Sunday, April 30, 2023
The United Church of Santa Fe
Santa Fe, New Mexico
I had the honour of presiding and preaching at the Services in the absence of The Rev. Talitha Arnold, Minister of United Church. The text following is as it was printed in the Bulletin. The Greek will be found at the end of the Sermon.
JOHN 10.1-10
“Very truly, I tell you,” said Jesús, “anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief y un bandido (a bandit). The one who enters by the gate is el pastor (the shepherd) of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for el pastor, y las ovejas (the sheep) hear his voice. He calls his own ovejas by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and las ovejas follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesús used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
So again Jesús said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate para las ovejas. All who came before me are thieves y bandidos; but las ovejas did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have vida (life), and have it abundantly.”
The Good Shepherd
+ In nomine Domini. Amen.
Good Shepherd Sunday. If you grew up in the Church, then you must have seen the painting which I am about to describe. There are many versions of it, but nearly all have a bucolic background (trees, bushes, grass). In the center we see Jesus with flowing robes, he is either standing still or walking slowly. He carries a Lamb across his shoulders. Jesus always has a little smile, always has blue eyes which are always cast downward a bit. This is not a painting where Jesus’ eyes follow you around the room. He looks Northern European. He always wears sandals.
The image is one of gentleness, and compassion – of safety and rescue. The meaning of the painting extends outward to us like a shaft of light as if to tell us: Here is the one you can trust, who is always there for you, who will keep you safe from harm. This is Jesus, the Good Shepherd.
It is very comforting.
The image comes of course from the Gospel of John, composed toward the end of the 1st Century CE, written not by one person, but by a community of somewhat unrelated to each other Jews and followers of Jesus (we call them Christians, but that term doesn’t really apply in the way that we think of ourselves as Christians – they are followers of Jesus, mostly Jews and we think some Samaritans. According to the best scholarship we have, they have migrated north from Jerusalem to what we now know as the Golan Heights, northeast of the Sea of Galilee. They have escaped the devastation of the Jewish Rebellion against Rome that occurred from 66 to 72 CE – a rebellion which was put down by the Empire. It was safer to live there in the Golan.
Various members of the community could write Greek and just as the writers of the synoptic Gospels before them (Mark, Matthew, Luke), they told their stories about Jesus as the Christ, and what they wrote became known as the Gospel (the Good News) according to John. This Gospel, however, portrays their own experiences and opinions. They were more contentious than the community around the Gospel of Mark some 2 decades before, they had disparaging and judgmental things to say about the faith of other people, especially to their fellow Jewish brothers and sisters. They seem to be trying, with little success, to attract them and other members of other groups of followers of Jesus into their own community. Their theme? “Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”
The Fourth Gospel, as we sometimes call it, is at the same time endearing and bothersome. The Greek words of the Gospel are simpler than let us say the Greek of the Gospel of Luke; but also the words do not always flow as well (in Greek) and so most translations of the Gospel try to make adjustments so the words can be read more easily. But that comes with a price. For example:
The Passion Story from this Gospel (the Trial, Judgment, Suffering and Crucifixion of Jesus) is nearly always read as part of the liturgy on Good Friday in the Christian Church. If you read it as it is generally translated, and come across words which literally say “the Jews” and “for fear of the Jews” and things like that – you can understand why Good Friday was for the Jewish People such a horrible time when dealing with Christians who outnumbered them, especially in later Centuries. Ignorant and horrid phrases like “the Jews killed Jesus” come from such an irresponsible translation and reading. You know that phrases from this Fourth Gospel were employed readily by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust as substantiating evidence for killing the Jewish People.
Words can hurt, even kill. They are powerful instruments of evil if not placed into context and understanding. Couple this in the last Century with the horrible anti-Jewish words of Martin Luther from the 16th Century which he wrote toward the end of his life and you can understand how survivors of the Holocaust whom I met over the years, discovering that I was a Pastor of the Lutheran Church made for very strained conversation. And even explaining that on my father’s side I had a Jewish Great-Grandmother did not help very much.
It is what happens, my sisters and brothers, when we grab scripture and memorize it, quote it, turn it into songs and use it without clearly understanding its source, the meaning and intent of the story within its own time and place and culture.
It was I believe, Bishop John Shelby Spong, of blessed memory, who said that for people to have a 4th Grade Sunday School understanding of the Bible was perfect – if you were in 4th Grade. But for adults, no. Using all the tools we have at hand: the decades, if not centuries of scholarship, a sense of the language and the history of the people – even food and dress, customs and culture – if we begin to use these tools as we explore and read the stories that are the foundation of our faith, then – then, we can not only make sense, but also begin to share responsibly and lovingly what we have taken to ourselves, what is in our core of Belief.
I keep saying, and the longer I live the truer it becomes: being a follower of Jesus is hard work. We have to pay attention – not only to the Story, not only to the Christ, but to all the things I mentioned above and then – then pay close attention to those to whom we tell the Story.
I’m sorry, but that childhood painting of the Good Shepherd is wrong. Jesus was not Nordic with blue eyes, he was a Jew and he looked like someone who lives in the Middle East. He looked Israeli. He was, he understood, someone sent from God. He knew a lot about the common things of his life and used those common things in stories to bring people close to the God in whom he totally believed.
He was peripatetic – a good Greek word meaning “he walked around”, that is he moved from place to place among the people. He was not like a Caesar or a Herod who sat in overwhelming wealth and expected people to come to them. This Good Shepherd whom we celebrate this morning, brought hope and healing and comfort and sometimes deeply penetrating truth to those whom he met. He was convinced that God is love and just so we should show love (not hate, not prejudice, not war, not killing, not torture, not cruelty, not abuse) – but love to each other. He believed that when we did the actions of love, God was present in the action; being close to God meant we are close to each other.
The Community of John told the story that Jesus said one day to his followers and to his distractors as well, about a Shepherd who truly cares for the sheep. You heard it read so well this morning, you have in front of you in English and Spanish. In these 10 verses, Jesus compares himself not only to being a gentle and good and caring Shepherd, he is also the Gate by which the Shepherd and the Sheep come into safety, in the sheep-pen, for the night to be watched over by the Shepherd.
All of this and the metaphors therein stretch on into the next 10 or so verses. And in so doing, it is told in the Gospel of John, it results in a division of opinion among Jesus’ own people[1]: some who say that he is possessed by a demon, others who say that he is speaking the truth. The story as we find it in the Gospel of John is set within the ongoing struggle between followers of Jesus and others.
I am very honoured to have been present here in Santa Fe in 1994 (49 years after the Holocaust) when the document entitled Declaration to the Jewish People, from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was read aloud at Friday Night Shabbat Service here at Temple Beth Shalom by the representative of the Lutheran Church from the Pulpit in the Synagogue. The Document repudiated the hateful speech of Martin Luther and apologized to the Jewish People for the same.
The work of repair has begun – and long before actually – but it is not finished. We have only to open the newspaper, turn on the radio, watch the evening news, and consult the Internet to know that hate and prejudice has not ended.
How is it then that this story which comes from the Gospel of John at the end of the 1st Century amid religious and political struggle, bringing more angst into the world perhaps than healing, how is it then that this story which we have, by our reading it, and preaching it, brought to life now on the last day of April; how is it then that the Good Jesus, the Good Shepherd (given all that we know, given all that we have said), how can Jesus, the love, the life, the hope, the healing, the salvation – possibly have anything to do with anyone today?
The answer is: we do it!
We make it so!
We followers of Jesus who have within us the Presence of Christ, are responsible for making it happen!
The Monday after Easter I was invited to lecture to 4 classes of 8th Graders at Santa Fe Prep. I was also invited one year ago; it is a wonderful experience to do this. The assignment was: Explain Christianity in 45 Minutes. An impossible task! Two students in two different classes asked me the same question, “Yesterday was Easter, Jesus rose from the dead, where did he go?”
Now that’s a great question. I offered the following: Rudolph Bultmann, the great German Theologian of the last Century answered it this way: “Jesus rose into the Story.” And I told them, I believe that.
I add this: Where did Jesus go? My answer into us! Resurrection faith means that Jesus lives in us, who are his followers.
Martin Luther had a way of describing it by saying, “We are called to be Little Christs to our neighbors.”
Into us. Through us, the “Shepherd” who is caring and loving and forgiving and compassionate – through us that Shepherd comes alive in our speech and in our actions to touch those around us, even those we may not like, even those who are different and believe differently – even those who do not like us, even our enemies. It is not our job to convert others to be like us, to think like we do, to act like we do. It is our job to let the light of the Presence, the Divine Presence, the Presence of Christ flicker within us, so others may see in us and through us, the Holy One.
Remember that song we learned in Sunday School, “I have the love of Jesus, deep in my heart, deep in my heart, deep in my heart”? That’s it! Jesus rose into us, into our hearts, into our lives, into our works of love and compassion. And that, my sisters and my brothers, is the Gospel, the Good News for today.
And let us all say: AMEN.
[1] This is the translation of the brilliant Norman A. Beck, retired Professor of Theology and Classical Languages at Texas Lutheran University (Seguin, TX): The New Testament: A New Translation and Redaction
Nota(ble) Be(n)e 