good shepherd sunday: reflections on contemplation and letting go

This was a surprisingly good news week for those of us considering today’s
appointed passage from the gospel according to St. John – especially if you hear it from Peterson’s reworking of the text in The Message:

Let me set this before you as plainly as I can: If a person climbs over or through the fence of a sheep pen instead of going through the gate, you know that person is up to no good—a sheep rustler! So, watch out for thieves, wolves, and other fakes who are out to steal, kill, and destroy you!

· Tucker Carlson – that sheep rustler is OUT! Fox News after their settlement with Dominion – those fakers are OUT $787 million dollars. Even CNN’s Don Lemon was taken OUT after shoot-ing off his once well-respected mouth in a sexist jab at Nikki Hailey’s age. Talk about wolves in sheep clothing, hucksters, con-artists, and thieves!

· The fourth Sunday after Easter has historically been set aside as Good Shepherd Sunday – a time to investigate both what it means for Jesus to identify himself as God’s good shepherd and what that means for us personally and in community. It is NOT an idyllic, sentimental cliche slathered in banal pastels but a poetic invitation to live more deeply into the presence of the Living God.

That’s the promise of the 23rd Psalm, you know: Because the Lord is my shepherd – NOT Fox News, MSNBC, the Pentagon, or my needy ego – I need not want, worry, or fret. When God leadeth me, I can lie down to rest in green pastures, pause beside still waters as the Lord restoreth my soul. Even in the presence of mine enemies or the valley of the shadow of death, I am filled with peace. Now this may not be obvious at first with today’s reading because 21st century North American culture is light years from the realities of 1st century Palestine in the Common Era. But the mystical spirituality of Jesus as described in St. John’s gospel promises that the path of Jesus – his spiritual practices and prayers as the Good Shepherd – are a portal into grace. Jesus is NOT a gate KEEPER, mind you, but a threshold into a way of being that’s saturated in the sacred.

You may recall that Jesus told us that his way was light, easy, never an ill-fitting or burdensome yoke, but a counter-cultural set of practices that result in… what? Do you remember? REST! Come unto me ALL ye who are tired and heavy-laden, and I will give you… REST. My favorite rendering says: Come away with me, trust and follow my lead, and I will show you how to live into the un-forced rhythms of grace. It’s a summons to turn off the news, step away from work and worries for a spell, and practice connecting with God’s eternal, ever-present, silent and inobtrusive love. It is, if you will, honoring the Sabbath by carrying it with you wherever you go. St. John is telling us this to-day by using three mystical terms that made once sense in ancient Israel – the sheepfold, the gate, and abundant life – but sound like antiquated gibberish now. My hunch is that this is why the litur-gical tradition of Western Christianity at its best sets aside the seven weeks between Easter and Pentecost for contemplation.

The first three weeks of Eastertide shows us some of the ways our wounds can keep us from recognizing the Risen Jesus when he shows up right beside us and we’re grieving, ashamed, or disappointed. The next four weeks push us to practice a counter-cultural contemplation of the abundant life that Jesus promises leads us into rest, renewal, and even resurrection. The heart of Jesus, you see, is NOT so much concerned with life after death, but the possibilities of abundant joy, integrity, and gravitas BEFORE our passing. Some of the poetry of the 15th century Muslim mystic Kabir grasps the wisdom of Jesus with sparkling clarity:

Friend, hope for the holy while you are alive. Jump into the experience while you’re still breathing. Think – and think some more – while you’re still alive – For what you call salvation belongs to the time before death. If you don’t break your ropes now while you are alive: do you think a ghost will do it after? The idea that the soul will join the ecstatic just because the body is rotten – that is fantasy! What is found NOW, is found THEN! If you find NOTHING now, you’ll simply end up with an apartment in the City of Death. But if you make love with the divine NOW, in the next life you’ll have the face of satisfied desire. So, plunge into the truth of life NOW and let the heart of the sacred embrace and carry you.

Jesus tells us this, too but to appreciate his wisdom we must first recall the context of today’s pass-age as a part of on-going quarrel between Jesus and the Pharisees. This argument is often obscured because the arc of the story has been broken into chapters when in fact chapter ten of St. John’s gospel is a continuation of the quarrel that began in chapter nine. Je-sus has just healed a man blind since birth who rejoices at this blessing only to be confronted and interrogated by the so-called shepherds of Israel, the Pharisees, and eventually expelled from life in community. Bible scholar, Elizabeth Johnson, says that “Those who were called to care for, protect, and nourish the people… choose to banish this healed blind man from their community, refusing to believe that Jesus and his healing work come from God. They are more concerned about guarding their own power, authority, and prestige than the well-being of the people.” (Working Preacher)

· Sounds like the Montana House of Representatives expulsion of the duly elected legislator, Zoey Zephyr, to me. For a week, this transgender Democrat from Missoula tried to get the Republican majority to acknowledge that they would have “blood on their hands” if they banned gender affirming medical procedures for transgender youth.

· Eventually, the gallery of protestors shouted: LET HER SPEAK, LET HER SPEAK

while Ms. Zep-hyr simply sat at her desk holding a microphone above her head. THIS was the so-called eg-regious violation of decorum that tarnished, “the rules, collective rights, safety, dignity, and integrity of the House of Representatives.” NOT the proposed law that threatens the life of young transgender youth, just Zephyr’s attempt to “amplify the voices of those who elected her to challenge legislation that will not only harm the community but will get some of them killed.” Hear what I’m trying to say? The forces of insanity, fear, and prejudice regul-arly resort to expulsion, silencing, and often violence – then – as well as now.

So, notice how Jesus responds to this because it’s ALL about abundant life. First, he welcomes the excluded one into HIS alternative inclusive community. “Having al-ready restored the sight of the man, Jesus seeks him out again after his expulsion from the synagogue and brings him into the community of his followers. For the blind man, salvation is not only receiving his physical sight but also spiritual sight, recognizing who Jesus is, believing in him, and becoming part of his alternative community. He followed the voice of Jesus before he could see him, and it led to new life. Now his days of isolation are over as he knows himself to be a valued member of Jesus’ flock, cared for, included, and protected.” (Johnson, Working Preacher, 5/7/17)

Second, after embracing the healed but rejected man, Jesus challenges the credibility of his accusers by first obliquely appealing to the poetic tradition of the prophets, and then directly calling out the Pharisees as wolves, liars, and sheep rustlers: Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.

In ancient Israel and Palestine, you see, the sheepfold was a safe space where vulnerable flocks re-tired to when it grew dark: it was a place of protection against predators and shelter from the storm. By analogy, Jesus connects HIS alternative, inclusive community with the sheepfold: a place of refuge for the wounded, a place of nourishment for the hungry, a place of rest, renewal, and I want to say resurrection. Communities of judgment, by contrast, are guided by prejudice and fear and have NOTHING to do with the abundant life God provides within the true sheepfold.

Could St. John be any clearer concerning what our churches and faith communities are to be about whether in the 1st or 21st century? With 20/20 hindsight, WE can see this now, but apparently this analogy was too obscure for both the Pharisees and the disciples. So, the text tells us Jesus amplified his poetic imagery, shifted gears, and proclaimed: I am the gate for the sheep. The symbolism of the gate may have been confusing, but everyone in that conversation would’ve know what Jesus was proclaiming with his I AM reference, right?

Back in Exodus, when Moses asked God for a name at the burning bush, the One who is holy replied: I am who I am, right? In ancient Hebrew, I AM was written as YHWH, the sacred name that sounds like we’re inhaling the breath of life. Jesus is directly coupling his healing and inclusive com-munity with the abundant life promised by YHWH to those fleeing exile two thousand years before he was born. He’s also reminding his allies and opponents that their own tradition celebrates radical hospitality, a fact first articulated by Moses in the Exodus stories and later advanced by the ancient prophetic poets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. After being exiled in Babylon for 70 years, God tells the people through Isaiah that there will soon come a time when God’s people will learn to rebuild the ancient ruins and renew the places of devastation by practicing compassion. Isaiah 58:

Is not THIS the fast that I choose? To loose the bonds of wickedness and let the oppressed go free? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, bring shelter to the homeless poor, cover the naked and open your hearts to the ones who are wounded? Do THIS and your light shall break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up speedily. Take away the pointing fingers, the wicked tongues and pour yourself out for the hungry and afflicted and the Lord shall be with you to lead you into abundant life forever!

I am the gate into the sheepfold, Jesus announces, welcoming the vulnerable into safe space just as God helped your ancestors passed from bondage into freedom through the Red Sea. "This passage way offers safety at night and nourishment by day. It is NOT a metaphor of “exclusion nor a license to think of ourselves as the true sheep of the Lord.” (SALT Project)

If we use it that way, we become like the Pharisees who expelled the blind man from their com-munity. No, the purpose of the gate is not to keep out other sheep. As says in verse 16 of this chapter: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. And I must bring them in also so that they will listen to my voice. And then there will be one flock and one shepherd.” The purpose of the gate is to protect and guard the vulnerable against all that threatens the well-being of the flock — especially thieves, bandits, and wolves. (Johnson, Working Preacher)

· That’s why I poked Tucker Carlson and the rest who are finally getting their come-up pence: we know that there has always been predators – wolves dressed in sheep’s clothes – con artists preying upon the trusting – religious leaders who lie and manipulate our wounds to line their own pockets or pump up their puny egos. And we know that honestly, there always will be. Remember that Jesus once told his friends to become wise as serpents and gentle as doves. Savvy but not cynical; tender-hearted without giving in to despair or stupidity.

· Today, using mystical rhetoric and poetry, he says the same thing with: I am the good shepherd who knows how to lead you through the gate of God’s love into abundant life. I like how preacher and teacher Sarah Dylan interprets this:

Shepherds had a hard life and faced ALL of the hardships of the hostile landscape through which they herded their sheep. Being with the flock, they faced all of the dangers and difficulties that the flock faced and were just as vulnerable to heat in the day, cold at night, and all the human and animal predators all around them. They slept with their flocks when there were few enough predators for them to sleep; they were seen as poor prospects as husbands and fathers since they had to leave their families alone and vulnerable at night as well. And that's the life Jesus lives for and with us. Jesus journeys with the most vulnerable and takes on all of their vulnerability. He knows what it's like to be out in the cold. He knows what he's saying when he calls people to leave their homes and villages, and even their families, since he had done the same himself. He knows what it's like to have people think that you're crazy or irresponsible because of what you leave behind and let go of, because people said the same things about him. And he knows something else, too: this crazy life he lived, and calls us to live, is abundant life It's THE abundant life, to be precise.

Abundant life – eternal life – is practicing the hard but liberating, counter-cultural inclusivity and compassion of Jesus. That’s how God’s grace becomes flesh within and among us – the unforced rhythms of grace may be free but carry a cost. How does the old movement song put it: let there be peace on earth and let it begin with… who? ME. Let it begin with ME. That’s a call to contemplation: an invitation to practice resting in grace and trusting that being God’s love can ground us even in the cruel absurdities that currently envelope our culture. Recently Maria Popova wrote:

We spend our lives trying to anchor our transience in some illusion of permanence and stability. We lay plans, we make vows, we backbone the flow of uncertainty with habits and routines that lull us with the comforting dream of predictability and control, only to find ourselves again and again bent at the knees with surrender to forces and events vastly larger than us. In those moments, kneeling in a pool of the unknown, the heart breaks open and allows life — life itself, not the simulacrum of life that comes from control — to rush in.

ABUNDANT LIFE IS LEARNING TO LIVE WITH THAT GENERATIVE BROKENESS…

ONCE, POET STEPHEN LEVINE WAS ASKED THAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE TO WHICH HE REPLIED: I think the meaning of life is to let your heart be broken.” COMPOSER TINA Davidson ADDS: Let your heart be broken. Allow, expect, look forward to. The life that you have so carefully protected and cared for. Broken, cracked, rent in two. Heartbreakingly, your heart breaks, and in the two halves, rocking on the table, is revealed rich earth. Moist, dark soil, ready for new life to begin.

Over the next three weeks I’m going to offer you three resources or tools to help you practice simple, tender, effective contemplative prayer that leads towards the unforced rhythms of grace. You know, I’ve been with you for about two and a half months now and have about that much more time to walk with you. And I simply CAN’T leave without at least offering you – IN WORSHIP – some of the time-tested practices that can help nourish peace inwardly, outwardly and every way in-between. And the first one I want to share is so simple you’ll think I’ve flipped. It might help if you know it comes from the Quaker artist and singer, Carrie Newcomer, who got it from the late Thich Nhat Hahn, a Vietnamese Buddhist teacher and peace activist. She writes:

Breathe in Peace (Take a deep slow breath in) Breathe out a Smile (and remember to actually smile, large or small, toothy or Mona Lisa amused). Repeat. That’s it. I use it when standing in line at a grocery store or airport cue, driving or walking down a street, anytime I catch myself doom scrolling or thinking “Holy crap, this world is such a mess.” There’s actually brain science behind this practice. When we contract the muscles that allow us to smile, it sends signals to our brain causing it to release tiny molecules called neuropeptides that help alleviate stress. It also re-leases other neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin and endorphins acting as a pain reliever and antidepressant. When we smile, we actually, physically feel better. But I also think the act of smiling (for oneself and toward others) is an act of welcome and graciousness. It is a gift we give, a spooled-out thread of connection between me and thee, if even for the briefest moment.

Try it with me? Breathe in: PEACE (inhale) Breathe out… a smile (and actually smile.) These are crazy times, my friends, and they’ll likely become a lot crazier, too. But we’re not without resources, possibilities, and options. Give it a shot, for God’s sake and your own, trusting that the mystical un-forced rhythms of grace can bring you and others a measure of deep, deep rest and abundant life. And maybe try praying with me as we close by singing: 

You may say I ‘m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one, I hope someday you’ll join you’ll join us, and the world…will live as one.