sermonboy.com

Fourth Sunday of Easter

John 10
11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. 13 The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”


As tempting as it is, we will never use clickbait to drive traffic to our website.

You’ve seen clickbait—you read an article online and you reach the bottom of the page and then you see it: ‘Eat these foods and lose weight’ or ‘Watch super cute babies eat sour food for the first time.’ Who can resist? So, if we resorted to clickbait, it might read like this:

‘You won’t believe what Team May has planned for coffee hour.’
‘Guess which upcoming events include small dogs!’
‘Is your minister ready for sailing season?’
‘These ground beef recipes will draw a crowd’
‘How many crazy typos can you find in the bulletin?’
‘What’s the latest news on feral cats in Mount Dennis?’

Maybe we should reconsider our clickbait policy. And as we reconsider, I can tell you that this newly ubiquitous form of online promotion is not limited to the average consumer or Facebook user. Recently we’re seeing an increase in clergy clickbait, attempts to drive traffic to sites like HuffPost Religion and Christianity Today.

Just his week I found an article with the provocative title: “It’s not a matter of obeying the Bible”: 8 questions for Walter Brueggemann.” Classic clergy clickbait. To be clear, Dr. Brueggemann actually said “it’s not a matter of obeying the Bible—it’s about obeying the Gospel.”* See what they did there? Famous biblical scholar says something seemingly outrageous, and your mouse seems to have a mind of its own.

I mention Dr. Brueggemann because of something equally provocative he says in this short interview. When asked a question about the difference between the Old and the New Testament, he says this:

I believe that running through the Old Testament and through the New Testament is an overriding question about the faithfulness or the fidelity of God—whether God keeps promises and whether God can be trusted.

It’s one of those summary statements that will either seem completely obvious or will stop us in our tracks. Can God be trusted? And if we agree with Dr. Brueggemann that God’s fidelity is an overriding theme through 66 books of the Bible, we should find evidence close at hand. Perhaps as close as the passage Joan read for us this morning:

“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep.”

As signs of fidelity or faithfulness go, few provide the assurance that we find in the shepherd metaphor. The shepherd will never leave us, the shepherd will speak words of comfort to us, the shepherd will lay down his life for our sake:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

You will find no greater continuity between the Old and New Testaments than the comfort that God will provide in the face of trouble. The shepherd psalm and the great I AM statement of John 10 come together to provide a more complete picture of what God provides. Our resident biblical scholar would call this ‘rewritten Bible,’ taking the familiar and rewriting for a new setting and a new age.

And one of the most arresting parts of this rewriting of Psalm 23 is Jesus refection on the hired hand:

“The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.”

In effect, the hired hand is anyone who offers false comfort or false protection in the face of danger. The hired hand will make elaborate promises about protecting the flock, but when real trouble comes, the hired hand will be the first to flee. And in a world awash with trouble, there are plenty of hired hands.

And they seem to amplify each other, these threats and hired hands. The media will play up this or that threat, and governments will step in to offer us solutions. Crime rates and been dropping like a stone since the 1970’s, but you wouldn’t know if you watch the 6.30 news or follow the latest release from the ‘public safety’ branch of our government. Someone figured out that an American is far more likely to be killed by a toddler than a terrorist (mostly owing to careless gun owners) but you wouldn’t know it as drones increasingly fill the skies.

And this leads to the real threat of the careless hired hand and the false comfort he offers: that we somehow forget who we are. Dr. Brueggemann, in the very same article, decries the systems and beliefs that cause “us to be very afraid, to regard other people as competitors, or as threats, or as rivals. It causes us to think of the world in very frightened and privatistic forms.”

The good doctor then moves beyond the problem to offer a solution, one based in the same continuity of concern that ties the Bible together:

“The gospel very much wants us to think in terms of a neighborhood, in terms of being in solidarity with other people, in sharing our resources, and of living out beyond ourselves. The gospel contradicts the dominant values of our system, which encourages self-protection and self-sufficiency at the loss of the common good.”*

So if we can’t trust the hired hand to protect us, who can we trust? Trust in God would be the first answer, trust in the comfort that we already receive in the face of trouble. Trust in the comfort that we find throughout the scriptures, trust in the comfort God provides through others, through a community that ministers to one another.

And trust that God is working through the well-intentioned, working to build-up rather than tear down, working to strengthen our commitment to each other rather than drive us apart, and working to reduce the complexity of caring to one simple principle—love your neighbour.

Jesus said, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.” In expanding our sense of neighbour, we expand our sense of ourselves: that we belong to more than one community or one tribe, that we have more in common with others than we first though, that every effort to drive us away from our neighbours should be met with the same steadfastness that God first met us.

May we never cease to worship ‘the God who cares,’ who provides comfort in times of trouble, for us and for our neighbours. Amen.


*http://www.faithstreet.com/onfaith/2015/01/09/walter-brueggemann-church-gospel-bible/35739

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 10:06 AM