Month: April 2024

Fourth Sunday of Easter, 21 April 2024: Acts 4:5-12; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18; Psalm 23

This Sunday is known as Good Shepherd Sunday: we read not only the passage from John describing the work of the good shepherd but the comforting words of Psalm 23. So it’s useful to think about shepherds.

The first time I preached, it was on Good Shepherd Sunday. I had been called by one of the then wardens of my church on Tuesday, and asked to preach Sunday. It would be a difficult Sunday. Our rectors, a married couple, were about to start a scheduled sabbatical. However, on Maundy Thursday we had learned that their marriage had broken down. Both would be present on Sunday, but obviously they were in no state to preach jointly, and you couldn’t have just one. To say that the congregation was traumatized would be an understatement.

Yet if you are ever in such a situation, there is not a better set of readings. Every time this Sunday turns around, I am reminded of their importance. “The Lord is my shepherd”, the psalm proclaims. “There will be on flock, one shepherd”, John reports Jesus saying.

Here’s the thing: in our daily lives we easily forget this. We mistake individuals in our lives for the good shepherd. Parents, leaders, charismatic writers & preachers: we substitute our relationship with them for our relationship with God. The church delegates to the clergy and bishops the pastoral role: pastor is the Latin for shepherd. Like the good shepherd, they care for and protect their sheep. Congregations become deeply attached to their clergy, but the clergy always move on. And always, we need to be reminded: the good shepherd is still God, not any of the humans who try to carry out God’s will.

The letter of John takes this a step further. It reminds us, as does John’s Gospel, that Jesus laid down his life for us, so by this we know love. We should follow suit, and “love one another”. Yet that love is not a feeling, but an action. “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” We show love, John’s letter tells us, by “truth and action”.

The fact that the Lord is our shepherd is a great comfort: there is a reason that the 23rd psalm is regularly read at Jewish and Christian funerals. It reminds us we are cared for and protected. We can remember that “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; for you are with me.” Because of that, we can also do our best to love one another, “in truth and action”. But also because of that, we can accept not only our inevitable failures, but those of the people we rely on.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Amen.

The Good Shepherd, in Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, Merced, CA. Photo by Rev. Gail Bernthal

Second Sunday of Easter, April 7, 2024: Acts 4:32-35; 1 John 1:1-2:2; John 20:19-31; Psalm 133

I observe this every year on this Sunday, but the story of Thomas is one that is sufficiently important that those who constructed the lectionary have us read it every year the Sunday after Easter. So it behooves us to pay attention.

Thomas often gets a bad rap: he insisted that he could not believe without seeing Jesus, just as his friends had. Jesus to some extent starts this, saying “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Given that the Gospel of John was written fifty or more years after the events it describes, most of those reading them would not have seen the risen Jesus: Jesus’ words speak to them. But in the early years, it is precisely the witness of the apostles that is important. In Acts, we hear that “With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus”. In 1 John, we are told that John is declaring “what we have seen with our eyes”. It mattered that the first people to tell the story had seen the risen Jesus.

Thomas wants to see the risen Jesus, and does so; he then offers the powerful affirmation, “My Lord and my God!” Thomas, like the other disciples, goes off to preach; he is said to have established the church in India. We have two apocryphal documents said to be his writings: The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and the Gospel of Thomas. Thomas was an important part of the early Jesus movement.

What interests me this year about Thomas — building on what I wrote last week for Easter–is the role of community in the events following Easter, as well as in all our readings today. All the stories about the aftermath of Jesus’ crucifixion show his followers seeking each other out. After all, Jesus’ purported crime, claiming to be King of the Jews and thus in opposition to Rome, implicated all his followers in political disloyalty.

So it is no wonder that when Jesus first appears to his disciples, they are huddled together in a locked room. He shows them his scars, he wishes them peace, and breathes the Holy Spirit on them. Thomas isn’t there. And he’s missed a big event for the group. So it’s not altogether surprising that he has his doubts. He wants to share the experience with his fellows. Shared experience is a critical part of community.

This search for community is not limited to the apostles. Today, after shocking events, there are often communal gatherings or vigils. The wake after someone’s death, or sitting shiva in the Jewish tradition, are reminders that when hard things happen, we need each other.

The role of community extended beyond the immediate aftermath of Jesus’ death. Acts tells us that the early Christians shared everything in common, so “there was not a needy person among them”. Those who were wealthy sold all they had and brought the proceeds to the community. They lived as a community, not as individuals. They knew they needed each other, so they helped each other. It is a striking contrast to the individualism of so much of US society today, and we can learn from it.

The Psalm proclaims, “Oh, how good and pleasant it is, when brethren live together in harmony.” Indeed it is. Amen.