May 15, 2011: IV Easter

IV Easter: Good Shepherd Sunday
May 15, 2011
Jn 10.7-18
Fr. Dow Sanderson

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One of the tasks that I always invite couples in pre-marital counseling to accomplish is to write a letter before they get married.  The premise sentence is to be:  On our first wedding anniversary, our life together will have been...

They are to finish the letter before their wedding day, seal it in an envelope... and then tuck it away somewhere. 

On their actual first wedding anniversary I ask them to take those letters out, read them to each other...  laugh a little... and maybe weep a little too... as they consider how their expectations have matched their reality.

It is one of those rare occasions in life when we get not only to reminisce... but (to invent a word) to pre-minisce as well!

Last Tuesday, I walked out of Starr chapel after the morning mass, and paused briefly at the pulpit.  Twenty four years earlier, on the 10^th of May... Fr. Fleming had preached a magnificent sermon on the occasion of my ordination to the priesthood.  For a moment, I could still hear the booming echo of his voice... and I swear, the pulpit was still warm!

Twenty four years a priest.  Next month will be 25 years since entering the ordained ministry as a deacon.  In December it will have been 31 years since my discernment process began.  That involved precisely one phone call.  Fr. Fleming picked up the phone in my presence and said, Gray, I know a nice boy.  And I drove down to that old dilapidated building on upper Kings Street to talk to Bishop Temple.

Now I know that for those of you of more maturity, this is just a drop in the bucket.  I know it is a matter of perspective.

On Easter Day, I smiled as I overheard a conversation between Meredith Lackey and Anna Crawford.  They were watching the little children hunt Easter Eggs... and they waxed eloquent from their sophisticated perch as young ladies.. remembering how, so long ago as little girls, they had found eggs in that exact same spot.

But isn't it fun to reminisce?

A bride and groom pondering their future... and then reflecting a bit on what has happened.

A young man imagining with terror and joy what God will expect from him when people start calling a 27 year old Father?

A congregation wondering what on earth God was thinking in the first place!

To reflect... and to anticipate.

To give thanks for all the blessings and memories...

To look back on the shortcomings and the failures...

To remember with great thanksgiving the occasions of forgiveness and healing.

All of these things are so very much a part of what makes each of us human.  To be able to ponder and imagine.  To have the gift of joy and wonder... as we reflect on God's creative purposes for our lives.

And since we are created in the image of God, does it not stand to reason that God himself, with the gift of being able to see all time... past, present and future... in a single vista... must Himself reflect somewhat on that eternal landscape?

It seems to me that Our Lord must have spent a great deal of his time pondering the words of the prophet Isaiah.  So much of his own life and vocation were fulfillments of what that great prophet had said of the Suffering Servant, and how the servant would lay down his life.

In the 10^th Chapter of John's Gospel, Our Lord calls himself the Good Shepherd... and FIVE TIMES in that one Chapter, he repeats... The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

What must it have been like for a young teacher of Israel... to have revealed to him, day by day... and prayer by prayer, exactly what sort of cup his Father was asking him to drink?  What kind of Messiah was he called to be?

As the full weight of this realization fell heavily upon him, the Temptation s must have had an even sharper sting...

How easy it would have been to fulfill the wishes of the people...How easy it would have been to give in to the tempting offers of Satan!

But of course, had he done so, he would not have been the Good Shepherd.  He would have joined the thieves and robbers...and those who did not enter by the door.  He would have been untrue to his own nature.

And thanks be to God, He did not give in to those temptations.  He was perfectly and sinlessly obedient... even unto death.  And all because he loved so dearly the sheep he was sent to save.

His old friend Isaiah had a word or two to say about that kind of faithful love... even when the objects of one's most devoted love are so obstinate and unfaithful.

Let me sing for my Beloved a love song.

Isaiah sings a love song for God, who had planted a vineyard on a very fertile hill...Clearly this vineyard was the greatest joy of his heart.  He cherished it.  He loved it beyond all things.

Like a parent dreaming at a child's cradle... he imaged all the beautiful and glorious possibilities!

No effort was too great.  No detail was too small.

Everything was done to perfection.

Except for one small matter...

Even with all his care... the vineyard yielded bitter grapes.

Somehow, in some perversity... the vineyard was not faithful to the husbandry of the vinedresser...

And the sour taste was very bitter indeed.

And these grapes did not improve with age.

Through the years of ferment, they came to represent all that is heartbreaking and devastating when promises are broken and covenants trampled.  When love is mocked and fidelity reviled.

Until the young Messiah himself was lifted high on a cross, and wracked with pain he cried out, I thirst.

And a sponge with vinegar was lifted to his lips*

And God drank the rebellion of the people for whom he was to die.

After I am raised, I will go before you into Galilee.

This is, of course, a shepherding image.

It is always the shepherd who goes before.

And this Good Shepherd has gone down into our deaths...

And on this Fourth Sunday of Easter,

This Good Shepherd continues to go before us into eternal life.

We have given him to drink the fruit of our perverse and foolish hearts.

And He has given us the Cup of Salvation.

He has walked through the valley of the Shadow of Death,

And he invites us to dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

I am the Good Shepherd.  I know my sheep... and am known of mine.  

+++Amen.

 

* This association of the Song of the Vineyard in Isaiah with the Passion is a concept found in Pope Benedict's Second Volume of Jesus of Nazareth.  He claims that it is an "obvious" association.  It had never occurred to me. Alas.