John 10:22-30
It was my first Good Shepherd Sunday as a pastor and I stood before the people at St. Paul, Nachusa and confessed that I didn’t know much about sheep. I still don’t, of course, but one of our farmers out there insisted that he at least give me a tour. So on Tuesday morning I pulled up to John and Helen’s ramshackle farmhouse and John invited me to ride along in his pickup truck and off we went to see the sheep. It wasn’t far, really, just a little ways back on their farm… but I guess it was easier to get there by truck than by foot. As we started to climb down out of the truck, John told me to watch my step. I did. And as we approached the barn we found ourselves walking through a whole flock of lambs. Jumping and leaping up --- not on me --- but all over their shepherd who was leading the way. As John spoke to them, one by one, his voice was more tender than I think I’d ever heard it before.
Lots of times when I see pictures of the Good Shepherd, those pictures are beautiful, to be sure, but they don’t look a whole lot like what I saw that spring afternoon. In the paintings I’ve seen, the sheep gathered around Jesus always look so peaceful. The one he’s cradling in his arms or on his shoulders is so still it looks almost sedated. And we never picture Jesus watching his step to be sure he doesn’t step in something he’d rather not. No indeed, as much as I love those old depictions, I’m afraid they don’t exactly reflect the full reality of sheep and shepherds and they certainly don’t really get at what’s before us in our Gospel lesson today. For here is the scene before us now. If you look back a few sentences, you’ll notice that Jesus has been doing some teaching about who he is as the good shepherd. And those who are demanding his attention now? Either they don’t get it or they don’t want to get it. It isn’t too much of a stretch for us to realize that, in fact, they’re trying to set him up. In fact, if you look just a few sentences later in this account, we hear that their immediate reaction to his words is to pick up some rocks with which to stone him.
It’s a confrontation, to be sure. One in which Jesus is deeply aware that there are a whole lot of things which threaten to pull the sheep away from the shepherd. And he is staring down his adversaries with the sure and certain promise that they won’t win. That nothing and no one was going to snatch the ones God loves out of God’s loving hands. For God makes a claim on us on the day we are baptized. We may wander from it, far from God’s intent, in fact, but the fact is that God will do all God can to keep us close. Many things will claw at us, creep up behind us, threatening to remove us from the place of protection and care that our faith always offers. Things like despair, sadness, or grief. Things like greed, envy, bitterness, or deceit. You name it, the world is full of things that are contrary to what God intends. But the promise is that the shepherd is stronger, still. God is stronger, still.
So let me offer an image of how I have known this to be true this week. We gathered in this place Monday morning for the funeral of one who was an active member of this congregation for many years. I am sad to say, that I did not know her when many of you did, for in my time as pastor here she has resided at Pine Acres, a nursing home in DeKalb. Even on my first visit there three years ago, I realized that Dorothy’s ability to communicate with me was limited. So much of what I came to know of her in terms of the details, I learned from others. I heard about her years of teaching. Her raising six children. Her leadership in this place. What I saw was someone now confined to a wheel chair, depending on others to care for her. But what I also saw was a sparkle in her eyes even as she struggled to voice words. And here is what I saw on the last day of her life. Even though it seemed that much of who she was and had been had been snatched away by illness and age, she was still clearly God’s own. Still living her faith in ways that profoundly impacted those around her. For here is how it was.
The call came to me that the time was close and so I went. We prayed, sharing together in that service we call the Commendation of the Dying. And then we sat and stood and watched and waited. And all through that long afternoon, people came. Maintenance workers and kitchen staff and nurses and lpns and cnas. They came and they came one at a time usually --- waiting out in the hallway so as to not overwhelm the family gathered there. They came and leaned low over Dorothy, cradling her face in their hands and whispering their care for her into her ear. And then they walked away, their faces streaked with tears. Who knows what it was: her spirit, her kindness, her patience. Clearly, something in her that made her who she was as God’s Own Beloved was still evident even when it seemed so much had been taken away. And people saw it, experienced it, and were shaped by it most profoundly. Even when we thought it was mostly all snatched away, it was not. For Jesus was still living in her. Clearly she was bearing witness to that truth in whatever ways she could until her last day here.
A few days later we gathered in this place and commended her into God’s hands. Those powerful hands which never let her go in the first place. As we arrived up here at the front, her six children gathered around her casket and draped the pall over it. Salem’s pall is a large ivory colored cloth with a gold cross on it. It is used for all funerals in this place. It is a symbol of baptism. It physically does what God has always done in life and in death. It covers us with God’s love and protection. It was a powerful moment as her six children did for their mother what she and their dad did for them on the day of their baptisms. Entrusting her into God’s care one last time. Trusting that as it was true in life, it is also true in death. That God would who never let her go, would still and always NEVER let her go.
No indeed, these striking words are not to depict only lovely spring days with lambs behaving well at Jesus’ feet. These are stubborn, powerful words of God’s promised protection. That protection that won’t let us be snatched away no matter what is thrown in our path. No matter what sneaks up on us. Not debilitating disease. Not grief. Not heartbreak. Not disappointment. Not death. Nothing. Trust this for it is so. As we put our faith there, it truth will make its way clear in ways we can’t always yet imagine. For we are God’s own. And nothing and no one will snatch us out of the hand of the one who loves us so. Amen.
