Homily for Sunday, April 26th,
2015
The lessons for today:
Acts 4:5-12
Psalm 23
1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18
O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people: Grant
that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and
follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
“I am the good shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for
his sheep.” Is there a more
poignant description of the Lord’s love for us than these words of His? Even though we humans can be silly and
sinful and often wander off in pursuit of fruitless dreams, still the Lord is
willing to die for us. Since we are not capable of recognizing where the danger
lies, of seeing how the path we follow may conceal a ravenous wolf, the Lord pursues
us. Today’s verses from John as well as Luke’s parable of the Good Shepherd who
leaves the ninety-nine sheep so he can seek out the one lost sheep are among my
favorite passages in the Bible. Whether we are among the ninety-nine obedient
sheep or the one who goes astray, we do not have to do anything to deserve
the love of the Lord. We do not
have to earn God’s love. Chances are pretty good we’ve had opportunities
to be both kinds of sheep in our lives. Whether we feel right now like one of
the well-behaved ninety-nine sheep or the one that is lost, we can be assured
that the Lord loves us, either way.
In fact, the Lord loves us so much that he laid down his life for us.
Maybe I like to think of the Lord as the Good Shepherd because
I’ve always been very fond of sheep. When I was four years old, I was given a cute
little lamb by my mother’s dear friend, Marietta Lillard, Randall’s mother.
This little lamb’s own mother was unable or unwilling to feed her, so my family
bottle-fed her until she could be returned to the flock. I can still recall the
fuzzy warm wool of Lamby-Pie (as I named her), her soft, urgent bleating (baaaa) and the way she’d nudge her
nose against the bottle as she drank.
I know sheep are weak, silly, completely defenseless, and timid. Probably
a little dumb, too, if you want to throw in all the stereotypes. What is their
saving grace? In spite of all of
these shortcomings, they are valuable to the shepherd. Their literal value to an
everyday shepherd, of course, is derived from their wool and their meat. To the
Good Shepherd, their value is their need. Sheep are so weak, so humble
that they cannot survive on their own. They need the shepherd, whether they are capable of
admitting this need to themselves or not. We human sheep, who fancy ourselves
to be much smarter than the average lamb, usually do not recognize or admit to
our need for God. Even so, the Good Shepherd will seek us out when we go
astray.
How many years has it taken me to appreciate the importance of this
kind of humility? If our right
relationship with God compares to that of a sheep being herded, guided,
protected by the Shepherd, humility has to be our baseline stance. I would
like to paraphrase a definition of humility that I have found very
helpful: “Humility is perpetual
quietness of heart. I do my part and trust God to take care of the rest.” Even though I feel the truth in those
words and crave that perpetual quietness of heart, working to have the humility
of a little lamb has always been a challenge for me.
As a child, I know I was an annoying Miss Know-It-All to my
classmates. Miss Smarty-Pants. As far as books and grades were
concerned, I measured up as the smartest girl in my class. I was smart enough,
in fact, that I was given a scholarship, almost a “full ride” as my brother
likes to say, to an Ivy League school. When my parents drove me to Providence,
Rhode Island, for my first year at Brown University, I knew I had traveled a
very great distance, in more than the geographic way, from my home here in
Graves Mill. I had entered a world where I could become the person I dreamed of
being. Instead of being Sue Anne (my childhood nickname), I could now use my
real name, Susan, a name that sounded more grown-up and sophisticated—and less
Southern.
So, what did I do in the middle of my second year at Brown, when I
was nineteen years old? I got
pregnant. My boyfriend and I married over winter break and then went back to
Providence, to finish out the academic year. That summer, we moved to
Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, to live with my in-laws until the baby was born.
I barely knew the Rev. Bob Hull and his wife Kathy when I arrived
at their home, six months pregnant. My father-in-law was a Cumberland
Presbyterian minister, and having grown up in the church, I couldn’t help but
feel that, considering the circumstances, I had to earn his love, even though I
called him “Dad,” as my husband, his eldest son Bobby, did. I was entering a
complicated family situation, one that it has taken me years to understand, and
Bob Hull could be stern and distant at times. I worked very, very hard to be a
good daughter, to be a part of the family, to prove to Bob and Kathy that I was
not a “bad” girl. My son Rob was born in September, and Bobby and I returned to
Providence with the baby that January, to complete our degrees. During those
years, we were fortunate to have the support of both of our families or we
would not have been able to graduate.
As I became more immersed in the Hull family, I grew to appreciate
Bob and Kathy and to love them as second parents, even after my marriage to
their son ended in divorce. My husband’s younger brother Michael was, and still
is, like a brother to me. When my own father committed suicide, Bob and Kathy
immediately dropped everything and made the long drive from western Tennessee
to be at the funeral with their grandson, Rob, and me. All of this was grace,
the kind of grace one might expect from a Presbyterian minister. Or from a
loving father.
After Bob Hull retired from his last large church in McKenzie, Tennessee,
he began to serve a very small rural church nearby. The folks of that little church
greatly appreciated his leadership. They loved Bob, and they presented him with
a set of carved wooden sheep, including a shepherd and a dog, and this framed
quotation from Isaiah: “He shall lead his flock like a shepherd: he shall
gather the lambs with his arms and carry them in his bosom and shall gently
lead those that are with young.” Bob was pleased that I had been licensed as a
lay preacher and that I had returned to Graves Chapel. The last gift I received from Bob
before he died was his set of carved sheep, with the shepherd and the framed
quotation. He had given me his
blessing.
It has taken me many years and the love of good people like Rev. Hull
and my husband David even to approach the kind of healthy humility that can
reward us with “quietness of heart.”
It is very hard to move from false pride to shame and guilt to
self-acceptance. At times life is definitely a one-step up, two steps back
endeavor. I have certainly taken wrong turns and played the part of the lost
sheep too often. From my
experiences of being lost, and then found, from approaching green pastures and
still waters, I now trust that even I can be revived by a Lord who fills my cup
to overflowing with goodness and mercy.
We speak of the almighty power of God, and sometimes humans want
to have that kind of power and control. We want to do God’s part as well
as our own. But that is not the lesson of the shepherd and the sheep. It isn’t
God’s power that we should hope to possess. It is the mercy, love, and
humility, even the kindness of the shepherd that is God’s desire for
us. In this way the shepherd leads
us when he calls us by name and asks us to follow him. And showing that we know
we need the Lord by following the path the shepherd takes—that is all
that is ever asked of us.
Amen.
