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A Message from Our Pastor:      

The Jesus Gate

SS: Indeed, Jesus is the Good Shepherd.

10“Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. ²The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. ³The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” ⁶Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. ⁷So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

            Nearly every single funeral I’ve done over the last twenty plus years in ministry has included the 23^rd Psalm in one way or another.  It is so popular that funeral homes routinely print it on the little folders they hand out.  It is the one and only scripture I memorized as a child even though we didn’t go to church!  It has a power for us that goes way beyond the words and rests in the images that calm, encourage and bless us especially at times of great sorrow.  We Christians regularly take refuge in the Lord, our Good Shepherd.  And yet,

 “…if we celebrate this Good Shepherd, there must also be bad shepherds, those who attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of their followers. We often read in the papers or see on television accounts of shepherds or leaders, whether they hold official positions in the church or not, but, nevertheless, are folks who have been viewed as trustworthy, who now have fleeced their flock. Whenever trust has been broken and boundaries crossed, it can take months and years for healing and wholeness to return to victims who have been hurt and communities whose trust has been breached.[1]

            But how shall we be wary of those who appear to be good shepherds yet turn out to be the bad shepherds?  Furthermore, how shall we do it without opening up huge divisions among us?  It’s disturbing to have to think in such a way in the church.  Sadly, however, we must.  Anyone who has paid any attention at all to the last couple of decades of church history knows that we must be vigilant particularly where our children are concerned. 

A couple of months ago my daughter called me and I could hear the worry and fear in her voice.  She had picked up the newspaper that morning to discover that yet another trusted individual in the church had been found molesting children.  This time, however, it wasn’t a member of the priesthood but a Sunday School teacher in a United Methodist Church in Phoenix, AZ.  “You know, Mom, I’d sure like to hear someone preach about this in our church.” she told me.  OK, Jennie, this one’s for you and all the parents of young children in our churches everywhere.  It has taken me a while to know how to respond but I think today’s Gospel lesson will show us the way.

            Jesus says “…anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.”  So according to the Lord himself, we must be vigilant about thieves and bandits.  Jesus says they sneak in; he walks in through the gate.  In our churches we have decided that one way to keep watch on the gate and prevent the thieves and bandits from sneaking in is to make sure there are always two of us in any ministry.  We have two teachers, two nursery workers, two youth counselors, in short, two – at least two adults in charge whenever children’s ministries are involved.  Not only does it make all the sense in the world, it’s actually quite Biblical.  Jesus himself said that wherever two or more are gathered, he’ll be sure to show up.  In Mark’s Gospel he says:  For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.  (Matthew 18.20)  It’s hard to go wrong with Jesus in the middle seat!

            Jesus sent his disciples out two by two so they could uphold one another, watch over each other and be accountable to each other before God. (⁷He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.  Mark 6:7)  At great pain to himself he looked down from the cross and seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ ²⁷Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.  (John 19:26-27)

When we think of the 23^rd Psalm we are comforted by the promises of the good shepherd because whether we admit it or not, we are afraid of what we might do if we were to left on our own.  We might follow the one who masquerades as a good shepherd; worse yet, we ourselves might take up that mask.  But God does not leave us to wander around aimlessly wondering who to follow.  God in Christ has provided a whole community for us in the Church.  In our Baptismal vows we commit ourselves completely to each new child, indeed to each new member.  We covenant with God and each other to teach the faith, to pray for each other and to walk together even though it may be difficult – just like kids in the three-legged race.  Therefore it is the covenant duty of each and every one of us to stand with Jesus at that gate and be vigilant.  None of the abuses that occurred in our churches could ever have taken place unless good, upstanding members chose to turn away from their covenant commitment.  We must uphold each other when it is easy and especially when it is difficult and causes us to be afraid.

Ultimately we believe our greatest fear is death.  Rabbi Harold Kushner has said, “[O]ne of the things that we ask of our religious faith is that it help us cope with our coming to terms with mortality, with the realization that no matter how nice a person we are, we are not going to live forever.

How does religion do that?  It does it by understanding that it is not really death we are afraid of.  The author of the 23rd Psalm understood our souls when he wrote that unforgettable line, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death....." 

It is not the idea that we are going to die one day that scares us.  It is the anticipation, the sense that our time is limited.  It is the shadow that falls over our lives because we have the knowledge that no other living creature has, the knowledge that one day we will no longer be here.  The good news is that people, I have discovered, are not really afraid of dying.

The British writer Chesterton once wrote a wonderful line.  He said, "There are people who pray for eternal life and don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday."  We don't want to live forever.  We want to live just long enough to have made a difference to the world.  What we fear is not mortality, not death.  We are afraid that we will come to the end of our lives without having had that impact on the world we once dreamed of.[2]

            Most of us know if we’ve had an impact by the way other people respond to us.  When there are two of us plus the Lord, it’s more likely that something like this will happen: 

The women's singing group, Sweet Honey in the Rock, has a song called "No Mirrors in My Nana's House." One of the singers explained how this song was created. One of her friends was telling her about growing up in a very poor neighborhood, and she grew up in her grandmother's house and she said, "You know, in my nana's house there were no mirrors."

Her friend asked her, "Well, how did you know what you looked like?"

"Well," she said, "my nana told me. Every morning I would get up and get dressed and comb my hair, and then I would go to nana and I would say, `How do I look?' And she would tell me. She would tell me I was beautiful. She said my skin was smooth and golden brown, kissed by the sun, and she said my eyes shone like silver moonbeams. In my nana's house, there were no mirrors, so I saw myself through my nana's eyes who loved me and the beauty of everything was in her eyes."[3]

Wouldn’t it be grand if all the children of the world had adults who mirrored love and beauty to them like that nana.  What kind of a world would we live in then? Wouldn't it be one in which God's will had been done on earth as it is in heaven?[4]  Until then, we will guard our children two by two looking to the Jesus gate, where the Lord is our Shepherd. 

Amen!