Today is mother’s day. Soon it will be father’s day and then grandparents day…. I wonder if there are aunt and uncle days? Best friend days? Keepers of secrets days? Days to honor those who carry many different roles in others’ lives.
We all play different roles for others in our lives. Before I was a mother, I was an aunt to my sister’s children. I will never forget the first time I babysat overnight for my then 2 year old niece. After I bathed her, I plopped her on the counter top of my bathroom vanity, powered her all over with St. Lauren powder, hey, it was all that I had, dried her hair, and put her to bed. And then, proudly, I called my sister to tell her how well behaved Kellie had been. I told her, “She sat absolutely still as I blow dried her hair after her bath. She did not move a muscle nor complain a bit!” My sister took in a deep breath and paused before she slowly said, “Well Terri, she has never had her hair blow dried before. You probably scared her half to death!” I mean, I did not know these things. I thought everyone who had hair used a drier! Who knew!
As people who carry different roles in others’ lives, we figure things out. How to love them. Gosh, how to sometimes like them. How to serve them. And sometimes doing that means listening to them, asking for and listening to their stories, an important part of shepherding others.
Today we continue the gospel of John’s story of Jesus as the good shepherd, the keeper of his sheep. In Chapter ten, Jesus is still on his path to the cross, and continues to find himself harangued by both Jews and Romans to prove who he is. “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly,” they say after once again accosting him in the Temple.
Can you not hear the exasperation in Jesus’ voice as he says, “I have told you, and you do not believe.” I have told you who I am… I have even shown you who I am. And yet you still ask me these questions instead of listening to me and learning from what I have to say. But my sheep, my sheep know me, and they will follow me.
All of our readings today echo this metaphor of Christ being the good shepherd. And that if we listen and believe, then we will walk through this life without fear for we know what God has promised. And we have faith in that promise.
But we know many who do not. Many who still question. Many who still do not hear. Many who are blind to the evidence that is right before them. And maybe they have good reasons to do that. These are the ones who need shepherding the most.
Just like Will and even Dr. Shawn McGuire in the movie Good Will Hunting.
The movie is set in the South end of Boston, a pretty rough area that resides alongside the most elite college: Mass Technical Institute. The main character, Will is a 20 year old product of abusive foster homes who has found his way of coping by never allowing himself to be vulnerable, except in a crass kind of way with his three best friends.
Will has a gift for numbers and is able to solve mathematical formulae in hours, formulae that takes other more studied people years. His photographic memory allows him to remember anything that he reads, with a flip of a page. But he chooses the loyalty and comfort of his friends over the possibility of having a different life that opens the door to his taking risks, a possibility that he cannot open himself to.
Finding himself in jail for getting into trouble one too many times, he is given a way out, if he agrees to work with a brilliant MIT math professor who has discovered Will’s gift. He is also required to go into therapy to help him with his obvious anger issues. After quickly outsmarting two MIT psychologists, Will finds himself in the hands of an empathetic shrink who identifies with Will’s blue collar roots. It takes time, but Dr. Shawn is finally able to get Will to open up, at first not about the hardship in his life, but at least to listen to what the doctor has to say.
Shawn knows that he cannot force Will to follow the path that most feel is best for him. He realizes that he can only help him see the benefits of the opportunities he has to make his life better. And he does this by shepherding the troubled boy. Guiding him to realize that many of the bad things that have happened to him were not his fault and that there is a way out of the life he has limited himself to. And in doing so, Shaun realizes that he too needs to find his own path to a happier, more fulfilling life. In other words, they help each other to be open to the possibility of a more authentic life by allowing others to love them and by allowing them to love themselves.
Like Will, so many people find themselves stuck in a miserable life or in turmoil, thinking that there is no way out, and nothing more fulfilling than what they have allowed themselves to think that they deserve. And there are Shawns, wounded healers, who know the way out.
These two characters in this movie are you and me. And our friends and families, our acquaintances and strangers. Sometimes stuck other times the shepherds for those who have lost their way who have wandered off the path that God has set for them whether by their own choices or because of circumstances of life.
Our reading from Revelation refers to those who have found their way out and survived the great ordeal as it is stated in verse 14 made their way out of the tribulations in their lives. The Greek word for tribulation is thilpsis which means suffering, discomfort, hardship and affliction. This word is found 45 times in the New Testament. Its root word is thilibo which means to crush, press together, squash, hem in, compress. The author of Revelations then is not referring to small hardships but to times that put great pressure on us and on our faith.
Will had all of his confidence and ability to love squeezed out of him at the hands of abusive caretakers and just the consequences of his life. And Dr. Shawn, well, he lost his wife to cancer. Both needed to find their way out of their own great ordeals.
But here is the good news. We know the way out. And we are given the gift of the holy spirit to share this with others. To show them the way forward. To point them to the path. We cannot drag or force them to that place. But we can tell them that they are not alone.
We can tell them about our own experiences of listening for our shepherd’s voice to be the sound of freedom and hope. That we too have survived the great ordeals of life and have come out with our faith still intact. And we can say that it was our faith in knowing that God was with us. Even in the suffering that helped us make it through to help us endure. That the peace of God which passes all our understanding can and does give us the strength to know that this too shall pass.
In this time of Eastertide during the 50 days after Easter as we await Pentecost we are called to continue the ministry of Jesus and his apostles and disciples. We are called to continue to be the body of Christ to world that is torn by war and hatred and disillusionment.
We may be squeezed with the pressure of life’s situations beaten up by the fear that we hear on the news daily but we too will come out on the other side with our faith in tact so that we can help those who have not yet heard the shepherd’s call, or who have forgotten what it sounds like. Can find their way into the loving, forgiving arms of Christ.
In our last vestry meeting, I shared something that Rev. Delmer Chilton, one of the priests who does sermon prep for Lectionary Lab said about the church and its mission. He said that the church is like a hostel. It is a place of refuge for those on their own journeys. It is a place where folks can come and rest, be refreshed, be fed. And maybe they will stay, for a day, a month, maybe years. Or they may find themselves filled and ready to continue on their journey. We are here to heal and feed and care for all of those pilgrims who walk through our doors. We are here to help shepherd those who are lost, to a better path. We are here as the body of Christ to be verbal witnesses to God’s love for all that he has created. We witness to the world by demonstrating trust in God as our shepherd as continuing to trust no matter how that unfolds.
For the Lord is our shepherd. So, we shall not want. He revives our souls and guides us along the right path. We will fear no evil for he is with us. He comforts us. Surely goodness and mercy will follow us all of the days of our life and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen and amen.