April 21, 2002 - Fourth Sunday
of Easter
Psalm 23; Acts 2:42-47; John 10:1-10; 1 Peter
2:19-25
SONGS FOR SHEEP
Theme: Returning
To Christ
ILLUMINATING TEXT AND THEME
For several years now, I've been contemplating putting together a songbook
for sheep. This is not as easy as it sounds because it is extremely difficult
to find songs that sheep will actually appreciate and sing. They must be
good songs, helpful songs, for a sheep's life is not an easy one and we
need all the help we can get to find our way in life these days. The first
song I'd put in my songbook is a great old song and I get nostalgic every
time I hear it in some of those old late-night movies. Twilight falls and
as group of young men gather together in a corner tavern and they sing the
Wiffenpoof song.
"We are poor little lambs who have gone astray. Bah, bah, bah! We
are poor little lambs who have lost our way. Bah, bah, bah!" This is
a great song for sheep. As a prayer of confession it beats any song in any
hymnal. The only problem with it is that most of us would probably put the
emphasis on the bah part, as in Scrooge's "Bah! Humbug!" We all
know people, and in some cases we ourselves have been the people, whose
outlook on life has become one big bah. When you meet someone like that,
don't be too hard on him or her. Chances are they've been shorn of their
hopes and don't know where to go. This Easter season calls us to focus on
the good shepherd again. After reminding us of what Christ has done for
us, Peter calls us to remember that we have been freed so that we might
live in righteousness. He reminds us of the times we have gone astray like
sheep but unlike other passages, which use the good shepherd image, Peter
says nothing of the good shepherd coming after us. He talks of our returning
to the shepherd and guardian of our souls. His implication is clear. Somewhere
along the line, we have to desire and will our own return. Once returned,
we expect the good shepherd to speak words of comfort and healing to us.
He does indeed speak. " "I am the good shepherd. I am sending
you out like sheep in the midst of wolves."
What kind of good shepherd is this anyway? He is the kind of good shepherd
who lets us know we are not only sheep, but also shepherds ourselves. This
brings us to another great song for sheep called "I'm My Own Grandpa."
This epic song, you will remember, is a really enticing piece, which describes
the intricacies of marriage, and remarriage, which allows one to legally
become one's own grandfather. It speaks of multiple roles, relationships
and responsibilities. Just as the Lamb of God became the good shepherd,
so we who are the sheep of his pasture are called to get into the shepherding
business ourselves and a large part of our business is to feed his other
sheep. It becomes our responsibility to enable each other to live lives
unencumbered by burdens and persecutions, which often come from those who
think themselves to be most sincere followers of the lamb.
We live in a world where countless women and children are unspeakably tortured.
Are we responsible for what happens when we council reconciliation and send
people back into abusive situations? Are we responsible for what happens
to youth who are on the run from life if we simply let them run? The truth
is that whenever we allow self-absorption and self-righteousness to dull
our convictions about communal responsibility, we are nothing less than
lousy shepherds. We're not even good sheep at that point. We are called
to be better than that by the one who is indeed, guardian of our soul. We
are called to be his sheep and you can't be his sheep without becoming his
kind of shepherd. That's why "I'm my own grandpa" ought never
be left out of the songbook of any one who seeks to return to Christ.
Should you be slightly embarrassed to run around singing the Wiffenpoof
song or "I'm my own grandpa," you might be better served by singing
the Scottish version of the 23rd psalm to the tune of the Happy Wanderer.
Come to think of it, there's no better song around !
ILLUSTRATING TEXT AND THEME
The Scottish Psalter (1650) renders the 23rd Psalm this way:
The Lord's my shepherd I'll not want. He makes me down to lie
in pastures green; he leadeth me the quiet waters by.
My soul he doth restore again, and me to walk doth make
within the paths of righteousness, e'en for his own name's sake.
Yea though I walk in deaths dark vale, yet I will fear no ill;
for thou art with me , and thy rod and staff me comfort still.
My table thou hast furnished in presence of my foes;
my head thou dost with oil anoint, and my cup overflows.
Goodness and mercy all my life shall surely follow me;
and in God's house forevermore my dwelling place shall be.
**************
John Buchan was walking in the Scottish highlands. He noticed that as the
snow began to fall, the sheep came out of the hollows onto the bare hillside.
Puzzled that the sheep would leave the protection of the hollows to come
into the face of the storm, he asked a shepherd about it. The shepherd explained
that the sheep had learned that the snow drifted into the hollows. If they
stayed there, they would die. Their only safety was in facing the storm
on the hillside. That's a good lesson for sheep to learn in any age.
**************
A Japanese paraphrase of the 23rd psalm goes this way:
The Lord is my pacesetter. I shall not rush.
He makes me stop for quiet intervals.
He provides me with images of stillness which restores me.
He leads me in the paths of efficiency through his guidance in peace.
Even though I have a great many things to do each day, I will not fret
for his presence is here.
His timelessness will keep me in balance.
He renews me in the midst of my activities with his oil of tranquility,
My cup of joy overflows.
Surely harmony shall be the fruit of my hours, and I shall walk in the
pace of the Lord and dwell in his house forever.
**************
When I was in fourth grade, my teacher asked if we knew any songs we'd like
to share with the class. I shared the song my brother had taught me just
the day before. " Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb.
Mary had a little lamb, and the doctor fainted."
The principal's name was Mr. Armstrong. It was a name he more than lived
up to whenever he unleashed the old fashioned board of education. Needless
to say, I was a little sore about the whole thing. I was especially sore
at my bother who shrugged off my complaint by saying that some people don't
know good music when they hear it. That's probably true, but it should never
stop the singing of the savior's invitation to come home. Someday, it might
just catch on for someone.
**************
If you choose to sing it to the happy wanderer, use " Praise the Lord"
when you come to the "valderee, valdera" part followed by several
amens.Then use the final 4 words of each last line repeated as the ending.
Your congregation will sing with more joy than you've heard for quite a
while.
**************
The first use of sheep as a symbol for people comes in Numbers 27 when Moses
pleads with God to appoint some new person to lead the people over into
the promised land "so that the congregation may not be like sheep without
a shepherd." We still have a lot in common with sheep. They panic easily.
My first car was a third-hand 1949 Plymouth with a top speed of 45 mph (going
downhill!). The great thing about it was that he sounded like it was going
a hundred and twenty. After school, my friends and I would pile in the car
and drive alongside this farm that had tons of sheep in it. We'd beat on
the side of the car and blow the horn and those sheep just bolted everywhere.
They were lost in the chaos and confusion and ran around in circles. All
who sit in the pews this day know what that's like. Chances are, no one
got through the past week without feeling that way at least once.
**************
Augustine of Hippo wrote that hope has two daughters. The first is named
anger and the second is named courage. He was talking about anger as being
anger at the way things are and courage as being courage to change the way
things are. Any shepherd gets angry at life denying social conditions which
leads people to snow covered fields instead of green pastures. Such a shepherd
will do everything possible to change that.
**************
As a teen, I spent much time contemplating Arminda's eyes. Once while engaged
in deepest devotional worship of her eyes, my dad came up behind me and
startled me, making me nearly jump out of my skin. When I said as much,
his reply was that I should do that more often. He went on to tell me about
something General Charles Gordon had said. Everyone has a duty to crawl
under each other's skin so that we can imagine a bit how the other person
feels and thereby learn to feel with and for others.
**************
An old children's song goes:
I think when I read that sweet story of old
When Jesus was here among men
How he called his little children as lambs to his fold,
I should have liked to be with them then;
I wished that his hands had been placed on my head,
That his arm had been thrown around me,
And that I might have seen his kind look when he said
"Let the little ones come unto me."
**************
Someplace recently I heard the line to the effect that God prefers losers.
God thinks it's noble. We are in love with lost causes. The Chicago Cubs'
fans demonstrate the thesis. Recently I read in the Britannica's horribly
written article about W.B. Yeats that when he, in his dotage, indulged a
sympathy for facism, he, wrote for the facist cause three songs which proved
to be unsingable. I wish to go on record as being an anti-facist (being
paternally-grandmother-wise a Jew!). However, I am struck by the thought
of being either the writer or the singer of unsingable songs. Instead of
the Unsinkable Molly Brown, what we have here is the Unsingable W.B. Yeats.
Yeats' poetry and plays sing, and he wrote other songs that sing. I think
about that great name for the mute protagonist in Carson McCullers' story
"The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter"—John Singer. And I think about
that line from Dorothy Quick's "Special Place" about "the
little songs no singer ever sings."
In what sense do we try to sing unsingable songs? How can we sing the
Lord's song in a strange place? It may be that Death's bright angel will
speak in that chord again. It may be that only in heaven, I shall hear that
grand Amen!- Robert John Versteeg
**************
Homer Elford received a visit from a man who wanted to know if his name
was still on the rolls of the church Elford was serving. He looked at the
membership books and informed the man that his name had been removed ten
years ago . The man sat quietly for a few moments and then said, "More
than ten years ago!" Then he poured out his story . It was a story
of a willful life, doing what he wanted, when he wanted. Then he said "
I suppose you read of that liquor store robbery downtown the other night.
My son was one of the robbers. For over ten years I let my boy see me ignoring
God. For ten years I've showed him that life is simply what you take out
of it. For ten years I let him grow up without knowing the things that might
have kept him out of this trouble. He's not a bad boy, but I'm a poor father."
Any time we stop trying to be a good shepherd, others suffer.
**************
Joel owned one of the finest young sheep in the county. His lamb one all
sorts of prizes and awards and Joel became an object of his neighbor's envy.
One day, the neighbors decided to take Joel's lamb by force. Realizing
what they were trying to do, he took the lamb into the house, bolted the
door, loaded his rifle and started shooting. He fired from the east window,
then the west window, going back and forth at a furious pace. But each time
he changed windows he tripped over the lamb. He became so exasperated at
this difficult defense that he opened the door, kicked the lamb outside
and went on fighting his enemies. We might laugh at his confused purposes
until we ask how many times have we kicked the lamb of God out of the church
so we could carry on the fight against our enemies? (John Townsend)
**************
"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird. It would be a jolly
sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We're like eggs
at present. And you can't go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent
egg. We must be hatched or go bad."( C.S. Lewis)
**************
Fred Pratt Green has contributed several "songs for sheep" to
various hymnals.
The Presbyterian Hymnal includes his "Now Praise
the Hidden God of Love" (#402) in which the author pictures God as
shepherding us "at every stage." He declares that in our youth
we actively "storm the citadels of wrong" and in maturity seek
a caring community. In the third stanza he urges us to "never lose
our zest," for we are called even in old age to work and find "a
place to fill." An older and more familiar hymn "Savior, Like
a Shepherd Lead Us" is based more directly on Psalm 23 and Jesus' declaration
in John's Gospel that he is "the Good Shepherd." Based on Jesus'
words of acceptance, the hymn invites believers to "early turn to Christ,"
and "early to seek" Christ's favor." The unknown author has
given believers a wonderful hymn of assurance of Christ's love and a call
to live the life of love ourselves.
**************
In
Encountering God, Andrew Purves and Charles Partee offer this
analogy. They observe that when we return to our parents' home as adults,
we don't do so in order to become their children. We retain the status of
children while we are away from our parents and also upon our return home.
When we get home, many of us look around for useful things to do to please
our parents. But we do not do so as a condition of becoming a member of
the family, but as a consequence of already being a member of it. Likewise,
we do not return to God in order to become his sheep. Rather we return because
we come to realize that we are God's sheep, and being with our Great Shepherd
is where we belong.
**************
In
The Prayer of Jabez, Bruce Wilkinson contends that abundant living
is made possible by adopting the principles of that special prayer. He adds:
"The only thing that can break this cycle of abundant living is sin,
because sin breaks the flow of God's power. It is as if the electric lines
to your house in Phoenix were severed and you were cut off from the immense
power generators at Hoover Dam. All the incredible potential of the dam's
turbines would be untapped, wasted, and waiting for the connection to be
restored."
**************
Ten sheep in New Zealand now have their own web sites. School children in
the Japanese town of Amagase, on the island of Kyushu, formed a partnership
with school children in their sister city in Westport, located on the western
side of New Zealand's South Island. Using the Internet (www.lambsonline.co.nz),
the Japanese school children can check on the progress of their lambs as
often as they like. The 11-year-old's in New Zealand also answer e-mail
from the Japanese kids, answering on behalf of the sheep. The sheep's names
include Curly (www.curly.co.nz), Bunter (www.bunter.co.nz), Luncheon (www.luncheon.co.nz),
and Lambchop (www.lambchop.co.nz). The names of the last two make you wonder
whether they'll enjoy a long life or not!
**************
In 1960, Israeli undercover agents managed to kidnap Adolf Eichmann from
his South American hideout to take him back to Israel to stand trial for
war crimes. Adolf Eichmann, of course, had been one of the masterminds of
the Holocaust that had taken place during the Second World War. During the
trial, prosecutors called a long series of former concentration camp prisoners
as witnesses. One such witness was a small old man by the name of Yehiel
Dinur, who was one of the fortunate few who managed to escape death at the
Auschwitz prison. When Yehiel Dinur entered the courtroom, he just stared
for a few minutes at Eichmann, who was seated in a bulletproof glass booth.
He looked at the man who had personally murdered a number of Jews, and who
had presided over the slaughter of millions more. As the two men looked
at each other eye-to-eye, a quiet hush fell over the courtroom. After several
moments, Yehiel Dinur fell to the floor sobbing violently. But why did he
do that? Was it because he looked into the face of a demon? No. Dinur later
explained that he started to cry, because when he first saw Eichmann, he
realized that Eichmann was just an ordinary man, not a devil. At that moment
that old Jewish man had an overpowering realization of the sin and evil
that all people are capable of. Yehiel Dinur said, "I was afraid about
myself. I saw that I was capable of doing exactly what he hid." Dinur
went on to conclude by saying, "Eichmann is in all of us." We
often assume that only the most notorious sinners need to repent. But we
need to realize that in many different ways, we all allow evil to separate
us in some way from God.
**************
"Recalling and confessing our sin is like taking out the garbage: once
is not enough." (Cornelius Plantinga)
**************
"Most of us prefer remorse to repentance. We would rather feel badly
about the damage we have done than get estimates on the cost of the repair."
(Barbara Brown Taylor)
**************
In the early morning TV scenes from
WORSHIP, there are repeated pictures
of an Irish or Scottish sheep farm showing one white, fuzzy sheep with black
face markings, leaping over the barricade separating the farm from the pathway
leading to the Shepherd's cabin. The wayward sheep is most obviously trying
to get back into the pasture from where he has been AWOL. Each morning it
sets me to wondering: "How far away down the road to freedom did he
get before he wandered back to his home? Did his Shepherd ever realize that
he had a wayward sheep missing from his flock?"
Most likely the sheep did not know the scripture about the good Shepherd,
who knows his sheep by name, but the sheep do not know the voice of a stranger.
"This figure Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what
he was saying to them." (John 10:6—RSV)
From the perspective of a retired Prison Chaplain, that scene inspires
me to remember how many times I interviewed young black men with no one
to miss them from being at home! This was an obvious evidence when
their first request during morning call-out came as, "Chaplain, please
call my home and tell my Mother and Father where I am!" That was always
true without regard to the length of time they were close to home and in
county jail.
**************
"By his wounds that you have been healed...You were indeed astray like
sheep" (I Peter 2
: 24,25—James Moffatt). Both verses, though
changed from the KJV of Isaiah 53, sound greatly like those chorus texts
from Handel's
Messiah. They occur in Part II where the arias and
choruses strongly support the suffering and death of Jesus Christ.
In singing these lilting texts by Handel, Sir Robert Shaw exhorted his
singers in rehearsals of Christmas performance—to "make like sheep!"
**************
Part of the Pastoral Prayer of Karl Barth during a Sunday Worship Service
in the Basil Prison of August, 1955:
Oh Lord, Our God! Through thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, Thou hast made
us thy children. We have heard thy voice and have come to gather here to
give thee praise, to listen to thy Word, to call upon thee, to entrust to
thy care our burdens and our needs.
Be Thou in our midst and be our Teacher—That all anxiety and despair,
all vanity and defiance may diminish within us...and thy greatness and goodness
may show forth.—That our hearts may be open to one another, that we
may understand each other, and help one another;—That this hour may
be an hour of light wherein we may catch sight of the open sky and thus
the dawn on this dark earth—That the old has passed away and behold
all things are made new! In the strong Name of Jesus the Christ. AMEN.
**************
There were four Ministers who officiated in the Memorial service for a well-loved
Methodist Minister in Chattanooga, Tenn. One of the four had humorous stories
about Dr. Elton Jones. All four of them agreed that Elton's life was characterized
as one who gave of himself and his talents with enthusiasm and unselfishness!
The Bishop repeated the account of Elton's family on vacation in the Mid-West:
"As they passed through the small, sleepy town they saw an elderly
black man slowly pushing his lawn mower through very high grass. Elton stopped
his car and asked his family to sit in the car or walk around, while he
`helped his new friend!'"
Very gingerly, he walked over to the old man—told him to go sit on
his porch and rest awhile—he would mow some. When he had finished,
they sat around and visited before they continued on their journey.
Bishop Mahoney reported his conclusion, that most likely as Elton entered
into his Heavenly Place of Reward, all of those who recognized him were
saying... "Look at this overly ambitious fellow just coming in to join
us!"
**************
Canadian theologian, Douglas John Hall speaks often of the gospel as the
permission and commandment to enter difficulty with hope.
**************
One member lost two of her children in a car accident. She had one in the
car that did not die. In a personal conversation, she tells us the truth:
"broken hearts don't stop beating. Grief may leave behind its giant
paw prints....but still we have few options...we go on because we must....we
learn that our grief is just a dot on the great landscape of pain."
**************
"At first we thought that no one understood Sarajevo at all. Then we
believed that it was all a matter of great power politics, and that we simply
did not fit into that scheme. Today we know that the world is perverse,
that it relishes our plight with a degree of sadism. The training of the
circus animals has reached new heights. I only hope that the trainers don't
lose control, and that the situation doesn't become too dangerous for the
audience to watch."
**************
In
Death Of Satan: How Americans Have Lost The Sense Of Evil, by
Andrew Delbanco, we are shown that "The repertoire of evil has never
been richer. Yet never have our responses been so weak. We have no language
for connecting our inner lives with the horrors that pass before our eyes
in the outer world..."...death by fire is indistinguishable from the
puffs and crackle of a video game...we shudder or wince and then we switch
the channel."
Around 1965, Hannah Arendt announced in the New Yorker, a now commonplace
phrase, "the banality of evil." She saw the banality in the face
of Adolph Eichmann, set somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. She argued
then that we must find evil at its source, which is ourselves. Surely our
reticence is a source of evil by what it neglects.
Delbanco tells a hair-raising story of the way this reticence has developed.
He believes that a sense of evil has been gone in American since the 1850's
when we first developed the notion of a perfect world, a world swept clean,
with no spot untouched. Then we developed a sense of fate or providence,
in which the standard benediction became "good luck." The loss
of providence was followed by the age of blame, in which evil was marvelously
externalized. We are living there now. All that's left now is what Delbanco
calls "Bogart's pose, " a sense of irony, that we are all deep
down really good but look bad. We have seen it all, done it all, made no
changes against evil, but inside (note Troeltsch) we are still really good
guys. In this age of irony, silence in the face of evil is normative.
Stephen Carter in The Culture Of Disbelief, "God is a Hobby,"
locates this lack of seriousness in a misunderstanding about freedom. In
the UCC, we often wrongly label the issue as our "autonomy." Carter
says the issue is not autonomy—because in fact the complaints are very
often communal and are whining about damage done to individuals by community.
"Autonomy is often the missing element in America's confused relationships
with its religions. ... We think of the rights of people to be religious,
as though religion is simply another belief, a part of conscience; but the
autonomy of the religions involves a recognition that what is most special
about religious life is the melding of the individual and the faith community
in which, for the devout, much of reality is defined."
Lectionary Homiletics
Essays for the Thinking Preacher
on the Lectionary Text for each Sunday
1-800-866-8631
2nd
Quarter 2002
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