Matthew 13:1-9
Call me a Jesus Seminarian (Seminar-ite? Seminar-izer?), but I’m cutting short the reading for this week. I don’t think Jesus gave the explanation that the lectionary includes, so rather than read it from the pulpit and ignore it, I’ll just leave it out.

“That same day, Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea. Such great crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat there, while the whole crowd stood on the beach.” I know some allegorizors like William Barclay want to make this about Jesus standing between the sea, representing chaos, and ordinary people, but, come on. This is just an establishing shot. He isn’t even really between the people and the sea; he’s actually on the sea. In a boat. Whose boat? Who knows! Some large cities have bicycle exchange programs, where members can just show up at some kind of bike bank and pick one up as long as they return it to another bank. Maybe ancient Palestine had something similar with boats. We know from the passion story that they had something similar with donkeys.

“And he told them many things in parables, saying: ‘Listen!’” For the audience who should be (but isn’t) reading this blog, I probably don’t have to explain the difference between an allegory and a parable. If you don’t know, go look it up. Simply put, a parable has one specific point. Aspects of a parable don’t represent other things. The sower isn’t God. The seed isn’t the word of God or the gospel. The ground is not the listeners. Jesus clues us in on this. he tells us to listen. Nowhere in his words is any indication that he means us to interpret the parable. Instead, he tells us just to listen to it.

“‘A sower went out to sow. And, as he sowed, some seeds fell on the path, and the birds came and ate them up. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and they sprang up quickly, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun rose, they were scorched; and since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.’”

And again Jesus reminds us to listen. “‘Let anyone with ears listen!’” Listen! Don’t interpret, don’t analyze, don’t draw conclusions from Pliny about yields of agriculture in the ancient world. Listen, damn it!

What do we have to listen to? A sower goes out to sow and does a piss-poor job of it. For whatever reason he wastes a lot of seed. But some of it lands on good soil and has a miraculous yield. Anyone with two ears better listen up.

The Kingdom of God will shower the earth with its abundance. No matter how incompetently the word is shared or how closed off to grace the world is, the Kingdom will triumph. Our failures, our hatred, our arrogance and ignorance, none of these will prevent the fulfillment of God’s intentions for creation. Listen! God loves you. There’s nothing you can do about it. Listen! God loves everybody. There’s nothing you can do about that, either. So don’t interpret God’s word as if it gives you permission to hate or exclude. Just listen. Shut up and listen.

I’ve never liked the story of Abraham and Isaac.  Not an easy confession to make publicly, but true nonetheless.  Or is it the traditional, pious interpretation that I don’t like?  I’m not sure.

But I just can’t buy the idea that God would ask Abraham to sacrifice his son - that God would ask Abraham to commit an immoral act to test his faith.  That seems wrong to me on so many levels it’s not even funny.

Leonard Sweet offers the only interpretation of this text that I can accept. Sweet asks twenty questions of the text, some of which I’ll reprint here.  These come from his excellent book Out of the Question… Into the Mystery.

1. Why didn’t Abraham argue with God about the killing of his innocent son like he did when God told Abraham about God’s intention to kill the Sodomites’ sons and daughters?
2. Why did Abraham keep the planned sacrifice a secret from those closest to him?  Why didn’t he tell Sarah, Eliezer, or Isaac about what God had ordered him to do?
3. Why did God no longer speak to Abraham after the outcome of this test was known?  God delivered the Mount Moriah test in person, but as Abraham was about to carry out the command, an angel intervened and stayed his hand.  Why didn’t God show up to intervene?  And after the conclusion of this episode, God never spoke to Abraham again.  The intimacy of their relationship was over.  Likewise, from that point on, Abraham never “speaks to God” but only “speaks about God.”
4. How did Isaac deal with the fact that his father had to be forcibly restrained from cutting his throat?  What went through Isaac’s mind as he stared at his father with a blade descending?  Abraham may not have wounded Isaac with a knife, but he wounded him nonetheless.
5. What did Abraham and Isaac talk about on their three-day journey home?  In fact, it appears more likely that Abraham returned alone to Beersheba.  Abraham climbed Mount Moriah with his son, but he arrived alone when he returned from the mountain.  And he never spoke to his son again.  Isaac never saw his father alive again - only reuniting with his brother Ishmael to bury their dead father.  Even though God gave Abraham back his son on the altar of sacrifice, Abraham never did get his son back.
6. Is it reading too much into the text to wonder why Isaac grieved for his mother when she died, but the Scriptures say nothing about his grief upon his father’s death?
7. Why did Sarah die at the end of this story?  Remember that Abraham had not previously told her anything about the purpose of his trip with Isaac to the land of Moriah.  So upon her husband’s return, did she die from shock upon hearing that her son had been spared execution?  Was she devastated that her husband would do such a thing?  It takes Rebekah to comfort Isaac after the death of his mother.  There was no sign of Abraham’s even being there to console his son.
8. Does God expect followers to commit immoral acts when commanded to do so by divine voices or holy prophets?

Sweet’s attention to detail in these questions impresses me deeply.  The whole chapter is worth re-reading in preparation for the sermon this week, and the whole book is worth reading anyway.  Sweet argues that there are really two tests taking place here: a faithfulness test (which Abraham passes) and a relationship test (which Abraham fails miserably).  After coming down from the mountain Abraham travels home (most likely alone) and lives in isolation from his most beloved for the rest of his life - including God.

If that’s what you get for passing the test, then I would want to fail.  Srsly.

I have had the experience of asking tough questions of the text during bible study and being told, “it’s like you’re tearing down everything we believe in!”  Some folks just aren’t ready for deconstruction, even when the traditional interpretation (the Absorbed Reading, if you will) seems to demand it.

And (virtually) no text cries out for a radical reinterpretation than this one.

As a pastor I plan to discuss my own struggles with this text from the pulpit.

A colleague-friend told me just this week that he was once raked over the coals in a Sunday School class for suggesting that the book of Jonah was a parable rather than a piece of literal history.  That’s reflective of a source of tension in our churches now.  There are those who suggest that if you don’t take every word as literally factual then you deny the authority of the scriptures.  Atheists and fundamentalists have that in common - Bill Maher (an avowed atheist and former Catholic) asserts that “you either believe in the talking snake or you don’t,” and that if you’re going to believe then you “have to swallow the whole wafer.”

I don’t think it’s as simple as that.  There are truths that metaphor, narrative and parable communicate far more effectively than historical, biological claims can.  Jesus understood that.  He didn’t expect his listeners to believe that the parable of, say, the wicked vineyard workers was an event that really happened in history - he expected them to hear some truths about God in the narrative.

One of my seminary profs had a great saying.  “All those people who want me to take every word literally ought to read this one - ‘God is love.’ Why can’t they seem to take THAT one literally?”

Here’s one for you.  “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’  For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

That’s problematic for Christians.  Nearly all of the “acceptable, orthodox (small o)” theology in our churches is centered around sacrifice.  Get yourself washed in the fountain filled with the blood of the lamb who died on the cross because you are bad, as a propitiation for your sins and your sinful nature.  God sacrificed his son for YOU, the least you can do is be a Christian.  Look at them nail-scarred hands.  He suffered for you and because of you.  The sacrifice of the sinless, spotless lamb appeased God who is angry at you to keep you from God’s wrath.

I can’t help but think that Jesus would take one look at our hymnals and say, “What is up with all those blood hymns?  What part of ‘I DESIRE MERCY, NOT SACRIFICE’ do you not understand?”

Yes, I know Paul writes a lot - an awful lot - about the sacrifice of Christ.  But never forget that the most common sermon he preached (three times in Acts alone) was about his encounter with the risen, LIVING Christ.  Not the dead, bloody one.

We have conflated God’s mercy with sacrifice.  Sacrifice is now considered a good thing.  Describing someone as being self-sacrificing or longsuffering is a compliment.  Therefore asking people in churches to engage in mission and ministries is literally asking them to sacrifice.  In order to visit folks in the nursing home they have to sacrifice time with their children or the ballgame or Dancing With the Has-Beens.

But is being merciful really such a sacrifice?  Honestly, yes.  In order to be truly merciful we may have to make sacrifices.  We have to sacrifice our negative attitudes about our neighbors.  Our stereotypes and prejudices.  Our racism, sexism, ageism, etc.  Our preconceived notions about others.  Things that are worth sacrificing.

What if we took Jesus seriously here?  What if it’s not all about the blood and the suffering and the sacrifice?  What if it’s not about appeasing an angry God?  What if God isn’t a monster, but a merciful and loving God?

Matthew 7:21-29
“‘Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my father in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?” The I will declare to them, “I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.”

Huh. I guess the parking lots in heaven won’t be full of cars with those little Jesus fish on them. Or even those ribbon magnets turned on their side to look like fish. Surprising.

This is yet another passage in which a failure to realize that “Kingdom of Heaven” doesn’t mean “nice place to go when you die” obscures Jesus’ meaning. I’ve been struggling with ideas of works righteousness and free grace lately. Being a Methodist, I loves me some grace, but if everyone believes that God loves you no matter what and nothing you do can earn grace, you have it regardless, it’s really easy to be lazy.

Of course, Paul struggled with this as well, as have most Christians since. I like the Wesleyan approach that, while it is true that good works are not necessary for grace, you can’t really have experienced grace and not react to the world in love as a result. Knowing equals doing.

Perhaps the important thing here is the question itself, “Did not we [do things] in your name.” As my friend and fellow Metholectionist Will says, his idea of sacramental theology is to say the words and get out of the way. If we see the things we do as our actions in God’s name, rather than God’s actions through us, we engage in a type of self-idolatry, or at least a sort of self-aggrandizement.

“‘Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, and the winds blew and beat on the house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell–and great was its fall.’

Not much needs to be said here, really. Sophia begets strong children. The works of the wise will endure, and no one is wiser than God. Humbling oneself before God is, as the proverb says, the beginning of wisdom. When we are grounded in God, then God will act through us. The challenge to us is to take seriously what it means when our church is sinking around us.

“Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.”

This works as a wonderful call to humility. This is how Matthew ends the sermon on the mount. After three whole chapters advocating the unification of humanity in humility before a transcendent God, Matthew sows divisiveness by talking about how his teacher is better than their teacher. Like all the evangelists, Matthew had his points of emphasis, and one of his was how Jesus was the greatest Rabbi and the messiah predicted by the scriptures. He let this point overshadow the message of the Rabbi he was trying to honor and proclaim as messiah.

Well, now it’s time for me to figure out what God needs to tell these assholes. In all humility, of course.

Acts 2:1-21
I’m always interested in the narrative structure of the biblical books, and Luke never disappoints. The Magnificat preceding Jesus’ birth, the opening of his public ministry by reading Isaiah to his home town, and having Jesus ascend into space to cap off his ministry are all interesting things to explore. A lot of what he does is similar to how comic books tell stories, as I talked about in a sermon once. There was limited space, so everything included had to be important, like Spider-Man letting the guy who later killed his Uncle Ben escape. Each detail is significant.

Luke, like Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, places a lot of emphasis on the origin story. This reading from Acts is the origin story of the church and the advent of the Holy Spirit. In some ways, however, it’s the origin story of the Trinity, as well. Everything in this passage is about not only what the church should be, but explaining that the church should be this way because God is this way.

My process jones are showing, but it seems here that Luke bases not just the work of the church but the very nature of God in relationship. I believe in an eminent trinity, even though I acknowledge the folly of trying to define God in human terms. I pray and bless in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. I do this because these terms are essentially relational in ways more inclusive phrases like Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer aren’t. To me, Trinity is like an element–it cannot be broken down further and retain its same nature and characteristics. (I know some of this might be more applicable to Trinity Sunday next week, but I’m going to be on vacation then and want to include this in my thinking for this week.)

God, in God’s most basic form, is still in relation with Godself. God without relationship is not God at all. Even without the universe, without life, without anything external to God, God exists in relationship. And this, to Luke, is the basis for the church–to share this relationship. Each part of this passage depicts the disciples moving further in creating relationship with those around them.

They begin hidden away from the world, and with the spirit’s help they move out into it. Then, multitudes of Jews around them from all over the world, who didn’t expect to hear preaching in their native languages, can hear them through the power of the Spirit. From hiding to Hebrew to the whole world in just a few steps. In response to mockery, Peter recites scripture. This ties in to another important theme for Luke, that this is nothing new. Jesus is continuing the work of God begun with creation. However, it is a passage that opens more and more people up to relationship with God, even (sorry, just remember the original context) slaves and women.

This chapter ends with one of my favorite challenges to the church, “And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” This is the forming of relationship. Those who are being saved are growing in relationship with God through the work of the church. I am wary of church growth theory and what not, but it does seem to me that if churches aren’t adding to their numbers those who are being saved (even if it’s those who have sat in its pews for decades), then it is not properly bringing people into relationship with God through Jesus Christ. This is a long chapter, to long to be read in its entirety, and the ending was on the lectionary a few weeks ago. However, it would be helpful to place the passage that is read in the context of its placement in Acts. From Creation to creation, the work of the Church is to form relationship, not just because of what the church is, but because of who gave us life and offers us grace.

Luke 24:44-53
It always annoys me when the lectionary takes one chunk of a longer sermon or teaching by Jesus and uses it as the pericope. It always seems so random and thoughtless. It’s something I struggle with theologically, because most of these longer teachings are probably cobbled together in the first place from different teachings and sayings. However, if we take seriously the final forms of the gospels, which, ultimately, are the only version of Jesus we have, then slicing them up and disassembling them again can hide the evangelists’ meanings. I think this is one such time. It is so easy to use Jesus’ first words here out of context to remake all of scripture into a christological treatise. Since most of our parishioners (and, perhaps, clergy as well) have this sort of Frankenstein’s monster vision of Jesus, bits from several gospels ripped from their original contexts and sewn together, it makes it very difficult to preach passages like this. This week’s challenge will be to help modern Christians understand these so often misunderstood words of Jesus’ from the perspective of his disciples.

“Then he spoke to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you–that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’” This is the tricky part. It is ironic that this passage can be so easily taken out of context, when its purpose was not to impart a christological bent to the Hebrew Scriptures but to include Jesus and, by extension, the disciples, in the ongoing work of God, begun in the Torah, and continuing through the prophets and the psalms. In essence, Luke is saying that Jesus may seem radical, but he is really the true message of the servants of God since Adam properly revealed for his time.

“Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, . . . .” Again, that is an important part of Jesus’ ministry for Luke–not to change the scriptures or to bring new ones but to help us properly understand what has come before. In the beginning of his ministry (Luke 4), Jesus says that he is fulfilling the words of Isaiah. His contemporaries had gotten hung up on issues like hand washing and the technical definitions of working on the sabbath. Just as Isaiah’s contemporaries had gotten too hung up on being a nation blessed by God. Each group had to be reminded that God’s concern is not really with right worship and personal/national glory but “to bring good news to the poor. . . , to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

“. . . and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, . . . .’” Without making the Old Testament about Jesus, full of types and prophecies, we do have to acknowledge as Christians that our understanding of God, and therefore our understanding of God’s revelation, whether in the world or in the Word, must be shaped by the crucifixion. We are “to preach Christ and him crucified.” It is possible to be strongly, even passionately, Christian, without denying the validity of other religions. That is difficult for liberal Christians, but ultimately we have to believe in something. Where does our faith truly lie? We can be all for pluralism and interfaith dialogue, we can be open and accepting of those who differ from us, but at some point we have to actually be for something. And, at our best, what Christians are for is God as revealed through a peasant dying on a cross because of the faithful way he lived.

“‘. . . and that repentance and forgiveness is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’” One thing that really struck me this week is how poorly we understand this. Repentance and forgiveness are not the same thing as conversion! We are to present to people a God of love and righteousness who seeks out loving relationship with all God’s children. I think, if properly done, this will lead people to God as revealed through Jesus Christ, but it might make them understand God as revealed through the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) or nothingness as revealed through the teachings of the Buddha. Either of these outcomes, if they help others find a greater source of joy and love in the universe, are probably positive ones. A friend of mine recently told me they “saved” a four-year-old at a revival. The child told him he wanted to be a Christian so he didn’t go to hell. I regret not saying to this friend, “Congratulations. You just terrified a toddler. Jesus would have been thrilled.” We are tasked not with “winning souls”, as if it were a contest, but with showing God’s love in the preaching of forgiveness and repentance.

“‘You are the witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.’” Kairos. I’m sure in all our churches there are those who say we have to do something right now. There are people in my churches who are upset because I refuse to lead a youth group. Aside from all the reasons it’s a bad idea for an itinerant pastor to lead a youth group, (and despite the fact we have no youths,) I am simply not called to youth ministry. When it is time for us to have a youth group, I have faith that God will call up from among the faithful a leader. Until that time, it would be unfaithful of us to have a youth group. This passage is a call to remember that we do things in God’s time, not God on ours.

“Then he lead them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.” I know this is The Ascension of our Lord and what not, but I always find it difficult to get jazzed about the awesome things Jesus did once upon a time. For me, the significance here is not that Jesus could fly but that this is how Jesus chose to end his ministry. These were Luke’s Jesus’ last words to his faithful, so this should be the core of our faith. In obeying them, I pray that we find the joy of the disciples. If that joy is lacking in our churches, then it calls into question where our faith truly lies. There is nothing in these words about attracting new members or even converting people to Christianity. There is nothing about active fellowship groups, fund raisers, or even weekly worship. What is there? Continual worship. Showing the love of God to others. Finding God revealed through self-sacrifice and faithfulness. Where are these in our faith as we live it?

Acts 17:22-31
Well, this is the first exegesis I’ve written since December, so I’m more than a little rusty. I hope this doesn’t bring down the overall quality of the blog, but I’ll get back in the habit soon enough (as the bishop said to the actress). So I’m just going to jump right in, and may God have mercy on us all.
“Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how religious you are in every way.’” What an excellent way to start. I wonder if Jack Chick ever came across this passage. Instead of saying, “Athenians, I know you are all going to hell for your idolatry, sodomy, and for hooking my wife on tzatziki sauce,” he found a way not only to praise his listeners but to find common ground with them. This is an excellent model for dialogue (perhaps a better translation of the word translated “argued” back in vs. 17).
I was amazed recently in a religion forum I frequent when someone I had been sparring with, a fundamentalist Christian, said he was surprised that he and I actually agreed on something. Since we were both Christians, I would have assumed that we actually agreed on an awful lot. However, we tend to emphasize differences, not similarities. This seems to be a problem going all the way back to Paul’s time, manifesting today in absurd legislation about stoles at Annual Conference and what color shirts we may or may not wear.
“‘For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, “To an unknown God.”’” Probably anyone reading this blog knows the origin of this altar. Basically, it was just to cover their rear ends in case a god they didn’t know about got miffed at them. It’s kind of like having a BVM on your dashboard and a rabbit’s foot on your key chain. You just want to keep all your bases covered.
Here’s where I really want to focus my sermon, though. The Athenians acknowledged that there were things unknown to them. Their world view wasn’t finite. The temptation here is to point out all those bad conservatives who limit the world (and, frankly, the power of God) with things like young-earth creationism and the quasi-magical prosperity theology or, frankly, anyone who’s ever met a tragedy with the words, “It must have happened for a reason.” All of these things limit the cosmos. Logic and rationality are human concepts, so insisting that things happen for a reason is to force the universe to be something humans can understand. By extension, if we insist that God had a reason for allowing any tragedy to happen, we make an idol of God, limiting her to concepts we can understand (just as we do with language about God). God is transcendent, and we aren’t. Reason, order, and purpose are human concepts, and are also not transcendent.
I think all this is true, and that’s why it’s so tempting to make my sermon about those people who believe those bad things. The challenge is going to be faithfully examining the ways I limit God as well. I can’t conceive of a God who is not love. You tell me that God loves all his children and welcomes us all into his church, I say, “Amen.” You say that this includes all people, no matter how terrible we think they are, people like Hitler and Pol Pot, I say,
“Umm. . . , amen.” You tell me this even means Kenneth Lay and Jerry Falwell, and I’m already on the phone with your PPRC chair and the DS.
It is precisely because the Athenians know that there is more than they know that they are open to hearing the gospel message. Maybe we all need to have the celebration of what we don’t know as part of our regular worship. Maybe we could say the Creed, and follow “We believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth” with the admission we don’t know how or why God created the earth. We don’t know exactly what it means to call God “Father”. Does it mean he gave us twenty-six of our chromosomes? Did he supply my Y? Maybe this celebration of ignorance will leave us open to new and better revelations of God. Paul himself was at one time so sure he was right he killed over it. What does it mean that he has become someone willing to die for a different belief? What is the role of ignorance, agnosticism, in this kind of transformation?

Link to Lectionary Text at Vanderbilt.

1 Peter 2:2-10

2:2 Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation-

2:3 if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

2:4 Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and

2:5 like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

2:6 For it stands in scripture: “See, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious; and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

2:7 To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner,”

2:8 and “A stone that makes them stumble, and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

2:10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” - from Hamlet , Wm. Shakespeare; Act II, scene ii

The first Petrine epistle has some fun with rock imagery here.  Of course, even the name Peter literally means rock.  The Revised Common Lectionary links this reading up with the stoning of Stephen in the book of Acts and selected verses from Psalm 31 - “Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me. You are indeed my rock and my fortress; for your name’s sake lead me and guide me.”  The only place you won’t find rocks and gravel are in the Gospel reading.

God is the ultimate junque artist here.  You’ve seen junk art, right?  A sculptor takes items that are traditionally discarded by most folks and welds, pastes, fastens, rivets, bolts, glues and otherwise attaches them together to make an entirely new piece.  God takes something as useless as rocks - ones discarded, outcast, and rejected - and builds a temple for a royal priesthood.

Of course, stones can be used as stumbling blocks, obstacles, or even weapons (Acts).  Or they can be used to glorify God.

This challenges our churches to look very carefully at who gets rejected in our communities.  Who are the outcasts that God would have us use?  Who are the living stones among us whose spiritual potential can be formed and nurtured?  Where do we see blessing while others see nuisance?

Atmospherics - rocks, gravel, concrete blocks, bricks.  Perhaps everyone in the congregation could be handed small stones.  Kids could build a temple from Lego blocks, or paint larger rocks with words like faith, hope, love, refuge, mercy, grace, fortress.

…most of us think of sheep as slobbering, untidy, dumb animals who exist only to be shaved or slaughtered.

Imagine my delight, then, when I discovered last Tuesday that someone I know actually grew up on a sheep farm in the Midwest and that according to him sheep are not dumb at all.  It is the cattle ranchers who are responsible for spreading that ugly rumor, and all because sheep do not behave like cows.  According to my friend, cows are herded from the rear by hooting cowboys with cracking whips, but that will not work with sheep at all.  Stand behind them making loud noises and all they will do is run around behind you, because they prefer to be led.  You push cows, my friend said, but you lead sheep, and they will not go anywhere that someone else does not go first - namely, their shepherd - who goes ahead of them to show them that everything is all right.

The Preaching Life (Cowley Publications: Cambridge, Mass, 1993) pages 140-141.

If you aren’t reading Barbara Brown Taylor, you really should be.  She combines masterful storytelling, critical reading of scripture, and a genuine pastoral warmth in a way I aspire to.

What does it really mean to say that Jesus is “the Good Shepherd?”

My Old Testament prof, John Bracke, asserts that shepherd imagery is overly romanticized in church culture.  In short Shepherds were not these gentle, passive, pastoral fellows who sat on rocks writing poetry to God while watching the flock out of the corner of their eyes.  They were bad dudes.  That big crooked stick they carried wasn’t a walking stick - it was a weapon.  They were at the ready to defend the flock against human raiders and natural predators.  Often plural.

Shepherds were literally in the business of saving the sheep.  Not saving them from sin, saving them from death.

NOW contrast that with Jesus as the good shepherd.  That phrase doesn’t carry the oxymoron connotation that good Samaritan has, but there is a bitter irony in it.  Conventional shepherds save the sheep by kicking some butt; Jesus saves his flock by first getting his butt kicked on a cross.  Then and only then can he conquer sin and death through resurrection.

Preaching the Johannine text leaves the preacher with an interesting dilemma.  In a narrative context Jesus seems to talk about himself as the good shepherd by being the one who lays his life down for the sheep.  Yet the liturgical calendar has us preaching this text in the context of Easter and resurrection.  The John pericope taken by itself has Jesus talking mysteriously about himself as both the gatekeeper and the gate; as the shepherd whose sheep recognize his voice, and the one who comes to give abundant life.

• Soteriology - what does it mean to be saved by this shepherd?  What does “abundant life” really mean?
• Ecclesiology - what does it mean to be a member of this shepherd’s flock?
• Pneumatology - what does it mean to recognize the shepherd’s voice now?

One fun ecclesiological question would be to unpack this pair of assertions:

1. So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep.” (John 10:7)
2. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. (John 10:2)

Maybe all those who have entered into the Easter life through Jesus (the Gate) are called to be shepherds rather than sheep.  Or maybe as both sheep and shepherds - ones engaged both in being saved and in saving others.  I think that would preach.