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I love our Holy Trinity tagline, “Where faith is active in love,” but I also love the motto of  The Christophers: “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”  Today we have a candle lit in front of The Good Shepherd sculpture.  It’s a miniature of the original that graces the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.  The Good Shepherd is tenderly holding a little lamb in need of His care.  The lamb looks powerless to defend itself, powerless to heal itself.   Each one of us is that lamb at some point – maybe even today. 

               I love receiving Christopher News Notes because I always find at least one sermon illustration or one inspirational saying for our outdoor signboard.  This one is no exception; it’s titled “Facing Mistakes, Finding New Hope.”  There’s a story in it about sheep that are stolen and the punishment that results.  2 brothers-in-crime are caught and convicted.  This was a long time ago, so their foreheads are branded with the initials ST, standing for Sheep Thief.  One of them is so humiliated that he moves far away.  The brand is still there for all to see, though, so people often stare at him and ask, “What happened?  What does that mean?”  He turns more and more into himself and dies alone, a bitter old man.

               The other brother stays in his hometown, figuring his past would follow him anyway, wherever he went.  He decides to turn over a new leaf and begins to be a giver rather than a taker, to serve others rather than to steal from them.  Over the course of his lifetime he helps many, many people, and becomes a beloved member of the community.  In his old age a visitor comes to town, sees him, is curious and quietly asks another town resident what the deal is with the guy who has letters branded on his forehead.    The person who’s been approached says, “Something happened ages ago, I don’t really remember the circumstances, but the letters ST stand for ‘saint.’”1

               The story was a reminder to me that the Good Shepherd lays down His life for us sheep even though we clearly don’t deserve it.  What if an abbreviation for our worst sins was branded on our foreheads?  We’d never appear in public again.  Instead of sin abbreviations, the cross is traced on our forehead with oil when we are baptized and anointed for healing, and it’s traced in ash every Ash Wednesday.  The cross is shorthand for the names of our sins.  The cross is a catch-all for all the sins that nailed our Good Shepherd to the cross on Good Friday. 

               It’s interesting that today’s Gospel cuts off just before Jesus proclaims,

“I am the good shepherd.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”  (John 10:11)

Instead, we have heard Him say:

“I am the gate for the sheep…  Whoever enters by me will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture.  The thief [ST!] comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”  (John 10:9-10)

A gate is an entry point.  Next week we’ll hear the Lord say, “No one comes to the Father except through me.”  (John 14:6)  Some Christians interpret that as an exclusion of many.  But Jesus opens His arms wide.  Also, He doesn’t just draw the circle wide; he draws the circle with dotted lines, a permeable boundary.  Let’s always remember His other words, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold” (John 10:16).   As we sing in the beautiful hymn, “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” (ELW 587):

There is welcome for the sinner, and a promised grace made good,

there is mercy with the Savior; there is healing in his blood…

 

For the love of God is broader than the measures of our mind;

and the heart of the eternal is most wonderfully kind.

But we make this love too narrow by false limits of our own;

and we magnify its strictness with a zeal God will not own.

 

Who are we to reject the ones for whom Christ died?  Who are we to assume that someone else’s sin is graver than our own?  “We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  (Romans 3:23)  Thank Heaven the Holy Spirit inspired the shorthand of the cross for our foreheads rather than the longhand of our sins.

Christians have associated Psalm 23 with Jesus, the Good Shepherd, from the get-go.  The earliest image of Jesus is on the walls of a Roman catacomb; He’s depicted as a Shepherd Boy.  The Messiah is the descendant of King David, who started out as a shepherd boy long before he ascended to the throne. 

 

Hebrew Scripture has many prophecies about the Messiah being a good shepherd, a true/genuine shepherd, unlike the bad shepherds, the false shepherds, the wolves in sheep’s clothing, the rulers who think only of themselves, who use their privilege for personal gain, who drive into poverty the people for whom God intends them to provide, who abuse, forsake, kill members of the flock whose lives they are called to preserve. 

We started out talking about sheep thieves (ST!).  Jesus ends today’s Gospel by declaring:

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.  I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  (John 10:10)

 

He continues:

 

“I am the good shepherd.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”  (John 10:11)

In Psalm 23 the psalmist says:

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil

               for you are with me;

               your rod and your staff, they comfort me.  (Psalm 23:4)

 

I read that and think of my past temporary sojourns in the valley of the shadows, and I also think of an unknown future final journey through that valley of the shadow of death.  I haven’t ever really thought about the Good Shepherd’s willingness to travel that valley, not just accompanying me, us, through our times in the deep shadows, but His own experience of Calvary and the tomb.  Our Good Shepherd laid down His life for us, “while we were yet sinners!” as St. Paul says (Romans 5:8). 

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil, and my cup is running over.  (Ps. 23:5)

 

Our Lord spreads out before us the Eucharist, the meal of “thanksgiving,” Holy Communion.  He provides the Meal and He is the Meal; the cup that runs over isn’t just my joy; it’s His blood, shed for the Life of the world.  He, the Christ, the Anointed One, anoints us with chrism, the anointing oil, in Holy Baptism. 

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

               and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.  (Psalm 23:6)

 

 

 

Because of our Good Shepherd, what will pursue us all our lives aren’t our sins but divine goodness and mercy.  Also, because of what the Holy Spirit allows and causes to happen, we are empowered to leave

goodness and mercy behind in our wake wherever we go.  The cross on our forehead may be shorthand for the names of all our sins, but it’s also shorthand for God’s loving mercy, that we are called to mirror and to spread to others.  Like the brother whose forehead brand started out as ST because he was a sheep thief, the ST can end up meaning Saint Truly.   By God’s grace, it’s our choice.  We have been claimed for Christ, and we were set apart in Holy Baptism.  Are we acting accordingly?  A saint isn’t a perfect person; a saint is just a sinner set apart for God’s purposes.  ST.  Sheep Thief?  No.  ST = Sinner, True.  Saint, Truly! 

…and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.  (Psalm 23:6b)

               In next week’s Gospel we’ll hear Jesus say, “There are many rooms in my Father’s house….”  (John 14:2)  We don’t know exactly what that means (although we’ll share our thoughts at this coming week’s Bible study!),  but I do know it doesn’t mean that we’ll live side-by-side as strangers in a heavenly high-rise.  The people of Israel, the family of God, the Body of Christ, the Church, are all about life-in-community.  We get to experience that now!  “All the way to Heaven is Heaven” when we’re part of the beloved community now, when we’re surrounded by brothers-and-sisters-in-faith now, when we call forth each other’s gifts and put our shoulder to the plough together, when we care enough to bear each other’s burdens, divide each other’s sorrows, multiply each other’s joys. 

…and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. 

Starting right now.  Amen

               1”Two Brothers, Two Choices,” Christopher News Note 682 (The Christophers, NY).

 

Pastor Mary Virginia Farnham