SETTING THE CONTEXT

In Luke’s Gospel Jesus is ridiculed and mocked, he is tried, found innocent but executed anyway at the insistence of the crowd. Jesus says two important things before he dies: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” and as he took his last breath, “Father, into our hands I commend (or entrust) my spirit.” Then he died and was buried in the tomb of a man named Joseph. By the time he was laid in the tomb, it was too late for the women to prepare his body with spices and ointments. (There were no funeral homes in that day.) The sun set and Sabbath began and it was forbidden to touch a dead body on the Sabbath, so the women had to wait. This is where our story picks up.

Read Luke 24:1-12

This passage in John’s Gospel comes in between the time when Judas leaves the Last Supper to go get the arresting squadron and when Jesus goes into the garden where he is arrested. During this time in John’s Gospel, Jesus does a great deal of teaching. It is like he is trying to pack in the most important lessons one more time. Jesus told them straight out that he would only be with them for a few more days and this frightened them. He tells them these reassuring words.

Read John 14:1-3

THE SERMON

“Home”- that word has always had a sense of comfort to me, at least until recently. With the home mortgage crisis and reports of large numbers of people losing their homes to foreclosure, there is a new sense of vulnerability when thinking of “home”. The idea of not having a home is very frightening.

Over the 7 weeks of Lent, we have been reflecting on the 23^rd Psalm. We have enjoyed the serene pastoral images of God as the Shepherd who provides our daily needs. Then we moved to the dark and stormy times when the Shepherd stays with us offering protection and comfort. We learned that those painful times can be our friend when they help us know that we need to change. Then we moved into God’s response when we are surrounded by enemies or opposites, people who live their lives “in contrast” to ours. God’s unconditional love is demonstrated as we are honored at God’s table and anointed with God’s healing, affirming, sacred oil. We have seen over and over in these images God’s attentiveness and care just as a shepherd stays out in the field in good conditions or terrible conditions with his or her flock watching, tending, protecting, inspecting, and leading the sheep to home.

In the final verse that we are reflecting upon today we are told that “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 was originally written in Hebrew and according to Rabbi Harold Kushner, the word used for follow in “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me” is better translated pursue,^[i] so it could read “surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life.” Some people may think of God as distant or as condemning, but the writer of the psalm once again attests that God is one who cares for us so deeply that God pursues us with divine goodness and mercy. William Knight in his book The Song of Our Syrian Guest^[ii] paints a beautiful picture, the day is done and the sheep are snug within the fold, content, safe, resting under the starry sky. The wandering of the day is ended and as the peace of sleep approaches the final sigh of the song is “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” I am home under the watchful provision and care of the Good Shepherd always.

Now you might say, “This is a lovely picture, Nancy but we have some legitimate worries. People are losing their homes to foreclosure. People do lose their jobs and do go through divorces and live through abusive relationships. People experience all the painful realities that we saw in the Good Friday service and more. Good Friday suffering is real. What about that?

In John’s Gospel, Jesus assures his frightened disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Trust God and trust me, he says. There is a place for you in God’s own household. He reassures them knowing full well what is coming. His enemies are all around him and he has stirred up enough controversy and stepped on enough toes of the powerful to have no doubt that he will be “dealt with.” He says those words not with a sugarcoated optimism, but with a deep understanding of God. We can trust his words because Jesus led the way. He went through Good Friday: through an arrest, an unfair trial, humiliation, ridicule, and brutal execution. The gospel stories tell us he felt fear, abandonment, despair, but even in the midst of it all he continued to surrender his life to God, to entrust his life to God. God, the Divine Shepherd knows what we face; through Jesus, God showed us that God will walk with us through those darkest valleys, even the valley of the shadow of death. Jesus died, but we celebrate today because God raised him from the dead. In that raising God showed that all those Good Fridays are not the end, but that God’s transformative power will bring order out of chaos, new life out of death. Jesus’ death and resurrection not only promises an eternal home in life after death, but it promises that that eternity includes now. God’s transforming power is available, no, is pursuing us even now – and that is good news.

My father was a career Army officer so we moved every 1 ½ - 2 years. Occasionally we stayed in one place 3 years when we lived outside the United States. Most people when they talk about home speak of a place, but what I learned was that home is not a place it is my family. When people ask me where’s home, I tell them it is where my parents live or now that I have a family of my own, it is where I live. When we allow God’s transforming power, when we allow that Divine goodness and mercy to catch us and make a home in us then we won’t have to fear anything that may come at us for we’ll know that wherever we are the Lord will walk with us and see us through.

If I have learned anything over these last 7 weeks, it is the humbling realization of how much human beings are like sheep. Let me explain. The shepherd who has been my guide, Phillip Keller, says that sheep that are mismanaged can be terribly destructive. They can in a very short period of time ruin and ravage the land. On the other hand, sheep that are well managed can be extremely beneficial. They fertilize the higher spots and eat all sorts of weeds and other undesirable plants. According to Keller, “in a few years a flock of well-managed sheep will clean up and restore a piece of ravaged land as no other creature can do.”^[iii] Can’t we say the same thing about human beings? Many times when we are left to our own devices we can really mess things up. Well, just look at the home mortgage crisis. Think of all the ways we, human beings, make bad decisions that not only mess up the land, but also mess up the landscape of our lives and that of others. When we however surrender our lives to God more and more, when we become more Christ-like God helps us restore the ravaged landscape of our world and of our lives. God makes a home in us that breathes new life into those situations. Resurrection is a way of life when we walk with God, for the attentive Divine Shepherd is good and merciful and will help us rise again and again from devastation to new life.

There was a man in a former church of mine who spent many years lost in multiple addictions. It damaged his family and devastated his own life. At one point he surrendered his life to Christ. With Christ’s help, he did the hard work to get sober. He faced the painful past that was beneath his addiction and Christ transformed and continues to transform his life. My friend has a depth of humility and compassion that I respect and admire greatly. He has a devotion to Christ that inspires me. I know him well enough to know that daily he opens himself so that Christ can make a home in him as he makes his home in Christ. And it is obvious in his life.>

I invite you to open your heart and surrender your will so that Christ may make his home in you as you make your home in him for he leads the way to the transforming power of God. I encourage you to go beyond just accepting him with words, but allow him to remake, remold, and renew your life. The Good Shepherd is ready and waiting to welcome you into the fold where all his care, work, watchfulness, skill, concern, self-sacrifice, mercy and goodness will lead you home for now and always.  Amen.

Sermon delived by Rev. Nancy Cushman on March 23, 2008.