Hope Ascending (Ephesians 1:15-23)

In writing a story, sometimes you will end with an epilogue. The main action is over, the plot has run its course, but the author adds a final section that allows some sort of ending or closure. For example, the dragon has been defeated, the kingdom saved, and now the knight and princess share a quiet scene at the end. Cue the grand music, and then the end credits roll as people dig around for their jackets and purses and start trying to remember where they parked outside the movie theatre.

The ascension of Jesus is treated as mere epilogue to the greater story. The gospels narrate the life, death, and resurrection, and now Jesus offers words of blessings and leaves the stage. Most Christians, though, tend to stop the story here, speaking less about what happens “next” in the story of Jesus. Did you know that the story continues?

As narrated by the Nicene Creed, Christ ascends in glory to sit at the right hand of the Father, where he shall be until he returns to judge “the quick and the dead”. (NOTE: This particular phrase came from the creeds, not Louis L’Amour.) For centuries, Christianity has recited creeds along the lines of confessing belief in Christ, the one born of a virgin, who lived his life among us, and died upon the cross. Then comes the pinnacle of Christian belief. We confess that on the third day after burial, Christ rose from the dead.

We might dismiss the Ascension as an “extra scene”, optional to tell only if there is time left at the end or just a bit of extra story that feels like “filler” to pad out the end. The Ascension is critical to the story of Jesus, serving as epilogue to the Gospel and “prologue” to the sequel, the story we call “Church”. The Ascension is the prologue of what is about to happen in the story ahead. Usually, prologues are brief scenes that set the stage, foreshadowing what is to come. Here, Christ ascends into the heavens above, and the disciples are staring up at the skies above. Now the question looms: “what happens next?”

This day, we find ourselves somewhere between “epilogue” and “prologue”. The story has finished in part, but not in full. The Church can keep staring off into the heavens, hoping for a glimpse of the Christ who shall return. Often, the temptation is to do just that. Baptist activist and New Testament translator Clarence Jordan used to joke most Christians live as if the Lord’s Prayer says “Our Father, who art in the heaven, stay up there”. If we understand the ascension, we live with expectation of the “not yet”, while embracing the call to live in the “here and now”. As Jordan translated Acts: “Get your work britches on! We’ve got work to do!”

In the day of the New Testament writer Paul, the first Christians were dealing with the ambiguity. Jesus said he would return. We believe he will. The world seems to be falling apart, so where is he? It is a subtext of the New Testament, this lingering question of “when?” Paul speaks to it in his writings, affirming that there will come a day when Christ shall return, speaking of death not having the last word, and the day when we shall see in full, not in part, the glory of God. Nonetheless, the New Testament writers, Paul included, do not subscribe to a “wait and see” approach. The New Testament writers called upon Christians to live in the “here and now”. Early Christianity engaged in all manner of care for those in need, sharing resources, and welcoming persons regardless of race, social class, or gender. While they waited, the early Church also “got their work britches on”.

The early Church did so under the shadow of the Roman Empire. Christianity was an often persecuted, barely tolerated movement, only enjoying widespread acceptance when the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the state religion in the early fourth century. In the years of Paul’s ministry (approximately the 40-60s of the first century), Christians endured great persecution and hardship, including Paul’s death at the hands of Romans in the early 60s. Despite the difficulty and adversity, the early Christians did not give up on the here and now. They were an expectant people, but they waited with remarkable faith, not just for Christ to return in judgment and glory. They also kept living out their lives, shaped by the gospel’s call to tend one another and “the least of these, my brothers and sisters”.

It is that radical witness of the early Church, that ability to stick to it, even when one’s hope for Christ’s return wears thin, even when the pressures of living out the contrary witness of the gospel seemed too much, it is this radical witness to Jesus that resounds in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Paul gives thanks for the dedicated faithfulness of the congregation, celebrating the goodness of what they do together for the sake of the gospel. Imagine these words as ones of encouragement to a little gathering of believers: May you know Christ, the one whom God

raised from the dead and seated at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.

To the New Testament, this is the way the world should be perceived, not as a place where sin, brokenness, and death have the final word. Keep your head out of the clouds and the wonderings of “when”. Live as if the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ provide you the pattern for how you live your life. Let this story of the Ascension be the prologue to a life lived in faith.

In the midst of Paul’s thanksgiving for the distant Ephesian congregation, Paul also imparts a blessing. Being Paul, however, the blessing comes in one long strand of pearly wisdom, a run-on sentence you used to get your knuckles wrapped for writing in middle school grammar. Paul offers:

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.

Vermont writer Frederick Buechner references these words of Paul in his 1999 autobiography The Eyes of the Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found. In this book, Buechner writes of imaginary conversations he has with his departed relatives and friends. Buechner’s life has known its share of sadness and loss, yet through his faith, especially in his writing of novels and essays, Buechner has found the gospel there in the midst of his life.

Buechner does not profess to have explored the greater depths of the faith (I argue this point with him, for he writes with such candor and perception). Nonetheless, in his life pondering God in the midst of things, Buechner has glimpsed enough of that rich and abundant hope Paul speaks of that he is satisfied that the gospel is indeed wonderfully true. In the midst of the hurts, fears, loss, and sorrow of life, Buechner claims there is a deeper wisdom and joy to be found if we only but seek it. Out beyond the sum of our fears and loss, our inadequacies and anxieties, there exists a wonderful, abundant, and life-giving way.

We live in a world often prone to feeling its broken down nature, yet Christians are given this vocabulary full of contrary words to live by. Words like peace, joy, love, and hope stand out and ask us to define them, not with wishy-washy triteness, rather through the concrete experience of letting our eyes be open to the world, yet seeing what really matters through our hearts shaped by the great hope we find in Christ Jesus.

Thus, we can look at the world with a perception that is frank and honest. Take for example the reminiscence of theologian Jurgen Moltmann, a German scholar whose work has explored a theology grounded in the same hope Paul speaks about to the Ephesians. Moltmann remembers in 1977 traveling through Argentina as part of a five-week lecture tour of Latin America. He writes,

In Buenos Aires, a ‘third world’ priest took me into a barrio in which refugees from Peru and Chile were sitting in self-built corrugated iron huts, waiting for a future that never came. It was here that I learned the proverb, ‘Hope is the last thing to die’….I came excited and angry [after the Latin American lecture tour]: so much beauty and so much violence, so much fullness of life and so much premature death! (A Broad Place, 226-7)

What Moltmann saw with his eyes was not what the eyes of his heart told him was right or just. More particularly, Moltmann viewed the plight of the impoverished and “invisible” refugees through his belief in a God not removed from the sufferings of this world and continued in his theological career to ask the persistent questions of how the Church should address the needs of those marginalized and disenfranchised by the world.

Through belief in Christ, the one who was born and lived among the marginalized, whose death was at the hands of the “powers that be” of this world, and whose resurrection, Ascension, and promised Return, we learn to tell, and live out, a different story. The response of the faithful is not to turn blind eye toward the sufferings of the world, nor are they to be willing or silently complicit partners to these sufferings taking root in political, economic, or social policies.

The Ascension is part of the greater story of Jesus and those who would dare follow him. We await with anticipation his return, yet we live in the meantime with hearts enlightened and emboldened to speak and live truthfully to the gospel and its mandates. Like the early Christians, we catch ourselves sometimes pondering (and even sometimes longingly so) questions of “when?” Like the early Christians, Paul blesses us to see with the eyes of the heart, and live in the “here and now” as well.

Spirit of Pentecost ("Speaking of Faith" column, Bennington Banner, 05/30/2009)

Spirit of Pentecost

This Sunday, May 31, Christians celebrate the holy day of Pentecost. On this day, 50 days after Easter, the Church remembers its origins when the book of Acts tells of the Holy Spirit descending upon the faithful.

This year, First Baptist celebrates Pentecost with a special guest speaker, the Rev. Dr. A. Roy Medley, general secretary of our denomination, the American Baptist Churches/USA. The service will be grand affair with music and preaching, and, oh yes, we shall eat afterwards. (It's a Baptist thing. Don't ask...But bring a fork!)

It is a time for celebrating what is good about "church," which might seem a bit quaint or out of step, in an era with declining church attendance. Are we celebrating a fading memory or kindling the faith anew?

For a helpful roadmap in living faithfully in changing times, the twenty-first Christian should recall the witness of her first century forbears. In the New Testament book of Acts, one reads of an obscure group of women and men who endure persecution and uncertainty with belief, fellowship, sharing possessions and breaking bread together.

Even though Christ has ascended to heaven, even though the Church struggles with the challenges before them, the Spirit beckons them, enlivens them to go forward, carrying out the commission to be Christ's witnesses to the ends of the earth. Despite a fearful beginning, the Acts winds up with its last words coming from one of its number (a remarkable convert named Paul) preaching "with all boldness and without hindrance." In contemporary times, the audacious faith of Acts echoes in a quip from William Sloane Coffin Jr., who once said, "I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, then you grow wings."

When we think that we have everything we know about the Church and its capacities (and limitations) mapped out, the Spirit blows through our midst, sometimes a gale force wind, other times, like a breeze on a summer day. We think the Church can be one thing, when we can be so many other things. The mistake we make is losing sight of the Pentecost story, the day when a group gathers and becomes something diverse yet unified, and sent forth to share the gospel with the world. The Spirit summons the many people to many ways of sharing the Gospel. Whether it is through teaching, dancing, serving meals, construction, advocacy, care giving, singing, and the list goes on and on, the gathered people called Church share the story of Christ and embody the gospel.

I suppose it would be fair game to put it this way: If you think of Pentecost as time long ago, you might have missed the point. The Spirit is still moving in our midst, calling us forth, and empowering us for the many ways of ministry. We are still learning what it means to be a church moving in the power of the Spirit.

The Rev. Jerrod H. Hugenot serves as coordinating minister of the First Baptist Church of Bennington. Correspond via: fbpastor@sover.net

The Worship of God (Psalm 98)

When I plan worship, sometimes I am working on a service for a few weeks down the road (if it’s Thanksgiving, I am usually thinking about Christmas Eve service). Other times, I might be planning the worship service a few days in advance (for example, Pentecost is already planned, but that’s because we’re having company, however, next Sunday is just starting to take shape). Whenever I plan worship, no matter the particulars or deadline, I start invariably with the same ritual:

I start a new Microsoft Word document and type across the top of the page four simple words: The Worship of God. What happens next in worship planning happens in part by the liturgical time of the year, the scriptures recommended for the day by the revised common lectionary, the needs of the congregation, and last but not least, the awareness that whatever we do in worship, it is inadequate.

I call our worship service “inadequate” not to browbeat others or myself. I simply recognize the humility and audacity that any church on a Sunday morning needs to have when gathering for worship. “The Worship of God” is a time of praise, confession, proclamation, and sacrament raised by our voices, joined together, though none of us are able to give the fulsome praise of God that God truly deserves. The Psalm reading suggests that we are part of a much bigger choir, human voices just the beginning, joining the cacophony of praise as all Creation sings to God.

Alongside Creation, whether to be found over hills and dales, ocean depths and mountaintops, we worship God, Creator of the Universe, the Redeemer of all sinful humanity and mends this broken world, and the Spirit through whom life draws its breath. It is a daring thing to do, to come to this place, and claim we worship God. Coming before the divine Presence is not for the faint-hearted. This time of worship recalls Moses at the burning bush or Isaiah caught up in the divine worship. The awesomeness of God and the overwhelming sense of humans being on holy ground should be treated with due reverence.

The worship of God is inadequate as we only begin to offer worship. Our human frame can lift voice and hands, kneel, and intone prayers of thanksgiving and confession, yet we are just nudging the beginning edges of the awesome mystery we claim to worship.

I return to the wisdom of Thomas Merton, a 20^th-century spiritual writer. He gives us a word of great help: “We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners.” Embracing our limitations, we see worship in its appropriate light: we cannot ever completely be in God’s presence (in this life at least), but God welcomes our best and most heartfelt efforts. With the psalmist, we can worship God, and even take the lead in summoning Creation to join the particular song we seek to sing to God. The emphasis is not on perfection, but earnest effort to praise God.

I started with where worship planning begins: four simple words laden with meaning: “the worship of God”. What comes next? The computer screen awaits, ready for a worship order to begin. What will I write down?

A few months ago, I was speaking with an Episcopal priest. In all innocence, the priest asked if it was hard planning worship. You Baptists do not have a prayer book as we do. How do you do it—making it up every week?

To be honest, I winced a bit. There are some Christian traditions that have a prescribed order of worship followed quite closely and with little variation from the prescribed worship order. You juggle a Bible, a hymnal, and a prayer book in some traditions, where in this tradition, certainly what happens in worship varies. Baptists are part of the “free church” worship tradition, meaning that we have the freedom to vary in our worship practices. To a person versed in a “high church” tradition, Baptists might appear to be “making it up”. To use a kitchen analogy, some Christians have recipes for worship they follow. Baptists take worship seriously, however, our tradition errs toward “potluck” even when it comes to worship. We have certain things we do (sing, pray, proclaim the Word, and we gather at the Table less than some Christians); yet there is more openness to varying the form of what we do in worship. We “make to taste” in our worship sensibilities, though like any church ought to do, we realize that it is less about “us” and more about “God” when it comes to deciding whose opinion about our worship service’s style and approach we value most. Christians may differ in their approach to the worship of God, however, our hearts aim to be directed to the right place.

This morning, we are invited to talk about worship. The questions we ponder are open-ended. Your thoughts on our worship service are valued. All voices are welcome, respected, and needed as we prepare to search for a new music staff person. As with anything else we do here at First Baptist, your voice counts, so please share what is on your mind and heart and be prepared to listen to other voices around you as we work together to staff our music position here at First Baptist.

During our conversation, I will move into the role of facilitator, asking questions and assuring that all voices are heard. The music committee will be on hand to listen as they rework the job description for our worship staff person and begin the search process. Before we get to our dialogue, allow me a few moments to share some questions that I have about the worship of First Baptist:

1) Each week, the worship service is largely planned by me with a little input from the music staff person. Some congregations develop worship planning committees comprised of the minister, relevant church staff, and a few laypersons who work collaboratively to plan worship. When I arrived in 2006, the bylaws suggested that it was the chief duty of the minister to plan worship with assistance from the deacons. The deacon board does not function in this manner, nor have the deacons really taken this up as their duties over the past three years. Certainly, the deacons have “deaconed”, but “worship” has not been one of the emphases of the board. Would the congregation like more input on worship and if so, who should be involved in planning worship alongside me? Is it a “staff only” or a staff and laity effort? A good example of worship-related collaboration is the fledging altar guild. Each week, a person takes the responsibility for designing the worship space, with color, greenery, and other ways to beautify the altar. I give a few ideas based on my advance worship planning, however, our volunteers beautify the altar through their giftedness. (Watch the CAT-TV broadcast and you will see with greater appreciation for how much this improves and enhances what we do with our altar area on Sunday mornings.) No one has to be “the” expert, but everyone who chooses to get involved learns and grows in his or her craft and enriches the visual aspect to our worship. We can collaborate in more of our worship service planning! We just need to try our hand at it for a spell.

2) First Baptist has not had a significant conversation about worship in many years. I can account for at least three years without a sustained conversation about worship; however, I have a suspicion it has been longer. Can we look at this morning’s meeting as the beginning of a longer and potentially fruitful conversation? It will take collaboration and conversation. Can we commit to engaging in a sustained time talking about Sunday morning worship? We have been involved in good conversations about our physical plant and our community-based missional focus, and if we look at these conversations as indication, you will see that “big picture” conversations take time, yet they yield results when we choose to engage in conversation. What would worship look like if we set some benchmarks now and worked together (lay leadership, ministry and music staff, and yes, even you!) over the next two years?

3) Can we give one another permission to think “outside the box” while assuring one another that we will not make any quick or drastic changes? We will still sing “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Amazing Grace”. However, can we also explore music written in this era as well? Can we attempt to sing old AND new songs, enjoying the broad and enriching wealth of music sustaining Christians from generation to generation while taking on the responsibility of all Christians to add new songs to the deep well of our tradition?

Can we keep the conversation in balance? Let us talk earnestly about the worship life of First Baptist. It is an important conversation, as worship helps us connect with our lives, making sense of the sorrow and the joy that is Life. How does our worship service connect you with your life, how does our worship service connect us with one another, the gathered people who support and pray with one another? Ultimately, let our conversation return again and again to the main challenge before us: how does our worship experience bring us closer to God and invite others to taste and see that the Lord is good?

The Well-Tended Vineyard (John 15:1-8)

The Well Tended Vineyard

As our nation observes the civic holiday of Mother’s Day, many of us undoubtedly think back to mothers and grandmothers now of beloved memory. My grandmother Hugenot would be putting out her flowers this time of year, asking my little sister and myself to help with watering the plants. (She paid us in cookies, so it was a good gig.)

Grandmother’s gardens grew smaller, as she got older, yet despite her age, she still was partial to tending her geraniums. It puzzled many in our family, why of all the plants on God’s good earth did the geranium matter so much to my grandmother. She took delight in them, perhaps a delight you or I could not claim to share. As far as she was concerned, these geraniums were her year-round delight, the plants she placed with pride on her back porch in the summer sun or inside in a warm comfortable place to ride out the winter. They were not just “plants”. They were hers to love and tend.

Imagine if you will that same sort of love and delight is at work as God tends a verdant, fruitful vineyard. God is in the same delightful work spoken about in Genesis as creation springs forth over six days so wondrous that even God needs a good day’s worth of time to rest up. The vine rises up, green and healthy, thanks to good soil, good water, and good care. A great vine with many branches has grown up with God’s handiwork, as God prunes, nurtures, and helps the branches bear good fruit. As he shares this imagery of a well-tended vineyard, Jesus claims this is what life with God is all about.

Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches”. I marvel at the imagery that Christ is our source and we, the many people called “Church”, draw our life and our connection from him. Christ seeks disciples, his branches, so that they may find life and become part of the new life Christ wishes to share with the world. Like an old grandmother fussing over geraniums or a vineyard worker toiling endlessly, God tends us with delight.

One thing you might want to know, however, is the hard work it takes keeping up a vineyard. You have to invest yourself wholeheartedly to keep the vineyard productive otherwise the vineyard falls apart. I have been to a vineyard that was abandoned, and it was a sad scene. During my high school days, my dad was asked to bale about eighty acres of hay up on a hilly area of Kansas. (It is not all “flat” like you have heard.) Up on the hilltop, a small vineyard had been set up, part of an effort to grow grapes for a local jelly company. The little company was doing well, and the owners opted to grow grapes themselves, rather than buying from wholesalers.

When we first arrived with our equipment to start bailing hay, the landowner pointed to the abandoned vineyard with a sigh. “They gave up,” he said. “They didn’t know it would be so hard. Y’all can pick as many grapes as you want.”

The vineyard still produced grapes, even without any intentional work. We picked about a dozen five-gallon buckets’ worth of grapes. In turn, my mother made enough jelly that we did not worry about buying a jar of jelly for years. Also, the birds on that hilltop were the happiest and fattest birds you have ever seen. (When I tell this story to my cats, they always ask me to repeat this part.)

The grapes were wonderful, producing a splendid array of jellies and jams. The vineyard, however, was not long for the world. Without anybody to tend it, to keep up with pruning, tending, watering, and “fussing over” the vines and branches, the vineyard held on, but only for a little longer. The vineyard needs its workers if it is truly to flourish and live up to its potential.

Like the diligent vineyard worker, God will prune the branches back so the plants will yield greater fruit. Throughout the history of the Church, times of growth came on the heels not of success upon success. Instead, Christianity had times where things seemed to go fallow or the branches stopped being fruitful. Nonetheless, when it seemed like all was about to fall apart, the vineyard worker called God demonstrated a flair for gardening, as mystics, reformers, traditionalists, and contrarians rose up to push the faith in fruitful directions.

Consider the origins of Christian monasticism. A man named Anthony withdrew from the noise of the fourth-century’s cities and led a simple life out in the Egyptian desert. Out of a desert sprang forth one of Christianity’s most enduring and rich traditions, providing women and men schooled in prayer and great wisdom. Alternatively, consider the Reformation as Protestants reformers, including a group of “radical Reformers” who founded our own tradition 400 years ago, rekindled the faith. Consider the witness of Letty Russell, a contemporary era feminist theologian, who called for a new approach of being Church, one less concerned with maintaining institutional dominance and embracing a more vulnerable, egalitarian, inclusive, and justice-seeking way. (Here, I am indebted to the theological implications raised by this week’s gospel entry of Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. II.)

Every generation experiences the growth and the pruning. The challenge is to refrain from thinking a less producing year is a sign that the vineyard is dying or left unattended. First Baptist recollects in its own living memory a time where we counted average worship attendance in triple, not double, digits. As a person growing up in churches since the 1980s, I heard more often than not, the adults talking about the church seemed to be dying, or at least a paler shadow of its mid-20^th century glory. Down through the ages, we see the “organic” nature of the Church and the wisdom of Jesus’ image of the vine and branches. Things change, and some ways wither and fade while other ways rise up and help create a new era of fruitfulness. We have to trust that God is preparing the vineyard for yet another season of fruitfulness and in turn learn to recognize and celebrate those signs of new life.

This sort of organic hope is evidenced in the midst of a television show about the Church. A British comedy The Vicar of Dibley, airing on local PBS stations and available via Netflix, shares the story of a country church in England and its delightful vicar, the Rev. Geraldine Granger. In the first episode, delight was not the first reaction of the local parish council when Geraldine arrived. Airing in the mid-1990s, the first episode reflected the difficulty of women’s ordination gaining acceptance in the Church of England. In fact, the parish council chair, David Horton demands that the vicar be replaced immediately and sends a note to the bishop decrying the thought of placing a woman in the pulpit.

Jump forward ten years. It is the tenth anniversary of the vicar’s ministry in Dibley. On Christmas Day, the parish council gathers at the vicarage to give their priest holiday greetings and gifts. David Horton is asked to give a few remarks. With gratitude, David says, “Because of you the church is full, not empty. Because of you, our lives are full, not empty.”

Ten years prior, David Horton thought the church was done for, thinking nothing good could possible be found in this new development. Over the course of the series, the congregation learned to be a different sort of parish while still being a place where all the cast of characters could sing and pray together.

In the language of John’s gospel, the vine kept growing, the branches were pruned back a bit, and the well-tended vineyard continued to grow, bear fruit, and show signs of new life.

Each week under this roof and in the midst of this people, change is happening, slowly but surely. Non-profit organizations find a place here to work with our community in need. For example, healthcare and advocacy for the uninsured is being offered here on a weekly basis. Bright and early this morning, three congregants got on a plane to head for New Orleans for a week’s volunteerism. Yesterday, the mission committee met to talk about what more we could be doing, rather than talking about reining in during a tough economic year. Vacation Bible School is getting ready for the fourth year in a row. Now, some folks are talking less about the pews feeling emptier and more about the challenge of finding parking (and not just on Sunday mornings! Some weekdays are getting fairly challenging to find a space). Most important, we welcome a new member into our fellowship today, the seventeenth person to join this congregation since my tenure began in 2006. Perhaps it is not the track record of the 1950s, when a dozen or more joined each year (or upwards of 90 people in a big year back in the 19^th century), but can give ourselves, the fifty to sixty adults who comprise the present-day “active” congregation, over to the joy of continuing to grow, if even “little by little”? Today, we welcome Carol because she felt welcome and able to be part of the fellowship here, and we hope that we help in her spiritual growth as she helps us with our own.

This past week, two articles appeared in the Bennington Banner regarding the new surveys demonstrating a deepened religious disinterest among Vermonters. The reporter asked for comments from local clergy, and I offered the following comment:

“Churches don’t need to have control of the culture, the politics, and the ideas of the day to have relevance. Dialogue, interfaith cooperation, a bit of humility will do some of our Christian movements a world of good. And I would say if you’re going to make a difference in Vermont, those are some building blocks you need.” (Bennington Banner, “Religious Leaders Find Ways to Reach Out”, reported by Mark E. Rondeau, May 4, 2009)

The church as you knew it, the church as I knew it, is in the midst of being pruned back, the chaff is being discarded, cultivating for a new season’s yield is underway. In humility and joy, we affirm so it has been with the Church and so shall it be.

While it might feel like less can be taken for granted, we are being given this gift of turning over a new leaf, seeing a new path, embracing our future while taking along the best of our heritage, and learning yet again that the Church is never left untended. God is indeed tending the vine and its branches and new life shall be its fruit.

Why Jesus isn't merely "good" (John 10:11-18)

When we visited Ireland, two observations especially remain in my mind. First, when you see the verdant green hills of Ireland, you realize there is no such thing as a bad picture of Ireland. Every single photo of the countryside is flawless and picturesque. As I told my friends around the seminary after we got back home, when God created Ireland, God was showing off.

As the little tour buses wound their way around the mountains, the hills were full of peacefully grazing sheep. I took pictures as quickly as I could as the bus moved by, and every photo was postcard quality. I am not a photographer with any great skill, again, the natural beauty of the place overwhelmed any inadequacies of an amateur photographer. (There was a little trouble with these photos. I decided to send photos of Ireland via email to a few friends back home, including one picture of Kerry. I wrote to my friends, “Here is a photo of my lovely wife”, attached the file, and clicked “Send”. The next day, I learned that I had clicked on the wrong file. When my friends read the email about my lovely wife and opened the attached file, it turned out to be a photo of a meadow full of sheep.)

There is a certain peace in this image of Christ as the Good Shepherd. Even though the world’s population tends to live increasingly in urbanized areas, I daresay the open meadow with the sheep grazing peacefully and a shepherd standing watch with his crook still speaks modern day people. In the chaotic hustle and bustle of this noisy global village, I hold out a bit of hope that this image still speaks to us, its simplicity providing a quiet, contrary word while we keep speeding up the ways we live that still somehow leave us feeling rundown.

I keep an image of the Good Shepherd in my office, a simple icon of Jesus carrying a shepherd’s crook and placing a benevolent hand upon a small child. I keep it in my office, in hope that a person visiting my office, especially in need of a good word in the midst of life’s challenges, might see this icon and find a word of peace there in the steady gaze and gentle grace of the Christ welcoming all who come before him.

As a child, I remember seeing the good shepherd long before I knew the story as told by the Gospel of John. When we traveled to Independence, Kansas, we would invariably pass by this church on our way around town. It was a large mosaic of the Good Shepherd, sort of an avant-garde look to it, considering churches in Kansas are modest in their taste. Even as a child, I recollect staring at the image up there on the side of the church, that Jesus standing high above the busy street below, welcoming a little lamb.

That image was of especial help one time when my father went in for surgery. It was minor surgery. Today, he probably sent home same-day, but to a preschool age kid, it was a worry. Dad was away, he was not there at night to tuck me in, and worst of all, he was in a hospital! (Note: Generally, kids are not crazy about hospitals. There are nurses with 80-foot needles awaiting you, and back in the primitive era known as the 1970s, “old school” nurses lurked at every corner, challenging your parents about the propriety of bringing children along for visits. Nowadays, children are more generally welcomed, and the needles are more compact—they only chase you with 20-foot needles.)

I remember going along with my mother and sister to the hospital, fretting about whether dad would come home today as mother promised us that he would. I remember going by the church with the Good Shepherd on the side. In the middle of my pre-K mind’s worry, I remember feeling a momentary calm come over me. I had never heard the story of Good Shepherd at that point in life, but somehow, I found something so comforting in that image. 

Moving into my seminary studies, where I became acquainted with the depths of riches found in biblical scholarship, I learned to read the Good Shepherd with more insight into the first century Greek used by the New Testament writers and the growing study of the cultural anthropology of the New Testament world. In other words, I learned that Jesus is not the “good” shepherd. Technically, John’s gospel uses the Greek word kalos, translated more precisely as Jesus being the “model” shepherd.

Back in the 1960s, the Catholic New Testament scholar, Father Raymond Brown wrote an historic two-volume commentary on John. He notes “Greek kalos means ‘beautiful’ in the sense of an ideal or model of perfection”. Brown calls back to the earlier passage of John’s gospel when at the wedding of Cana, Jesus’ miracle of turning the water into wine created something considered not just “good” but “kalos”, a “choice” wine. Thus, Jesus is not merely “good”, he is the best, the choice, “the model” shepherd.

Father Brown himself was an example of a “model” scholar—he was so dedicated, so ardent in his love of the gospel and its study that you could not ask for any better example of a biblical scholar. He loved his craft so much that he even lived in the library at Union Theological Seminary in New York. He wrote books and essays on John’s gospel his entire life, even revising his previously held scholarly opinions if he had changed his mind on interpreting the text as he engaged other Johannine scholars. When he died in 1998, his colleague Phylis Trible remarked how appropriate Fr. Brown’s last book, published shortly after his death, was a book exploring the spirituality of John’s gospel, the book’s subtitle “That You May Believe”. I would like to imagine when Father Brown reached the Pearly Gates, the gospel writer John himself was there to meet him with a word of welcome. “You were a kalos kind of scholar, Ray.”

This is the dedication Jesus has for his sheep. No matter what time of day, no matter the task, it is like

a farm hand that never stops before the crop is in, a top business executive who works at her desk until the business day is done, a school teacher who patiently helps that child puzzle out a math problem in third grade, a volunteer who goes down to New Orleans to repair a home or who runs across Bennington to spend the morning stuffing envelopes for a non-profit organization.

That kalos level of dedication is just the beginning of a glimmer of what sort of shepherd we encounter in Jesus. This shepherd shall go to the ends of hill and dale to care for and protect his flock, even if it means going into the valley of the shadow of death. Jesus is not just “proficient” or “good”. He is kalos.

Contemporary New Testament scholar N.T. “Tom” Wright offers us a helpful word. He writes,  "The point of calling Jesus ‘the good shepherd’ is to emphasize the strange, compelling power of his love”. (John for Everyone, Pt. 1, Chapters 1-10, W/JKP, 2004, p. 154) Hearing the gospel in the proclamation of the Church, and better yet, seeing it embodied by Christ’s followers, the world is given the chance, in many wonderful and diverse ways, to taste and see that the Lord is kalos.

To follow this shepherd, we consent to being part of his flock. As far as Jesus is concerned, his flock is the world, but each of us must choose to listen to his voice. Jesus does not turn away anyone, a part of the gospel message the Church is still trying to get right all these centuries later, however, you have to listen. John’s gospel criticizes those who do not listen to Jesus’ voice as those who have chosen to do so. John speaks of “the mark of faithfulness to Jesus and his word” as a sign that a person has chosen to be a disciple by following Christ’s voice. (Gail O’Day, “John”, New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, p. 670)

Return to the words of this morning’s assurance of pardon. We confessed together these words stating our shortcomings and sins, our lapses in faithfulness, and then we heard a word that gave us grace upon grace:

Beloved of God, know that God shepherds you throughout life’s journey, feeding and leading you, tending and calling you by name. Know in Christ’s name, you are the beloved Sheep of the Good Shepherd.

Wherever we are on the journey of life, no matter how far we have wandered, no matter our needs, Christ the shepherd looks after us, each one. Can you hear his voice? It calls across the desk at work, as you stand in line with groceries at the check-out, running across the park with your children, and in the middle of the night when you think you’re the only one awake and worried about the day just past or the day yet to come. Listen for that voice, and follow.