if that voice was more trustworthy. The question we might ask ourselves then is “whose voice, in the cacophony of sounds and demands placed on us every day, can be most trusted to lead us to the things that offer us nourishment and refreshment?” To borrow the words that end this section of the gospel, “Whose voice and where do we find life and find it in abundance”?

 Today’s passage from Acts paints a picture of the Church as it lived into this promise of abundant life. “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.”

 Now, history has shown us too well some of the dangers and distortions of socialism; and we know too well, as individuals, how comfortable we are with our possessions and how difficult it is to give them up, let alone give them over to another. So is there anything from this early Church image that we might bring to our day and our time? I wonder, in a world of increasing globalization and increasing wealth and prosperity for some nations at the expense of others, we might look at actions that support the United Nations Millennium Development Goals or toward legislation that provides for Third World Debt cancellation so that the interest these developing communities must pay on loans that developed nations provide don’t sap their economies to the extent that they become poorer and poorer while those who ostensibly are providing assistance are in actuality getting richer and richer? Is this, perhaps, one way that 1st Century “holding things in common” and “having the goodwill of all the people” translates into our 21st Century? For I do not think that our neighbors around the world object so much to Capitalism as they do to the arrogance and blindness to justice that it can sometimes breed. These words from Jesus and from sacred text are not, I think, only theological concepts; they are political ones, too.

 Looking even more closely to home and our culture here, is a concept embedded in this description of the early Church that is, I’m afraid, too often overlooked. It is the concept of time. We hear in Acts that those baptized into Christ were devoted to fellowship and that “day by day they spent much time together” Indeed at our Annual Meeting in January as we looked with wonder and gratitude for the growth of this place, we gave voice to the desire to spend more time together, getting to know each other more deeply. (And, a little advertisement here – look in your announcement leaflet and take note of the opportunities being developed to provide a response to those desires so often voiced around our tables in that setting.)

 Life and life in abundance comes from being in community with others. For all of the complexities of scripture at various times, the truth is as simple and straightforward as that.

 Finally, I said I wanted to call our attention to a snippet of scripture not included in our passage this morning. Just six verses later, John’s Jesus purportedly says this:  I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

 I suspect I am not alone in finding that verse especially helpful for this community of St. Paul’s – one committed to welcoming all, no matter who they are and where they find themselves in the understanding of their faith. Without it, we are left, as we are today, with just a snippet of scripture, lifted out of context, that speaks about gates and gatekeepers; images that can be used to lock people out just as easily as they can be used for pointing the way in and opening up the entrances.

 Rather than gates to close others out and apart from the cacophony of other voices -- the bandits and thieves of John’s day (and our own) -- who would lead away from the risen Christ, this scripture invites us, I believe, to look at gates that open and a gatekeeper who calls us into life more abundant than what we have known before. That Good Shepherd, God-self incarnate, gives to us God’s Holy Spirit that we might live in abundance and share that Good News in word and in deed so that through us all might hear the Good Shepherd’s voice and trust it to bring them into the fold. Amen.