Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B (Proper 11, Ordinary 16), "Of Sheep and Shepherds," Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, Jeremiah 23:1-6

 

Sermon 7/21/24

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, Jeremiah 23:1-6

Of Sheep and Shepherds

I’ve been thinking a whole lot about leadership lately, and who it is we want to lead us and why. Yes, as you can imagine, I’ve got the upcoming presidential election on my mind. No, don’t worry, I’m not about to get into who to vote for - or who not to vote for - or why. Today I’m more interested in thinking about what we value in leaders. What kind of leader do you think the President of the United States should be? I found an article that addressed several characteristics that seem to make for effective presidencies in American history, and the top qualities include: A strong vision for the country's future, an ability to put their own times in the perspective of history, effective communication skills, the courage to make unpopular decisions, crisis management skills, character and integrity, wise appointments, and an ability to work with Congress. (1) That sounds like a pretty decent list. But it is a rear view mirror list. In other words, it was a list made reflecting on presidencies after they were over, not in the midst of electing a new president. I tried to find something that gave a good sense of what we’re looking for when we’re electing a new president. The best I could find was a recent survey that asked people how they rated a pre-selected list of attributes. So, the survey decided on some important traits, but people got to rank them. There were some party-line differences, but people valued strength, honesty, and competence. Most of all? Across party lines, people said “taking responsibility” was their most desired characteristic in a leader. (2) Now, that desire can be interpreted in a lot of ways, but I suspect at least part of why people say they want someone who will take responsibility is because they feel like our leaders don’t do this already. How often do we hear our leaders - presidents or governors or members of congress or otherwise - say: that mistake was my fault and I accept responsibility? Examples do not immediately spring to my mind. 

I read recently on social media some words from John G. Stackhouse Jr.: “God, after all, has a long record of allowing societies to reap what they sow and get the leadership they deserve. It's called judgment, not blessing.” I’ve been thinking about that a lot. This idea: God gives people the kind of leader they want, even if it turns out to be an awful decision, even when it turns out the people are really bad at choosing leaders. Are we bad at choosing leaders? Stackhouse is certainly commenting on current events, but he’s also making observations about the biblical record. Our history, as people, of choosing poorly when it comes to leaders, is not new. It’s in fact a quite, quite old problem. That’s what our text from Jeremiah is talking about. When God first called together a people, Israel, God said that God would be the only ruler they needed. But eventually, the people started clamoring for a king, because they wanted to be like the other nations around them - they all had earthly rulers, and the Israelites wanted one too. And so God gave them what they wanted. And, as Stackhouse suggests, it mostly turned out to be a terrible decision. With few exceptions, ruler after ruler did what was evil in God’ sight, leading the people down destructive paths, resulting in wars, and poverty, and hardship, and most of all: idolatry and alienation from God. 

In Jeremiah, God has had it with rulers who are not the shepherds God intends them to be. Shepherds are supposed to care for and protect the sheep - at all costs! But instead, God says, the rules of Israel have been destroying and scattering the sheep - God’s people. There are consequences, God says. But as always, God makes promises too: God will be the shepherd earthly rulers are not, and gather the people. And God will raise up shepherds who will lead with righteousness and justice so that the people can live in safety. So what kind of leader do we want? What kind of shepherd does God seek out for us? Can we accept the shepherd God longs for us to have, instead of insisting we know better? 

There’s more talk about sheep and shepherds in our gospel lesson, where we start out with Jesus just seeking some peace and quiet after the relentless pace of his teaching, healing, and ministry. Picture this: you are exhausted. It has been a long week at work. Some things have gone wrong. And all week, you’ve been looking forward to a quiet Saturday at home, where you can sleep in. You’re just going to relax. No agenda. No schedule. No plans. And then, there’s a knock at the door. Or the phone rings. And suddenly, that time for rest and relaxation has vanished. And it’s not even that whoever interrupted your time is not a friend, a person you enjoy. It’s just that you were so exhausted, and you so needed a break. Has this ever happened to you?  

That’s what happens to Jesus and the disciples. They were trying to take just a little break, because with all the work they’ve been doing, they haven’t even had time to eat. But the people, who so want to see Jesus, experience his teaching, his healing, find out where he’s going, and while Jesus is traveling by boat, they hurry ahead on foot, so that by the time Jesus reaches his destination, they’re already there waiting for him. And Jesus doesn’t groan when he sees them all waiting. He doesn’t huff and puff and demand that he needs his alone time. Instead, we read: “As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus is moved with compassion. The Greek word in the Bible for compassion is my very favorite. The word is a mouthful: ἐσπλαγχνίσθη - esplangchnisthe. It means something to the effect of: your guts are tied up in knots with the level of concern you have for someone. You are physically moved with emotion for the person you’re considering. You feel such concern, such care that it affects you physically. And this word is mostly used in the Bible to describe how Jesus feels about the crowds, the people. In fact, this word is used more times about Jesus than all others instances in the Bible combined. When Jesus sees people, his guts twist with the deepness of his concern. Compassion. His intestines twisted in knots in deep concern for what he saw. A true shepherd, like the one the prophet Jeremiah wrote of, is like this one: one who laments when the sheep are without a shepherd, and is moved to the core of their being to step in and lead, to step in and be that shepherd. 

I wonder: is compassion a leadership skill? Do we want a leader who is compassionate? What kind of leader does it make you if your best skill is that you have gut-wrenching compassion for people like Jesus does - all kinds of people, in all kinds of situations, some of their own making, some deserving more than they’ve gotten, some deserving less - all kinds of people? What kind of leader does it make you if your best skills are compassion, mercy, grace? Well, we can see what kind of leader his signature compassion makes Jesus into: It makes Jesus the kind of leader who can’t seem to stop pouring himself out for others, even when he’d really love a nap. It makes Jesus the kind of leader who says that he came to be a servant of all. It makes Jesus the kind of leader who eschews every attempt to elevate and glorify himself, to take a throne, to rule over. It makes him the kind of leader who cherishes children as those with important wisdom to share. It makes him the kind of leader who notices the widows, the poor, those who have been deemed sinful, those whom no one wants to touch,even the ones who are considered enemies - he notices and sees and embraces. It makes Jesus the kind of leader who gives his life for others. It makes him a true shepherd, a good shepherd, who cannot just pass by when he sees lost sheep. 

Sometimes I think we need reminding of just who it is we’ve committed to following. As people of faith, we’ve committed to following someone whose leadership skills may not be on the top list for presidential candidates. Elections matter. Secular leaders matter. Of course they do. I think we should vote, and vote thoughtfully, faithfully, trying our best to vote in alignment with our deepest held values. But I’m reminded of a post that was going around on Facebook way back in the Obama/Romney election in 2012. It showed Romney and Obama each with a statement near them that read: “Hope of the world.” But then it was crossed out. And it said at the bottom: “That job’s already taken.” I love that. Jesus is the hope of our world and the only one we should seek to follow. The empires of the earth - all of them - rise and fall. But Jesus is eternal, and our place in God’s heart is forever, and God’s love and compassion for us is everlasting. Let’s be followers of the leader God chooses for us. Let’s have the characteristics and qualities of Jesus be the ones we seek out. Let it be the compassion of Jesus that we long for the most, and most strive to imitate. Let’s be sheep in the fold of the shepherd who loves us down to his very guts. Amen. 

1. https://www.ushistory.org/gov/7e.asp

2. https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/31249-leadership-qualities-president-poll-data

Sermon for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost, Year B, "Measuring God's Love," Ephesians 3:14-21

 Sermon 7/25/21

Ephesians 3:14-21

Measuring God’s Love

Our scripture lesson for today is from the letter to the church at Ephesus. Some scholars think Paul wrote this letter, and others think it was written latter by a follower of Paul’s in Paul’s name. Who is right on that doesn’t really matter for us today though. What matters is the content of this letter, and what it means for us as disciples today. The author is writing to Christians at Ephesus. The Ephesians are one of a number of new faith communities planted by the apostle Paul and other apostles of Jesus, and many of the communities Paul was connected with were unique because they were made up primarily of Gentiles - that is, folks who weren’t Jewish, and didn’t convert to Judaism upon becoming followers of Jesus. That second part - not converting - was a matter of debate among Paul, Peter, James, and the other early leaders of the church, with Peter and James first believing that following Jesus required being part of the Jewish faith - like Jesus was - and Paul believing that Jesus-followers had freedom from the law in Christ, and therefore didn’t need to be converted - they just needed to be made new in Christ. Eventually Paul and the other leaders sort of agree to disagree and be about ministry in their own ways in their own places. But tensions remain, and there’s a strain for a long time as the early church figures out who it is, how it will be structured, what the rules will be. In the leadup to our text for today, the author is arguing that the Gentiles have become “fellow-heirs” alongside the Jewish community to all of God’s promises. Frequently throughout the epistles, the imagery used is that of adoption - if Israelites are God’s children, then Gentiles are like God’s adopted children. 

Hopefully, you can understand that the image of adoption is meant to convey not some sort of second-class status for Gentile Christians - rather, it is meant to convey the very purposeful extension of the covenant and promises of God to Gentiles because of God’s incredible love and God’s desire to always draw more and more into God’s heart. I’ve been blessed to know several families who have gone through the process of adoption. A pastor friend of mine today is celebrating the baptism of her son, a toddler, who has been with her since infancy, after just finally being able to officially adopt him about a month ago. Every part of the long adoption process has been a labor of love and devotion. And that’s what the author wants the Ephesians to understand - they’re “in,” they’re family, they’re part of the church, they are included in the “boundless riches of Christ,” it’s been God’s plan and hope and passion to have them be part of the body of Christ alongside the Israelites, and they are just as much heirs to God’s promises as anyone else. 

Our author, in fact, gets so worked up about wanting to communicate this all clearly to the Ephesians that by the time we get to our text today, the author is actually kind of interrupting himself with this prayer that focuses on two things: How much God loves them, and how much love they are capable of in return when they are rooted and grounded in Christ. The author prays that readers of this letter would be “strengthened in their inner being” by the Holy Spirit, that Christ may dwell in them, that they would be “rooted and grounded in love.” He prays that the Ephesians might come to understand “what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” And he concludes with a benediction, calling God one who can “accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine.” After that, the text moves on to chapter 4, and the author returns to a more teaching-style letter. 

So, do we understand how much God loves us? Are we rooted and grounded in Christ, strengthened in our inner beings so that we can live as followers of Jesus? And do we understand that God keeps on adopting and adopting, loving extravagantly and drawing more people into God’s family? One of my favorite decorations in my room at school is from my 6 year old niece Siggy. It’s a long strip of construction paper, measured to the length of Siggy’s outstretched arms, with construction paper cutouts traced from her hands for hands on each end, that is meant to represent a hug from Siggy. And it says, “I love you “this much.”” The point, of course, is that her love for me is as far as she can reach. Big love. I wonder if we get how much God loves us? The author prays that we might get a glimpse of understanding. Sometimes when we talk about the love of God, it becomes kind of trite - we say “God loves you,” but we miss the power behind it, the strength of it, the potentially-life-changing impact of it. 

When have you felt the most simply overwhelmed with how much you are loved? I’ve been thinking a lot this summer about how much my mom demonstrates love for me and others. There are the big things, of course - my mom’s consistent presence in my life, her affirmations, her support of my goals in life. But what I’ve been noticing lately are so many of the little things. For example, she has two kinds of silverware. She loves her silverware with big chunky colorful handles. I once remarked that I preferred the feel of the thinner, plain silver handles. And now, whenever I’m coming home, she’ll get out a couple of sets of the kind I like, just for me, and if she sets the table for me, she uses the silverware I like. I decided to try my vegan cookie stand at the farmer’s market this summer - and every single week, she’s baked cookies with me and been at the stand with me, and rearranged her entire freezer so that I can store things, and bought a special shelf for the guest bedroom for all my ingredients. She does things like this all the time. But - and here’s the astonishing thing - it isn’t just for me, or for her children and grandchildren even that she does these things. She bakes meals for her neighbors and stops by with them. She sends boxes of fall leaves to my great aunt who lives in Arizona and misses the foliage. She takes treats to the office manager at her apartment complex. She brought gifts for the children of the owners of the Chinese restaurant she frequents. I teased her that I think she spends most of her time just sitting around thinking about things she can do to make other people happy. But it’s not really a joke - I think that’s what she does, for real. Because I think what brings her the most joy in life is showering others with love. And when I reflect on her loving nature, I’m overwhelmed. When have you felt the most simply overwhelmed with how much you are loved? 

As loved as I feel by my mother, I imagine that God, who created me and everything I know, God, in whose image I’ve been created, God, who has formed me and knows me - how much must God love me? Not because I’m so wonderful - but because God is “so love”! That’s not trite - it’s overwhelming, to be loved so completely. And it calls for a response. It calls for us to be strengthened, rooted and grounded in this love, so that what God can accomplish in us is more than we can ask and imagine. 

So, when have you felt the most simply overwhelmed with how much you love someone? God wants us to be grounded in Christ, so that we can love like Christ loves. We draw our strength from Christ, so that when it seems like we can’t love the way Jesus loves on our own, we realize we can because of what Christ gives to us. God wants us to love one another like God loves us. God wants us to be like my mother, imagining all the ways we can shower others with love - not just our favorite others - but all of God’s children. And as we’ve discussed, God has a really big family for us to love with lots and lots of siblings for us. That glimpse of God’s love that I get from my mom? God not only loves me that way, but God loves the people of whom I’m not so fond that way too. God loves the folks who drive us crazy, who’ve caused us pain, with the same extravagant love we can barely comprehend, and asks us to do likewise. Sometimes, it seems impossible. But, as the prayer we heard in this letter reminds us, God can do in us what is abundantly far more than we can imagine. 

Friends, I pray just what our author has prayed - that you might start to understand truly, deeply, in your core, how much God loves you, how much God claims you as part of the family, without which the family just wouldn’t be whole. I want you to understand at least a glimpse of how much God hopes and dreams goodness and joy for your life. And then, rooted and grounded in that love, I want you to make it a life priority to make sure others - all the others - understand this too. Because if we can really start to understand the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ for us, of God’s love for us? Confident in that kind of love, what else could we need to change the world? Amen.  

Sermon for Ninth Sunday after Pentecost,"Year B, "HxWxL"

Sermon 7/29/12

Ephesians 3:14-21

HxWxL

“She’s finally set down roots.” I’ve never had so much feedback on a post I made on facebook as I did this week, when I posted words that were music to my own ears: “I am officially a homeowner!” Many of you know that I’ve been in the process of buying a home in Liverpool, and if you’ve been through the process yourself, you know that it is an arduous process! By the end of it, I wasn’t sure whether I was more excited to be a homeowner, or simply be done with submitting document after document to verify that I would be able to handle buying a home! But I was definitely touched and cheered by an outpouring of congratulatory posts of my facebook announcement. And that one stood out to me: “She’s finally set down roots.” I would definitely describe myself as a grounded person, but these last several years have involved a lot of moving around for me. I spent a short time serving a church in New Jersey, but longed to come back to my friends and family and home in Central New York. I rented an apartment for a year, and then moved into a parsonage belonging to another church that didn’t need it right then, and now, I’m packing up and ready to move my boxes into my own home in Liverpool. There’ve been a lot of transitions in my life. During the home-buying process, my realtor kept emphasizing that I would want to make sure my home would have a good resale value. But all I could think at the time was: resale? I’m just buying the house! I don’t want to think about selling it already! I know his advice makes good financial sense. He’s looking out for my future. But I’m looking forward to putting down some roots. I remain covenanted to the appointment process of The United Methodist Church, but I also feel like God has got some big plans for us right here, right now, and I hope very much to set down roots in Liverpool.

We’ve been working our way through the book of Ephesians, and last week, we heard Aaron talk about how the work of Christ breaks down the walls that we put up to separate us from one another, so that because of Christ, there’s no longer “them,” no longer “those people.” Today, we hear a spontaneous prayer, plopped right into the middle of this letter to the congregation at Ephesus, where “Paul” expresses his hopes for the young faith community, and it’s as if he has so much hope, so much anticipation about what they can be, that he just can’t contain his prayer any longer, can’t wait until the benediction, to offer these words to God. He writes, “I pray that . . . [God] may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

“Paul” wants the Ephesians to understand, to know the incomprehensible: how much they are loved by Christ, so that they can be filled up with God. He knows it’s a tall order. He knows it “surpasses” our knowledge. But he wants us to have a sense of it. Have you ever talked to a child about how much they are loved? How much do you love me? Do you love me this much? No, I love you THIS much! We know our words are inadequate to express the depths of our love. But “Paul” tries to give voice to his hopes – that the Ephesians know the vast and endless dimensions of God’s love.

Do we “get it?” Do we understand that we are loved by God? I think, unfortunately, that it can be pretty hard to convince someone that you love them, truly, as unconditionally as we humans are capable of loving. It can be hard to be convinced that you are that loved! We hurt one another. We act carelessly. We break trust, break promises. And thus, we make it challenging to believe that we can be loved with all the length and height and depth “Paul” is telling us about. I think it is easy to say that we believe we are loved by God. We know we’re supposed to say that. After all, Jesus loves me is probably one of the first songs of faith we learn as a child. But do we believe it? We spend a lot of time and energy acting like we are still trying to earn God’s love, earn something that is offered to us as a free gift. If we think God offers love because we’re good enough, because we’ve completed some checklist, we really don’t understand what love is. “Paul’s” earnest prayer is that we would be able to have a glimpse of the marvelous truth that is too awesome for us to really know: We are loved, we are loved, we are loved.

So is “Paul’s” prayer of hope actually hopeless? If God’s love is just too good to be true for us to believe in, if we are too hurt and suspicious to believe it, is there anything to be done? “Paul’s” prayer actually gives voice to the way we can begin to touch on the mystery of God’s love for us. “I pray that . . . you may be strengthened in your inner being . . . and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.”

Rooted and grounded in love. My grandfather, Millard Mudge, was a gardener. Half of my childhood memories of my grandpa are of him working in a garden that seemed enormous to me. And for many reasons, but especially out of our love for him, many members of my family have given gardening a go at one time or another. But I’m afraid none of us have had the same success he had. My older brother has been engaged in a prolonged battle with squirrels and rabbits. No matter what kind of fence he erects around his garden, they seem to eat his veggies mere hours before planned harvesting. My seedlings, so carefully nurtured this spring, withered almost immediately when I tried to move them outside this scorching summer. One summer my brother forgot what he planted where, and was caught trying to shell green beans, convinced they were peas. But one of my favorite stories comes from my mother’s garden. Mom had a nice row of corn growing, doing really well, when suddenly, the corn stopped growing, and started turning yellow. We couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Finally, she discovered that a certain brother, who certainly is not here today, was helping her by watering her garden – with water from the swimming pool. All that chlorine in the water permeated the soil, and was soaked up into the plants, and bleached the corn into a lovely shade of yellow. Sorry – that was supposed to be a family secret! Turns out, what the corn is planted in, the source of its nourishment, is pretty important for the plant to thrive.

How do we come to know and trust in God’s love? We get rooted in it. We plant ourselves in it. We sink our feet into it until we are filled up with it, immersed in it, made of it, from our toes to the top of our head. If Christ dwells within us, if we are rooted in and grounded in Christ, how could we doubt that we are loved? But what exactly, then, does that mean – to be rooted and grounded in Christ? To have Christ within us?

Thursday night we gathered for a social for Vacation Bible School – all of the teachers and helpers got together for a question and answer time, but especially for fellowship, prayer, and worship, a time to prepare spiritually for the week ahead just as so many hours have being spent preparing our space physically for vacation bible school. We talked and prayed about, among other things, what we hope happens at Vacation Bible School. One of the main purposes of VBS is to help children (and the adults who are helping) but to help the children experience the love of God. I think we’ve seen, in the planning and preparation for Vacation Bible School, some of the excitement and urgency that “Paul” felt for others to make sure they start to know the height and depth and length of God’s love. I’ve watched the fellowship hall be transformed into a space that makes me wish I was a child again, and I’ve watched a group of teens and adults try to outdo their previous year’s themes with such energy and excitement, because they want these children to have an awesome, life-changing experience this week, where they learn about God and God’s love, and having that love in their own lives.

What does it mean to be rooted in Christ? We do what Jesus did, as best as we can imitate, follow after him, let his life fill us up and permeate our own lives. And Jesus spent most of his time seeking out people who desperately needed to know it and making them feel worth it, valued, loved. The best way to know love, it turns out, is to let ourselves love. Love with abandon, excitement, urgency. The urgency of “Paul” who bursts into prayer in the middle of teaching, filled with hope for Ephesians. The urgency of vision the creates Promise Island in Fellowship Hall for kids to encounter love this week. The urgency of Jesus, willing to give of himself and give his life so that we might know how much, how deeply we are loved by our Creator, how deeply our Creator desires us to live in love with one another. If we are rooted and planted in Christ, in the ways of Jesus, we’ll begin to understand just how much we’re loved. And that kind of love – God’s love – that’s a power that will change lives, and change the world.

Dear Friends, “I pray that . . . [God] may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Amen.