“Can You Be Our Shepherd? A Ten-Year Report” June 17, 2007

Ezekiel 34: 1-6, 11-16 Psalm 23, John 21: 15-19

Ten years ago I stood here to preach for the first time and it was a wonderful day for me. The church was full and I sensed that I was meeting a confident congregation, looking not for a superman pastor to somehow transform a troubled situation but for a capable leader to join in the work of the congregation. That felt good to me. The Camp Hope team had just come back and there was a report and a song from the kids, who included (if memory serves me well) Barry Willhite Jr., Amy Nuttall, Sarah Jones and Charlene Jones (Stratton) among others. I got my first taste of the humor that pervades this church as Julius Jones presented me with a pair of official Camp Hope shorts – distinctively marked by someone who had dipped their hands in white paint and placed them on the rear end. If I’d thought a little quicker I could have said that I had heard of pastors being welcomed by the “laying on of hands” but this was a variation of the ceremony I wasn’t familiar with – but sometimes the best responses just don’t come in time, so I make my quip 10 years later. The music was good – Joyce Ghee sang a solo and Russ Wilmot played the French horn; we had communion, and afterward a special reception with a cake from the Pastry Garden. It was a good day, and I hope you will have a similar one in two weeks as Rev. Eileen Freeman joins you.

My sermon that day arose from a question that had been posed to me a few moths before at the introductory meeting with the Staff-Parish Relations Committee. Jack Fenton, a member of the committee, had said something like this: “Last Sunday as I was sitting in church I was pondering the picture of the Good Shepherd, and it made me want to ask you whether you can you be a good shepherd to this congregation.” I figured that this meeting was no time for modesty, so I said “Yes.” But in the weeks that followed I wasn’t happy with my answer and I used that first sermon to set the record straight. Now – ten years later – I want to revisit the question.

“Can you be our shepherd?” What I should have said in the meeting, and what I tried say in that first sermon was a two part answer. The first part was, “No. I can’t be your shepherd because you already have one. My job is to point toward the shepherd you already have.”

Back in the bad old days of the Soviet Union, when persecution of Christians was harsh and systematic, there was a group of policemen who were sent to disrupt prayers in a Russian church. They found just a few old people praying, including one old woman who was kneeling before a crucifix in great devotion, weeping and kissing the feet of Jesus. One of the policemen, who was really a fairly kind man sent to do a nasty job, tried to stop the woman in a gentle way. He said to her “Oh, Grandmother – think about what you are doing, kissing the feet of that statue. How superstitious! How inappropriate! Would you be equally willing to kiss the feet of the chairman of our glorious Communist Party?” He was quite surprised to hear her say “Yes.” “Of course I would – as long as he’s willing to be crucified first!”

I have never felt the need to tear down other religions, and I assume that something of God’s truth can be found in other faiths, but I am a Christian and could be nothing but a Christian because of Jesus and the uniqueness of the God we see in him. This is how God reveals himself – in the shepherd who comes to live among the sheep, who guides them in love; who is willing to die for the sheep, and who rises from death as a sign of God’s victorious power. We have a shepherd who shares our life completely, even to the point of death, who promises in resurrection that he will continue to guide us even into everlasting life.

As I think about the last ten years I am so grateful for the ways in which our fellowship has been shaped by the guiding, creative, sustaining, healing and nurturing influence of the shepherding God.

Certainly the largest single activity during these years has been the expansion and renovation of our buildings. Many talented people worked together as leaders and followers, but we had a guidance and an influence that transcended any human leadership. So many decisions had to be made – each of which had an impact on the project: getting the right people involved in the planning team, deciding on an architect, choosing a capital funds consultant, balancing wants and needs as the costs escalated, figuring out how to have church while under construction, striving to find the right balance between challenging our members with a bold project and being realistic about what was really possible etc….. We prayed about these things, and in ways that I certainly couldn’t have foreseen, God answered our prayers: capable people stepped forward with the skills that were needed, all along the process; generous people contributed at levels we hadn’t dared hope for; creative answers for our dilemmas often arose. Our shepherd provided and led us through, thanks be to God!

As I survey these ten years I am grateful to think of the ways in which the shepherding God has been with us in times of anxiety and sadness. I think of the comfort from above that came to us on that awful weekend in 2001 when our entire nation was reeling after the 9/11 attacks, and we also had two significant unrelated deaths in our congregation. This room was filled with a healing grace again and again as we came together that weekend….. I think of the spiritual power we experienced during a healing service when Pastor Dale Ellen was so seriously ill, and the sustaining strength of the good shepherd just about a year ago when little Julius Jacob Stratton was born after only 26 weeks in his mother’s womb….. I am grateful for the presence of God that I have experienced at times of visiting people in near-death situations in the hospital. I’ve been present as some of your loved ones passed from this life to the next, and present as some people were miraculously restored to life – and in both scenarios I experienced holiness and a hope, thanks to our shepherding God…… As individuals and as a fellowship we have been blessed by the shepherd’s love, often un-noticed in good times but unmistakably evident in times of trouble.

When I think of the Good Shepherd who promises to meet our needs I think of the significant people who have been sent to us. As one example, how blessed all of us are, but particularly the youth, because Joe and Barb Marrine were sent to us. I’d love to take credit for finding and recruiting them, but the truth is that they just showed up – sent in some mysterious way by the shepherd who knows our needs. Many, many other people have been sent as well, blessing us on other ways……. I think of the capable staff people who work here, sent by blessed mystery to be a part of our fellowship……. I think also of ideas that came – a few to me, many to other people – ideas that went from being brainstorms to being a significant part of our life together – having retreats on a steady basis, the Monday Night Lights program, the contemporary service, usingNew Consecration as our stewardship program, deciding to ask Regina Coeli if we could do something as presumptuous as using their school for a whole year during our construction, having a Long Range Planning event in 1999…... Where do ideas come from? You can’t just decide “We’ll sit down on Tuesday and come up with a great idea for our church.” Inspirations come from somewhere – from beyond us, as gifts – and we’ve been given many by the shepherding God who provides.

When I think of the Good Shepherd’s presence I give thanks for ten years of peaceful life together – not without any tensions at all, of course – but a sense of well-being even when people cannot agree with each other on hard social issues like homosexuality and the church’s response, or when people have radically different ideas about worship music, or when decisions have to be made about where the choir loft will be in the newly constructed sanctuary or what time the services will be. I am grateful that the wisdom of the Shepherd has led us through situations that have been known to cause congregational splits, and grateful that so many people have been willing listen to the Good Shepherd who wants to gather us all into one flock.

I’m grateful that we have a Good Shepherd. In a few weeks you will no longer have the pastor you have come to know, but you will have the same Shepherd. Ten years ago part one of my corrective answer was, “I can’t be your shepherd, but I can point you toward the one you already have.” The shepherd has led us well, and will continue to do so.

Part two of my answer was this: “Can I be a shepherd? Under the shepherding of Jesus I will try, but I’m counting on you to do that too.” This phrase didn’t occur to me then, but since then I have sometimes used the phrase “a community of shepherds.” That’s what I was envisioning then, and as I have been known to do on occasion, I expanded the idea with one of my corny jokes.

It seems that there was a Christian woman who was always quoting the Bible, and she would do so with great conviction whether her quote made any sense or not. One day she had to go to court for some minor legal violation – a traffic ticket or some other small concern – and the judge wanted to know if she had a lawyer. He said, “Ma’am, do you have an advocate?” “Advocate? Advocate?” she replied, “My advocate is Jesus Christ the righteous who intercedeth at the right hand of the Father! 1 John 2:1!” But the judge said “Lady, that’s no good. You need someone local.”

How do the advocacy and the love of Jesus become local? They often come to life, they become localized, through people – through followers of Christ who, though imperfect, are striving to pass along the Good Shepherd’s impact on their life, so that they are what Martin Luther called “Little Christs” to those around them. The Shepherd’s care is expressed through people like Simon Peter, who heard Jesus respond to his declarations of loyalty not with the words “Then if you love me be an obedient sheep,” but “If you love me then join me in shepherding. Feed my sheep; tend my lambs…” In the last ten years I have seen a lot of shepherding taking place here, done by people who have heeded that command.

Sometimes it’s been a group effort – unplanned and gradual - as many people have joined together to express a shepherd’s love. I think especially of the response that was made some years ago when an 18 year old from the Anderson School, Glen by name, decided to come to our church. He had some disabilities, and some oddities, but he was accepted and welcomed by our teens, and taken under the wing by numerous adults who gave him rides, invited him to their homes for holidays, gave him gifts, made him a part of our church family. For three years he was a vital part of our fellowship – he loved coming to our church, and if the doors were open it was almost certain that he would be here - until his sudden and unexpected death, on Sept.12, 2001, from a previously undiagnosed respiratory ailment. His funeral service was here the following Saturday. The youth group sang, there were testimonies about how his life had touched others, and a full house of church members, students, and leaders from Anderson School witnessed this church as a community of shepherds. Glen was blessed because there were shepherding people here, but that’s not the whole story. We were blessed too, and our life was enriched because people chose to act like shepherds.

Sometimes Jesus becomes “local” through group efforts that are intentional and planned, like the missional efforts that have shaped our church, most notably in the long heritage of sending teams to Camp Hope and the more recent emphasis on Volunteers in Mission to Biloxi, Walton and Haiti. When someone goes to help repair the home of a stranger, that’s a way of make Jesus “local;” that’s doing a shepherd’s work – and again, I say, the beneficiaries are not just the ones receiving the help. We’ve been blessed by the inspiration and transformation that our shepherding people have experienced and initiated. We’re different because of it….. I could go on to name many other efforts – Meals on Wheels, the Lunch Box, the Mark-it Place, the Homeless shelter, work bees to build handicap ramps or re-roof homes, etc…… In doing work of kindness we carry out the shepherd’s will, and the shepherd is present.

And in addition to group efforts I am grateful for the individual acts of kindness that have so often marked our life together. My family and I have been the recipients at times – as people transported our daughter back and forth to the college and to doctors’ appointments with such kindness, as people sent meals when we were sick, as lay speakers volunteered to preach in my place after my parents’ deaths, as you listened and prayed for us as we went through some tough times with our son and daughter’s illnesses, as you shared in friendship with such pleasant things as basketball games and golf outings, and in these recent weeks as people have volunteered to help us with the packing and cleaning that go with a move. These may not seem like “spiritual activities” to some people. They’re just friendly actions, people may think – but such actions and attitudes are reflective of the shepherd, and they are contagious and transforming. How thankful I am to have been a part of community of shepherds, where the principle attitude of so many people is not “How can my life be improved and made easier by being here?” but “How can I care and contribute?”

In a few weeks you will have a different pastor. Things will be different as she begins to join the Good Shepherd’s work in ways that fit her skills and inclinations, just as I responded in the ways that were fitting for me. Things will be different, of course, but you will still be a community of shepherds, with a rich and satisfying life in covenant with the Good Shepherd and all the shepherding people around you.

“Can I be your shepherd?” “Can any pastor?” The correct answer is No – but behind the “No” are some wonderful affirmations. You have a shepherd. You can be shepherds in a community of shepherds. For this I’ve been grateful, and will always be grateful. Thanks be to God! Amen.