On the Inside Looking Out

John 10:11-18

“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.”

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A couple of weeks ago – Holy Week, actually – my dad, the other Pastor Havel, came to my office looking for a picture of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. He didn’t say it that way. He just wanted a picture like one many of us have seen in illustrated Bibles from back in the day or even on stained-glass windows in many of our churches, where Jesus is walking around carrying a lamb. You know the one, right?

Anyway, he was looking for something he could use for the Children’s Sermon at First Trinity Lutheran Church, where he’s become the resident supply preacher since moving to Indiana. First Trinity, some of you know, is on Indy’s east side – Emerson and 42nd Street – and they have a much more racially diverse congregation than we do here at Cross of Grace. I mean their flock is a little more colorful than our own. I mean their flock – however small – is blessed with a better mix of black sheep and white sheep on any given Sunday morning.

So when my dad said he needed a picture of Jesus… that he wanted it to be something like those images of the Good Shepherd, with Jesus carrying a lamb in his arms or surrounded by a flock of sheep, or whatever… that he wanted to talk to the kids about Jesus having become the “Lamb of God, sacrificed to take away the sin of the world” and so on…

…I suggested we find a picture of a BLACK Jesus; a more historically accurate picture of “the Good Shepherd” from the ones so many of us are used to; a picture of Jesus with dark skin that might even surprise a gathering of African-American children who are used to worshipping in an ELCA-flavored Lutheran church where Jesus is so Norwegian so much of the time. At least, I thought, we could find a picture of Jesus carrying a black LAMB for the good of the cause. 

And we found this picture – one I think I’ve used here before to make a similar point:

Now, I wasn’t suggesting he talk about any of this, mind you. Just that he show the picture like we might use any of the others I’ve already shown; take for granted that this is what Jesus could look like; assume that this is perfectly normal; to be expected; not even make a thing of it in any big way. Just give those kids the unspoken benefit of seeing a Jesus – like you and I have had the privilege of seeing – who looks more like them than not. (I’m so damned woke I can hardly stand it.)

Well, I never did hear how the children’s sermon went. But I like the idea of all of that – imagining the historical Jesus as a young, middle-eastern, dark-skinned, young man – which is more of a reality check for me, still, than it should be a lot of the time, to be honest, no matter how “woke” I pretend to be. 

And it’s good for me to remember this more often – and it came to mind again for this morning because of something Jesus says when he describes “The Good Shepherd” in John’s Gospel.

And he says a lot about the Good Shepherd: how he lays down his life for the sheep. How he doesn’t run when the wolf shows up. How he is more than just some hired-hand, some imposter, some poseur who’s in it for his own benefit and blessing. No. This Good Shepherd lays down his life for his flock because he cares for the sheep, because he loves his people, because God has a great, wide, deep, kind of love for God’s flock – and for those outside of the fold, too. Did you catch that part of it all?

Jesus says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.” And he says, “I must bring them along also and they will listen to my voice. So that there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

“I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.” “I must bring them along also… they will listen to my voice… there will be one flock, one shepherd.”

So we have to wonder – like those who first listened to Jesus must have wondered – “Who are the ‘other sheep’ in our mind’s eye?” Who are the ones “not part of this fold?” Who is it we wish the benevolent love of God, in Jesus, would find and fill and forgive and redeem? Who might join us … join the flock … to celebrate those blessings right along with us?

Are the “other sheep” Jesus is talking about people who don’t look like us? Are the “other sheep” people who live on the other side of the tracks? Are they people who believe differently from us – Muslims or Jews? Catholics or Missouri Synod Lutherans, even? Are they people who don’t believe at all? Are they people who are more sick or more sinful that us; differently sick or differently sinful from what we’re used to? I think so. I believe the one flock into which God longs to gather all of creation is meant to be a surprisingly diverse and colorful, motley kind of crew.

But if you’ve heard that sermon from me before, you’ve heard it a hundred times – and you’ll hear it again, I’m sure. This isn’t about that for me this morning.

Because in John’s gospel we know Jesus was speaking to his Jewish disciples and hangers-on when he talks about “the other sheep who do not belong to this fold.” We hear Jesus speaking about how God’s good news and Gospel joy; God’s salvation and redemption and grace for all people wasn’t just for the Chosen ones of Israel, but that it was also for the Gentiles; those outside the circle of the Jewish faith. They were “the other sheep who do not belong to the fold” Jesus was talking about.

So check this out… Linda Sevier and I attended a workshop on racial justice a week or so ago. And among lots of other really cool, challenging conversations about ways we can engage issues of race in our culture through our congregations, our facilitator, in a pretty matter of fact, low-key moment of discussion and teaching; as he talked about the historical nature and place and person of Jesus; as he described the culture and ethnicity, the social standing and social status of Jesus of Nazareth as a person of color, of low social status, of less-than lucrative means, of minimal power and influence and potential, even – all things I’ve heard and I know and that I’ve preached and taught and believed for quite some time now…

…in a very subtle, under-stated, truth-telling kind of way, this teacher reminded me that, based on all of the social and cultural and theological indicators of Jesus’ day and age, that I would be considered an outsider to the kingdom of God, as far as Jesus and his disciples were concerned. I – as a white-privileged, middle class, non-Jewish, Gentile man – would have been an ethnic minority in the Kingdom of God about which Jesus preached. I would have been a minority in every way as far God’s Kingdom was concerned, in Jesus’ day and age.

I am not what Jesus or his followers would have considered part of their fold; part of their inner circle of chosen sheep. Most of us – from what I can tell – would be considered among “the other” who Jesus would welcome into the fold against the better judgement or first inclination of his disciples.

And this humbles me in a way that is helpful and holy as I consider how “woke” I think I am or hope to be. I am not first on the list. I am not among the inner circle. I am an “other” in so many ways as far as the Good Shepherd would have been concerned, back in the day.

But still he includes me. Still he longs for me to hear his voice. Still he invites me into the mix, into the circle, into the fold so that there will be one flock of God’s people, bound together, not by the distinctions of the world around us; bound together, not by the measure of what matters to the masses; bound together, not by what is powerful or privileged or popular or whatever…

But bound together by nothing more and nothing less than the grace of God. And bound together by the love of this Jesus – the Good Shepherd – who calls and gathers, who welcomes and forgives, who enlightens and encourages each of us, for the sake of the world: until the last are first and the first are last; until the low are raised up and the mighty are knocked down from their thrones; until the poor are rich and the rich learn to share; until we see ourselves as part of the same flock.

And until we are filled with a holy kind of humility and gratitude for the blessings we celebrate, which were not considered ours in the first place … so much so that we are sent into the world – beyond the comfort of our own fold – to love and to serve and to be loved and to be served by the ones we have made “others” in spite of ourselves. Because in that day… when that Kingdom comes to earth as it is in heaven… we will be one flock, as God intends – and that will be a surprise and a blessing for us all.

Amen

Doubting Thomas and the Body of Christ

John 20:19-31

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 and 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.”  And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said, “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.”

Now Thomas (who is called “the Twin”) one of the twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.  So the disciples said to him, “We have seen the Lord.”  But Thomas said, “Unless I see the marks of the nails in his hands and put my fingers in the marks of the nails and my hands in his sides, I will not believe.”

A week later, the disciples were again in the house and Thomas was with them.  Although the doors were shut, Jesus appeared and said to them, “Peace be with you.”  And he said to Thomas, “Put your fingers 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, “Do you believe 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 that 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 might have life in his name.

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This sermon is sort of a sequel to something I preached about 7 years ago. I went looking for it because of something my dad is up to this weekend. He’s making one of his fairly regular pilgrimages to the Kinross Correctional Facility, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, to visit a friend of his who is a convicted murderer. And he’s guilty, too, of first-degree murder. That’s not always the case, but he makes no bones about it. The crime was one of passion, fueled by drugs and rage and immaturity and ugliness and only God knows what else. He’s about 35 years-old now, and serving two life sentences in something like Siberia, as I imagine it.

Anyway, I always remember that on one of their first visits after he was moved into the prison this guy told my dad that he had read through the New Testament twice, and that he didn’t believe it. At the time, my first thought was to wonder about the last time any of us have sat down and read through the New Testament in its entirety, once, let alone twice.  My second thought – and what comes to mind very often when I read about Thomas in John’s Gospel – is how well “Doubting Thomas” might have gotten along with my dad’s friend, and so many of the rest of us for that matter.

I don’t think I’ve ever preached a sermon about Thomas without defending him, first. Christians talk about “Doubting Thomas” so much as though we haven’t… or don’t… or shouldn’t have moments of faithlessness and doubt; as though we wouldn’t have been right there with him in his skepticism or cynicism or reluctance to believe back on that first resurrection day. But the truth is, Thomas doesn’t ask for or get any more or less than all the other disciples got before they “rejoiced” at recognizing Jesus in that house after the resurrection – before they believed in this whole resurrection thing.

As the story goes, Jesus entered the room, showed the disciples his hands and his sides, and then they rejoiced when they saw their Lord. And the same is true for Thomas. He got just what he asked for, in the end, when Jesus showed up a week later and let Thomas touch and see the healing wounds of his crucifixion. And then Thomas rejoiced, just like the others, declaring with such faith and conviction, “My Lord and my God.”

And I always wonder if Thomas wasn’t cynical and doubtful so much of Jesus’ resurrection, as he was skeptical about what his fellow disciples told him they may or may not have witnessed that first night when Jesus appeared. And I don’t blame Thomas one bit for doubting those knuckleheads at this stage of the game.

Because remember, they’d been down this long road of ministry and mission together, and time and time and time again the disciples missed the point. They misunderstood Jesus’ teachings. They misinterpreted Jesus’ miracles. They misjudged Jesus’ intentions all along the way when he was talking with sinners, while he was healing the sick or when he was preaching about the Kingdom of God. And just the week before, leading up to his crucifixion and death, Judas betrayed him, Peter denied him three times and, along with James and John, fell asleep on Jesus in the garden before his arrest. On top of that, every one of them left Jesus in the dust to be taken away and crucified. Why would anyone believe anything these guys had to say? It might have been crazier had Thomas NOT been skeptical about what they were telling him, if you ask me.

And, so this morning we’re supposed to consider the common ground, I believe that we and others share with Thomas, one week out; one week after Easter’s good news; one week post-eggs, and lilies; bunnies and the big breakfast and all the rest. 

What have we seen and believed? What have we heard and told to others? What have we experienced and shared with the world around us about this resurrection that makes or has made any difference – for ourselves, for each other, for the world?

And all of it makes me think about my Dad’s friend behind bars – and so many others like him – not a few of which I call my closest friends: those people, I mean, who don’t believe it; those who don’t buy it; those who can’t be bothered with what we preach, teach and proclaim and try to live by.

And I’m inclined to believe that the common ground they share with Thomas isn’t all about their lack of belief. I’m inclined to believe that – like Thomas – they have good reason to be cynical and skeptical and suspicious about all of this because of what they see so much of the time from Jesus’ followers. So many are disillusioned by the Church; confused and scared by the words and ways of so many “evangelical Christians”; they see so much hypocrisy in and through the actions of believers. They see betrayal as ugly as anything Judas managed; denial as mighty as Peter’s, and apathy as disappointing as James and John, sleeping in the garden.

All of this, if you ask me, is OUR problem – not theirs. I’m under the impression that our lesson for today – the greater challenge in this story of Thomas and his doubts – is more about the other disciples and their faithlessness than it is about Thomas, at all.

And that makes me stop pointing fingers at Thomas – and others like him – and start wondering, instead, what it is about my life and faith – and yours, too – and ours, together – that would inspire or compel belief in the lives of others, whether they’re sitting behind bars, or sitting beside us at school or at work, or sitting beside us at the kitchen table for Easter dinner.

Why would the people in my life believe anything I have to say about this Jesus? Why would the people in your life find anything compelling about the faith you profess? Why would or should anyone look to us, in these days after Easter, and be moved to live differently by anything we have to say or do?

So, over the past seven years my dad has enlisted a cohort of friends and colleagues who correspond with his friend, in that prison. (Not everyone wants a part of this, I have to say. The crime was horrible. And not everybody can stomach such a friendship. I get that.) But those who can send letters and birthday cards; Christmas greetings and, recently, deposits for his prison commissary account. And the goal, for me at least – and for my dad, from what I can tell – isn’t to proselytize; to change his mind; to prove him wrong; or to win his soul for Jesus. I think that’s something God already has designs on and plans for – which is Easter’s good news, after all.

My hope is that all of it – the cards, the letters, the prayers – and my dad’s face to face, hand to hand, one-on-one visits, more than any of it – my hope is that all of it represents for his friend nothing more and nothing less than the body of Christ, showing up behind the locked doors of a scary, lonely, dark, despairing kind of place.

Because that’s what Thomas got when the disciples’ words weren’t enough. He got the body of Jesus – present, pierced, wounded, and on the mend right there in the room with him.

And that’s what each of us is called to be and to look for in the world around us: the body of Christ – the very presence of love, forgiveness, mercy, grace, patience and generosity – so that all of creation, the lost and the found, the saint and the sinner, the bound and the free, might see, might believe, and might have life and hope and peace and joy in his name when we do.

Amen