On Tuesday I was excited. I prepared the Two-bit and Itty-bitty Bible Studies for email and FB. I choose this morning’s reading from Acts 2 as the text. I was preparing to talk about life in coming days, to speak of hopes and dreams about what could be when we start to leave our homes. I was thinking about what we have learned from slowing down and if there is a will to apply some of our learnings.
Contributions to the Bible Study discussion included mention of a community of farmers who each purchased a piece of farm equipment and then rotated usage, a neighbourhood who shared a lawn mower, mention of cooperative insurance, institution of a living wage, and reflections about sharing all in common, including living in monastic community. Could we live and be a community as the church was in the early days of the movement? On Tuesday I was excited to explore all this.
On Wednesday I was not so excited. In fact I was not excited about anything. At one point I realized I was simply staring out the window into the backyard; I have no idea for how long. That day I didn’t have lunch, too much effort to think about what to eat, and too indifferent to get up and put something together. There wasn’t even any reading done--- which is extremely unusual as I can get lost in a book in no time. I shuffled around the house, kept sticking my head out the door, and wandered aimlessly not thinking or doing anything.
I noticed that the same was true for many of my friends and colleagues. It was as if a big cloud descended on us all at the same time. We made it through Holy Week and Easter, offering various forms of worship and community. We made it through an additional 2 post-Easter weeks and Sundays. For the most part remaining calm, deepening discipleship, being relational as best we can, and staying positive, hope-filled.
And then Wednesday happened and it was like our brains were shuffled and muffled. Lots of comments in social media messages stated that we feel like we have nothing more to say; or at least on Wednesday we were muffled enough that our thoughts and hopes were all cloudy.
On Wednesday -as I crawled into bed- out of the cloud and muffle in my head, snippets of text and image appeared that came from the Gospel of John; and from the Good Shepherd craft shared earlier in the day.
The craft instructions had people make the form of a sheep and then cut out round circles to become patches of wool. On each circle crafters were invited to write the names of the people they care about, people who are in their thoughts, who rest in their hearts, people who have asked for their prayers, and so on. The names were glued on the sheep form – and will be offered later during our offering time.
In all of my years, I have never put human beings in the roll of the shepherd in the story. The making of the sheep, had me reflect that following the Good Shepherd has a component of being a shepherd oneself. We do care and love people around us. At times we do offer correction, protection, and set boundaries; just as shepherds do for their flocks. We pray for people especially when other action is impossible. We bring those in our care to green pastures – feeding them with physical food, life-giving conversation, hope-filled encouragement, and to waters of forgiveness and unconditional love.
In the past few weeks caring, sharing, giving thanks have been watering green pastures of the environments in which we live and work. When I walk through the church’s neighbourhood there are all kinds of signs, and hearts; chalk drawings too– notes to the postie, thanks to essential workers, words of encouragement for the passersby. Facebook even made a new ‘caring’ emoji; a smiley face hugging a heart. Congregation members have sent me notes about practices of making phone calls and having tea by telephone; I’ve seen dinners by Zoom, evenings-in with friends on Skype. These actions are moments when human beings have taken the initiative – leadership- to build, to transform, to create a renewed community. Could this form of shepherding lead us to live together, holding all things in common, selling our possessions, and distributing resources to those in any need?
By holding people in our hearts, by caring and sharing, by shepherding the people in our lives ---is that the way to a society full of human beings with Glad and generous hearts; having good will of all people?
What I realized in the making of sheep and in conversation with colleagues is that shepherding is a shared task. Some of the people I wrote on my sheep, my mom wrote on hers, perhaps you have some that I wrote too. The good news of this –if I have a shuffled and muffled day, someone else continues to hold the people I regularly shepherd. And imagine all the good will, gladness, and generosity fostered by the extravagant and abundant care given to any one individual by many who hold them in their hearts and prayers.
Perhaps these past 7 weeks, being gated into smaller sheep pens, has been a time to recognize and grow our capacity to shepherd. We are not to spend so much time thinking we are sheep and incapable of making significant contributions to new possibilities of the communal society when this is all over. In shepherding we follow the Good Shepherd considering and working on our relationships. Perhaps this is what Jesus means when saying, that they may have life abundantly.
If one reads the Good Shepherd narrative closely, one will notice that Jesus is the Good Shepherd AND the gate to the sheepfold AND in the gospel of John the Lamb of God. In this great mixed up story where Jesus plays all the parts, where we depending on our perspective can fill any or all of the roles, there is truth. I read this week, in a book written by Madeleine L’Engle, the writer of “A Wrinkle In Time,” that truth is not a fact. She speaks of story and narrative as a search for truth. She writes that for truth, we can read Jesus. Truth is frightening and demanding. “If we accept that Jesus is truth, we accept an enormous demand: Jesus is wholly God, and Jesus is wholly human. Dare we believe that? If we believe in Jesus, we must. And immediately that takes truth out of the limited realm of literalism.”
Jesus can be, must be, is --- shepherd, gate, and Lamb ... and so then Jesus’ followers can be, must be, wrapped in all three to seek Truth, to live into Truth and experience life abundant – as a whole, together; sheep come in flocks.
On this fourth Sunday of Easter the text opens to us a broader truth -an expanded version and vision- of resurrection.
Madeleine L’Engle was asked after a reading, “Do you believe in the literal fact of the Resurrection? [She] replied, ‘I stand with Paul: No Resurrection, no Christianity. But you can’t cram the glory of Resurrection into a fact. It’s true! It’s what we live by!” And she later writes, “my faith is not seriously threatened because it is not literal but remains open to question and revelation. It is not always a comfortable faith; it prods and pushes me. ... Let us trust truth, that truth that was incarnate for us in Jesus.”
You can’t cram the glory of resurrection into a fact --- resurrection was incarnate truth lived out and resurrected in the lives and stories of the faithful who followed as sheep, and who shepherded, and who acted as gatekeepers from one generation to the next.
We have had seven weeks where human beings have witnessed the story of truth- resurrection lived out in caring, sharing, and gratitude. An ancient parable of a Good Shepherd is lived in resurrection truth – an incarnational love one for another, that in our old world was lost and hidden in tombs of busyness, consumption, preoccupation, and production.
I guess I have worked my way back to the resurrection as expressed in the lives and stories of the community described in Acts. I am excited and have hopes and dreams that busyness, consumption, preoccupation, and production will no longer entomb us.
The truth of the story of the Good Shepherd is that the story contains part of the glory of resurrection.
There is an invitation to become part of the story to act as shepherd, sheep, and gatekeeps by living and acting from the truth at the heart of the Good Shepherd, which is incarnational love one for another. And yes, we can shepherd the world to live this way.
Hone your shepherd skills, shepherd those around you. Care, share, and be grateful. May resurrection glory abundantly spring forth in this lambing season.
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