“The Wolf Snatches and Scatters”

Meditation on John 10:11-18

Fourth Sunday in Easter

April 26, 2015

‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.’  (John 10:11-18)

***

     We are in our last 4 weeks of our confirmation program now, here at Ebenezer. I am feeling a mixture of joy at how much they have learned and grown, excitement at what is to come for them, and sadness that our program is nearing the end. The class will be crafting their faith statements with their mentors over the next few weeks and present them to session on May 21. Lord willing, we will confirm them and welcome them as new members during worship on Pentecost--May 24.

     It is my hope that these months of study, prayer, and discussion have brought them to realize that being confirmed means much more than finishing Sunday school and becoming an adult member of the church. In confirmation, we affirm our faith and commitment to Jesus Christ and express our desire to love and serve the Lord. Faith is something that lifts you up and carries you your whole life through--wherever you go, whatever you do. Faith leads you to live differently than if your life’s goal is merely the pursuit of happiness. You are someone who can, with God’s help, rise up from the ashes, over and over, no matter how many times you stumble and fall. You are someone who can and will make a difference in someone else’s life!

     Today at 2, we will welcome two special guests who have touched many lives, John and Sara McKay from Union Presbyterian Church in St. Peter. John was born in Montreal. He is a concert pianist, with advanced degrees, who studied and performed throughout Europe. He is a former professor of music, teaching piano and music history at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, retiring in 2006. He is a ruling elder and served as our presbytery moderator last year. Sara is originally from Nova Scotia. She earned advanced degrees in vocal performance, traveled and performed in about 300 concerts across Europe. John and Sara moved to St. Peter in 1976. Sara was a cofounder of the St. Peter Choral Society in 1979.  She taught Vocal Music in the public schools for 22 years and directed children's musicals for 10 years in California with her daughter, Johanna, who is an actress. Sara presently directs her church choir.

       I hope the confirmation students and families will be inspired to take risks and try new things in order to serve the Lord when they hear John and Sara’s stories of faith. They are people who have followed the passions that God has placed inside of them! When you talk to them, you can’t help but be touched by their gentle, joyful spirits. You might think that they must never have had to deal with adversity--that they must have lived a charmed life to have accomplished so much. But that would be wrong. They have overcome trials without ever losing gratitude for what the Lord has done.

      John and I serve together on presbytery committees, including a group whose work has been quite challenging for me at times, especially, I think, because I am a relative newcomer to the presbytery. In the beginning, I felt like an outsider. After the most dismal meeting of all, John called me on the phone. When I heard his voice, I felt sure he was going to tell me that the group had decided that I didn’t need to come back. And I was ready to be relieved! But that isn’t what he said. He said he wanted to hear more of my ideas. He told me to write them down and share them with the group. He encouraged me, just when I needed it. He helped me to believe that I was valuable and that the Lord would use me, if I would persevere.

    And then Sara, about a month or two later, surprised me with a gift. She gave me a book, beautifully wrapped and tied up with ribbon. It was the true story of Maria Augusta Trapp, upon which the movie, The Sound of Music, was based. The book, she had told me, was all about Maria’s faith, something the movie, unfortunately, leaves out. Sara had met Maria when she had come to speak at Gustavis Adolphus College some years ago.

    When I got home, I opened the book and saw she had written a note on the inside cover. A tear slipped down my face as I read, “Thank you for your ministry!”

    John and Sara are not ordained pastors or “teaching elders,” as we now say. They aren’t paid staff at the presbytery. But they are shepherds, people who seek to bring the flock closer together and to draw more sheep into the fold. They seek to nurture and nourish. They reach out to the wounded sheep before they wander off or go astray. They do all this through a joyful ministry of encouragement, compassion and friendship.

     All of us, my friends, are called to be shepherds in the example of our “good shepherd,” Jesus Christ. But sometimes, perhaps because it’s a title for Jesus, we give it more prestige than what Jesus, who identified with the lowly, outcast, poor and marginalized, truly meant. In Jesus’s time, the mention of a “shepherd” was anything but “good”! Shepherds weren’t the educated, cultured elite. Their jobs were low in status and pay. They were rough, edgy people used to living outdoors with the sheep, which were anything but quiet, clean, white and fluffy, like they are portrayed in children’s stories. Shepherds weren’t usually seen as heroic, like David, the brave young shepherd who slew Goliath with a slingshot. They were more like the shepherds of Exodus 2, the ones who harass and drive from the well the daughters of the priest of Midian who came to draw water for their father’s flocks--until Moses comes to their defense.

       The image of shepherds was more often like Joseph’s brothers in Genesis 37, minding their father’s flocks, when they decide to throw their little brother into a pit and leave him to die. Just as the shepherd Jesus describes--the “hired hand” who runs away and leaves the animals vulnerable to wolves that “snatch and scatter"-- is truer to the reputation of shepherds of his day than our image of our loving, self-giving Shepherd/Savior, who lays down his life for His sheep in the gospel of John. Or whose rod and staff comfort us, in Psalm 23, so that we fear “no evil” though we “walk through the darkest valley.”

      One message that may be overlooked in this passage is the call to unity in the Body of Christ, though the Body is diverse, divided and widespread. In verse 16, Jesus says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Christ is gathering His flock from all peoples of the world--not just Jews as the disciples may have assumed because they were Jewish or English-speaking Americans, as we might be tempted to assume because of who we are and where we live.

    The passage ends without Jesus explaining the reference to the wolves. Who are they that seek to “snatch and scatter?” The Church in its early years  interpreted the wolves as heretics--people with dangerous, erroneous beliefs attempting to lead the flock astray from the inside of the fold. And it’s true that Jesus often called the religious “insiders” or leaders and important people of the day bad names, such as liars, hypocrites, white-washed tombs and snakes. In other places, though, such as in Matthew 10:16 and Luke 3, when Jesus talks about his disciples as sheep or lambs in the midst of wolves as he sends them out to "bring in the harvest," he seems to be talking about the evil out in the world--not within the community of faith.

     But whether we face danger from within or outside the fold, may we learn to be “good shepherds,” with the Spirit’s help, following Christ in his self-giving example. May we remember to care for one another and reach out to those within, beyond and on the margins of the fold with a ministry of encouragement, compassion, and friendship. Let us learn to persevere and remain united in faith, with Christians in every time and place, never fearing the “wolves”--whoever they are-that might seek to “snatch and scatter.”

    

Let us pray.

Holy One, thank you for your Word and the hope and promise of eternal life through belief in your Son! Help us to walk more closely with our Good Shepherd. Lead us to love as Christ loves, helping and encouraging one another, especially when we encounter someone in need. Forgive us for our impatience during times of trial and adversity and our tendency toward anger and discouragement, rather than responding in faith and hope. Save us, Lord, from the wolves and any other danger of this world! Help us to always trust in the One to whom we belong, listening for Your voice, and seeking to draw others ever nearer to the fold. In Christ we pray. Amen.

“As the Father has Sent Me”

Meditation on John 20:19-31

April 12, 2015

      “When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’

      But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.’

      A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.’ Thomas answered him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’

      Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

***

    In a couple of days, I will be on my way to Florida to visit my parents.  We only see each other about once a year, but we talk on the phone about once a week. Still, there’s nothing like being with the people you love-- watching their facial expressions, listening as they talk, sharing meals, taking walks or drives, and giving them a hug.

      Being one of Christ’s disciples, one of those whom the Lord has sent out in His name, means that my home is where God leads me to be, doing the work the Lord has called me to do. Unlike most of my congregation in the Renville area, I don’t live in my “hometown.” But I don’t feel afraid. My faith in Jesus Christ gives me the security of knowing that wherever I am, as long as I am walking with the Lord, relying on the Spirit to guide me, I am always “home!”

***

     On the night after they found an empty tomb where Christ had been laid, the disciples are feeling anything but comfort and security in the home in which they are staying. Terrified of the mob that a few days before had cried out to Pilate to release the bandit Barabbas and crucify Jesus, they hide behind locked doors. They don’t have a plan. They don’t know what to do or what will happen next.  They never expected Jesus to die, though he had warned them. “Where I am going, you cannot come,” he says in John 14. “But I am going to prepare a place for you. And I will come again, and take you to myself so that where I, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.” And Thomas answers, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going! How can we know the way?”

    Jesus tries to explain and comfort them. “I will not leave you orphaned,” he says. “In a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” He promises that he will send the Holy Spirit to be their teacher and remind them of all that he had said to them. “Peace I leave with you,” he says in John 14:27. “My peace I give to you.”

     The disciples should have been prepared, then, for Jesus’ sudden appearance in their midst on this night of fear, as they tremble behind locked doors. But whether it is their anxiety or Christ’s changed appearance in His resurrected body, the disciples don’t recognize him, at first, not until Jesus shows them “his hands and his side.” And what do they see? The wounds from when they nailed him to the cross--and when the Roman soldier pierced Jesus in the side with his spear to make sure that he was dead before removing him from the cross.

     The disciples rejoice that Jesus has returned to them! The one whom they saw tortured and crucified has now miraculously come back from the dead. He reassures them with his comforting words and presence. Then, he commissions them to continue His reconciling and healing work, forgiving people of their sins and leading lost souls back “home” to God. Breathing His Spirit on them, he says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”   

***

    I came across a song this week that may very well be “new” to you. Canadian schoolteacher Edith “Margaret” Clarkson wrote the song in 1938; it was published in 1954. Margaret, born in 1915, became a teacher in 1935 and because teaching jobs were scarce, she was sent to work for 7 years 1400 miles from her home, first in a gold mining camp in northwestern Ontario and then a lumber camp 450 miles north of Toronto. She had wanted to be a missionary on a foreign mission field, but her health had prevented it. She had suffered from migraine headaches and arthritis since she was a small child. She writes, “In those 7 years, I experienced loneliness of every kind; mental, cultural, but particularly spiritual, for in all those seven years I never found real Christian fellowship.”  She was 23 years old, and studying the Bible one night, meditating on the loneliness of her situation, when she came to John 20:21 and read in her translation, "Peace be unto you; as the Father hath sent me, so send I you.” God seemed to be telling her that where she was was her mission field. “This,” she writes, “was where God had sent me.” [1]

     She wrote 2 versions of this beautiful song. The first one tells of the emotional suffering and rejection we endure to be obedient to Christ’s call on our lives, giving up our own ambitions to serve the Lord--to reach out to the lost and seek to bring Christ’s healing, reconciling love to all the dark places of the world.

     My hope for all of you is that you will come to realize, through this message and this song, that all of us are His disciples, not just ordained ministers or teachers. Jesus is speaking to every Christian, the entire Church, when he says, “As the Father hath sent me, so send I you.” And though we may suffer and make sacrifices as we seek to obey the Lord, God will reward us with joy in our grief and peace in our pain. Here is the first version of Margaret’s song:

So send I you to labor unrewarded,
To serve unpaid, unloved, unsought, unknown,
To bear rebuke, to suffer scorn and scoffing-
So send I you to toil for Me alone.

So send I you to bind the bruised and broken,
O’er wand’ring souls to work, to weep, to wake,
To bear the burdens of a world aweary-
So send I you to suffer for My sake.

So send I you to loneliness and longing,
With heart ahung’ring for the loved and known,
Forsaking home and kindred, friend and dear one-
So send I you to know My love alone.

So send I you to leave your life’s ambition,
To die to dear desire, self-will resign,
To labor long, and love where men revile you-
So send I you to lose your life in Mine.

So send I you to hearts made hard by hatred,
To eyes made blind because they will not see,
To spend, tho’ it be blood, to spend and spare not-
So send I you to taste of Calvary.

Margaret wrote the second version of the song much later, after she had seen the faithfulness of God and experienced a deepening understanding of God’s grace and power in her weakness. The Lord strengthened her to labor for Him, despite her pain and suffering, on her “mission field,” day by day, year after year.

Here is the second version:

“So send I you-by grace made strong to triumph
O’er hosts of hell, o’er darkness, death, and sin,
My name to bear, and in that name to conquer-
So send I you, my victory to win.
So send I you-to take to souls in bondage
The word of truth that sets the captive free,
To break the bonds of sin, to loose death’s fetters-
So send I you, to bring the lost to me.
So send I you-my strength to know in weakness,
My joy in grief, my perfect peace in pain,
To prove My power, My grace, My promised presence-
So send I you, eternal fruit to gain.
So send I you-to bear My cross with patience,
And then one day with joy to lay it down,
To hear My voice, “well done, My faithful servant-
Come, share My throne, My kingdom, and My crown!”
“As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you.”

Let us pray.

Faithful God, thank you for sending Jesus to show us the way back to you. Thank you for loving and forgiving us, while we were lost in sin and darkness, trembling in fear like the disciples who had discovered Christ’s empty tomb but did not yet understand. Thank you for your willingness to suffer for our sakes and for raising Jesus from the dead to be with you in glory. We praise and thank you for the promise of our resurrected bodies and everlasting life in your name. Forgive us, Lord, for our doubts, for behaving sometimes like Thomas. Strengthen us, Lord, to be courageous and serve you wherever we are, no matter our circumstances, despite any physical or emotional pain. Lead us all to work for you right here, in this place, as if you have sent us to a “foreign mission field.” Help us to bring others to repentance, to bring others nearer to you, and to receive your healing, reconciling love. May your Spirit transform us from doubting, fearful creatures to become your faithful disciples, hungering for your Word, praying without ceasing, and walking in Christ’s loving ways. In His name we pray. Amen.  

---

[1] https://godwordistruth.wordpress.com/2008/11/04/so-send-i-you-missionary-hymn-of-the-twentieth-century/

“His Betrayal, Our Failure”

Meditation on John 13 (selected verses)

Maundy Thursday 2015

    “Now before the festival of the Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart from this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him. And during supper Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was tied around him. He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, are you going to wash my feet?’ Jesus answered, ‘You do not know now what I am doing, but later you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You will never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered, ‘Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.’

     Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘One who has bathed does not need to wash, except for the feet, but is entirely clean. And you are clean, though not all of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; for this reason he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’

      After he had washed their feet, had put on his robe, and had returned to the table, he said to them, ‘Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord—and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. 

     …Very truly, I tell you, whoever receives one whom I send receives me; and whoever receives me receives him who sent me.’

        After saying this Jesus was troubled in spirit, and declared, ‘Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me.’ The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he was speaking. One of his disciples—the one whom Jesus loved—was reclining next to him; Simon Peter therefore motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So while reclining next to Jesus, he asked him, ‘Lord, who is it?’ 

       Jesus answered, ‘It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.’ So when he had dipped the piece of bread, he gave it to Judas son of Simon Iscariot. After he received the piece of bread, Satan entered into him. Jesus said to him, ‘Do quickly what you are going to do.’ 

     Now no one at the table knew why he said this to him. Some thought that, because Judas had the common purse, Jesus was telling him, ‘Buy what we need for the festival’; or, that he should give something to the poor. So, after receiving the piece of bread, Judas immediately went out. And it was night.

    When Judas had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 

      Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’”

***

    Please don’t laugh at me, but I was struggling to sew a button on one of my favorite wool skirts this morning. Now I know how to sew buttons on clothes. Sewing by hand was one of the important skills my grandmother taught me when I was a little girl. She was a great teacher. She taught by showing me how to do the task, then encouraging me to do it on my own, but staying nearby to help if I had trouble. Grandma would get out my grandfather’s old shirts, worn socks, and fraying ties for me to practice my sewing. Sometimes, I would finish sewing a button on a shirt only to discover that it didn’t match up with the hole or line up with the other buttons. I would have to cut off the button and start all over again.

    Grandma never scolded me for my crooked stitches or tangled thread, so unlike her perfectly placed, nearly invisible stitches. She didn’t seem to mind that my grandfather’s old ties and socks, when I was finished mending them, were not always suitable for wearing in public. I don’t remember her scolding me for when I didn’t have the patience to thread the needle or make the knot. If I asked for her help, she would quickly do it for me and hand the project back to me, expecting me to finish. She stayed with me to the end--to make sure I didn’t abandon the project, though I was tempted at times to give up. She would accept my final product, no matter how it looked. She hung the mended blouse or shirt back in the closet. She rolled up the socks and ties and put them back into the dresser drawers. Sometimes, she proudly showed them to my grandfather before putting them away. He would smile and say from his big recliner, “Oh! Thank you!”

    Recalling my experiences learning with Grandma helps me to understand our Savior’s grace and mercy and what He expects from us. Our Lord is our teacher; His Spirit helps us do the things we can’t possibly do well on our own, but first we have to have the heart to obey Him and be fully committed to the task. And we must never give up, though we might be tempted.

      In our gospel reading today, Jesus is trying to teach his disciples one final lesson. His hour has come. Soon, he will depart from this world and go to be with the Father. He is nearing his most important task of all; the work of the cross lies ahead. 

     The disciples have not yet learned how to love. Jesus teaches by word and example. He loves them—as we read in John 13:1—as his “own”—and he will love them “to the end.” His love shows them our loving God and what the Lord expects of his disciples as they continue on with his healing, reconciling ministry when he is no longer with them in the flesh. Christ demonstrates humility and vulnerability, removing his clothes before washing their feet. This is what servants would do in the homes of wealthy and important people.  They would wash the feet of each person who came to the door to make them clean and presentable and so they would not bring dirt from the outside into the home.

      Jesus says, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” 

      This act of servitude foreshadows when Jesus will humbly give up his life to serve the Father, cleanse us of sin, and make what is unrighteous holy and acceptable to God. In this passage, Jesus also teaches us that accepting and receiving His love and work for our sakes is necessary! When Peter says to Jesus, “You will never wash my feet,” Jesus answers, “Unless I wash you, you have no share with me.”  Finally, Christ teaches us to love our enemies when he chooses to wash even the feet of the one whom he knows is going to betray him--Judas Iscariot--for a few pieces of silver!

     But before we begin placing the blame for Christ’s death squarely on Judas, or the religious leaders of the time, or the Roman soldiers, let us be reminded that every one of his disciples will desert Jesus in the end. Even Peter, the most passionate of all the disciples in his love for the Lord, will vehemently deny knowing him 3 times in one night--“before the cock crows.” If we examine our own hearts with all honesty, we would come to realize that we would have done no better than his disciples who fled in terror when Jesus was arrested, tried and condemned. Being stripped, whipped and nailed to a cross was the cruelest of all execution methods, with the greatest amount of pain, humiliation and prolonged suffering for the accused. Also, if we were to examine our own hearts with all honesty right now, we would realize that we, too, have let Jesus down repeatedly and failed in his command to love.

    But what we see and know as our personal failure, our patient Lord will use for our good. Our gracious God grants those who repent and turn from sin new mercies every morning! Every day, we have another opportunity to get it right, with the Spirit’s help, and be pleasing to Him. But we must be fully committed to this! We must be willing to try with all our heart, mind and might to live in obedience to Him--and learn to love!

       Just as I am, God loves and accepts me! Just as you are, God loves and accepts you! The Lord receives whatever we do for Him as a precious gift, an offering to Him, though our efforts at doing his work may seem to us to be no better than the mending I tried to do as a child. If we want to live with the Lord for all eternity, we must first allow Christ to wash us clean! Let us accept God’s love, mercy and forgiveness and his new mercies every morning so that we may live out the most important command of all. “Just as I have loved you,” Christ says, “you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.”

Let us pray.

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for your love, grace and mercy! We praise you for Jesus, our Savior and our Teacher who not only commands us to love, he gives us the perfect example and His Spirit to enable us to love. Lord, forgive us when we have chosen not to obey your command, when we have failed to love. Fill us now with such love for the people of God that we cannot help but be a witness to your healing, reconciling love in this violent world, with so much hatred and pain, and so desperately in need of models of Christ’s humble, self-giving love. Thank for your new mercies every morning that enable us to forgive ourselves and those who may have sinned against us and to try again and again, with all our heart, mind, and might, to live in obedience to you. To love as you have always loved us! In Christ we pray. Amen.