Week 5: Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life . . .

Abundance

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Texts: Psalm 23; John 10:7-10; Ephesians 4:1-3, 31-32, 5:1-2

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

What thief is trying to steal your life?

Who or what takes away the life God wants you to have?

Jesus came so that his sheep may have life and have it abundantly. The only Good Shepherd is the One who provides life and wholeness and healing and mercy and love.

But if Jesus, the face of the Good Shepherd the Triune God is for us, wants abundant life for you, and you don’t have it, maybe you’re facing thieves and bandits as Jesus warned.

We’ve spent five weeks singing to our Good Shepherd, who made and loved us.

But thieves and bandits are always around the edges of the sheepfold, trying to get in and destroy. Fear is a thief: it drains confidence and hope and leads into a life of despair. Anxiety and worry do the same. Loneliness is a bandit: it isolates and separates you from those who love you, even God. Boredom is a thief: it leads to distraction and offers empty, soulless things to fill up your days. Self-centeredness is a bandit: it turns you inward and draws you to actions that harm others and isolate you. Busyness is a thief: it fills your life with so much activity and doing you barely have time to breathe.

There are many more of these robbers hovering around our lives. But if we’ve learned anything from David’s 23^rd Psalm, there’s one answer that drives away all who would steal your life and keep you from abundance: stay with your Shepherd. Keep close to the One who desires abundant life for you, and you’ll be safe.

Everything we’ve focused on these Wednesdays reveals the abundant life God desires for you.

Your anointing in baptism as God’s child; God’s guiding you on safe, nourishing paths, forgiving you and putting you back on the path when you fail; God’s feeding you with the Lord’s Supper as a meal of reconciliation with all; God’s loving hand supporting and strengthening you in the valleys of fear and darkness.

Living aware of all these ways God shepherds you brings abundance and joy. A life shaped in every way by David’s last line: “surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.” When you’re in the care of your Shepherd God, your fellow-travelers are goodness and mercy.

Jesus says we find this abundant life filled with goodness and mercy when we go in and come out by his guidance.

Jesus is also the gate of the sheepfold. When our comings and goings in all our moments are through Christ’s life and grace, we find pasture. Abundance. Life.

Paul shows how that works. He invites you to be imitators of God, as beloved children. To go and come as God goes and comes. When the sheep imitate the Shepherd, walking in safe paths, drinking good water, staying away from evil and thieves, they live a rich, full life.

Imitators of God live with humility and gentleness. With patience. Bearing with one another in love. Making every effort in peace to keep the Spirit’s unity. Imitators of the Shepherd get rid of some things: bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling, slander, malice. They replace them with kindness, tenderheartedness, forgiveness like God’s forgiveness.

Mostly, they imitate their Shepherd’s love. Christ offered God’s very life on the cross in love. Share God’s beating heart of love for the whole creation, even for those who harm you, and you will know life, Paul says.

If your life is less than the abundance Jesus deeply desires for you, there’s probably a thief around.

Keep your eyes open for who or what is stealing life from you. With this community here, listen again for your Shepherd’s voice. Whatever the thief is, nothing can separate you from the love and care of your Shepherd. Even in the valley of the shadow of death you will find hope and mercy and life walking with your Shepherd.

And when you learn to imitate the life of the Shepherd, to shape your heart around the kindness, mercy, gentleness, patience, and above all, love of your Shepherd, you will learn what real abundant life is, no matter where your path winds.

And goodness and mercy will follow along at your heels, all the days of your life now and in the life to come.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Week 4: You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies . . . my cup overflows . . .

More Sheep, No Walls

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
Texts: Psalm 23; John 10:14-16; Ephesians 2:13-22

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

It’s strange that they left Jerusalem then.

After seeing Jesus alive again in the Upper Room, some of his disciples went north to Galilee. They seem aimless; finally Peter decides to go fishing.

They’d failed Jesus in every imaginable way. Betrayal, running away, denying any ties with him. They cowardly abandoned him to his death. In the Upper Room they had very little time to talk with him. They must have dreaded the confrontation that they thought had to come, telling him why they’d left him in his deepest need. Maybe that’s why they ran away home.

As morning came with no fish caught, just as when they first began to follow Jesus, a stranger directs them to recast the nets and they catch a huge amount of fish. But that’s not the miracle here.

This is the miracle: as they came to shore, there was a charcoal fire burning with fish and bread on it. Jesus was making a meal for them.

In that culture, you don’t eat with your enemies. To eat with someone and then betray them was a despicable act. These disciples had done just that. They were clearly his enemies by any cultural standard.

But Jesus spread a meal out on the beach and said, “Come, and eat breakfast.”

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies,” David sings.

Do you see? David believes that the meal the true God spreads before him is a meal of reconciliation with his enemies.

How have we missed this? David knew how to sing of God’s protection from enemies. Psalm 27, Psalm 46, Psalm 91, all beloved, all speak of God’s protection from armies, earthquakes, poisonous enemies.

But when David sings to his Shepherd, he rejoices in the meal the Shepherd puts out in front of him and his enemies. This can only be a meal of life and forgiveness and welcome and healing. Because when you eat with your enemies, they are no longer your enemies.

Listen to your Shepherd:

“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.”

There are other sheep. Sheep that don’t belong to our fold. That means sheep we don’t know, but Jesus does. It also means sheep that we don’t consider part of us. Enemies.

Sundays this Lent we’ve been hearing about not rejecting others from God’s love. But Jesus challenges you to go further. He wants all God’s sheep together, even enemies. Maybe you don’t think you have enemies. Jesus also means people who hurt you, treat you badly, hate you. People who make you sad.

They’re mine, too, Jesus says. I invite everyone to eat and be filled at the meal I prepare for you. Praying for your enemies, loving them, is just the beginning. Christ’s invited them to the dinner party, too.

Christ’s Supper feeds us for our journey. It also breaks down walls.

We gather for Eucharist every week because we want to eat at Jesus’ table. We want forgiveness and life and salvation, the gifts Christ offers in his body and blood. In this meal we are made one as a community and blessed with the life and love of God.

But when our Good Shepherd throws a feast it’s a feast of reconciliation for all. Enemies are brought to the table and cease being enemies. Those who hurt or hate us are part of our flock, too. All creatures are brought together.

In Christ’s flesh, Paul says, in this body and blood given at the cross and offered in this Lord’s Supper, all divisions are healed. All walls are broken down. The hostility we have with any of God’s children is ended.

What if we saw the Lord’s Supper not as a meal for insiders, but saw it as David saw the Shepherd’s feast, as Jesus saw it? What if we proclaimed the Eucharist as Christ’s gift to the world, offering bread and wine, the very life of God, as a way God breaks down walls and opens arms to embrace?

We don’t even eat it with all other Christians now. What a disgrace. We start there. And then follow where God’s Spirit leads us.

This is the abundant, overflowing cup David proclaims.

When all things, all creatures, all creation is restored, God’s abundance will pour out on all and all will be filled, satisfied, loved, blessed, and live in peace.

It sounds like a naïve dream to the world. But you and I belong to the Good Shepherd of the whole creation, who will have everyone at the dinner party, who spreads a table in the presence of everyone. God’s meal will do the healing and reconciling. It’s not naïve, it’s the very plan of God for the healing of the world.

Just invite as many as you can – even those who hurt or hate you – to come to dinner. Christ will take care of the rest. Because everyone is, after all, a sheep of this Good Shepherd.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen