we need faith for the same reason it is so hard to find

i'm using this photo 'ironically'

The Holy Gospel according to St. John the tenth chapter!

Woah - It's been a whirlwind lately!

First there was Holy Week and our first Easter together. After that I was blessed to be able to take some vacation time and visit friends in Denver.

From that trip I hurried back to Burlington, and then there was my ordination and last Sunday I was installed as the pastor here.

It all went so fast, and it was so lovely.

It felt like I had been riding high after high for nearly a month.

And so after the wonderful reception, where you all made me feel so welcomed and so loved- after it all. After Holy Week, after Easter, after Denver, after ordination, after installation and the reception

I collapsed into the bed.

Everything was so much to take in, and yet there was more...

 

When I awoke from my post-everything nap; I got in the car and headed for Indianola.

There was a conference for first-call pastors I needed to attend.

As I headed West, during that drive I thought about everything that had been happening lately, and tried to take it all in.

But I was too giddy, I was still riding high from all those exciting events.

 

During that first night of the conference, I could hardly fall asleep. And during all the lectures and working groups the next days, I could hardly stay focused.

My mind was racing from all the excitement we had been having lately.

In fact, one of the facilitators of the conference mentioned that it must have been hard for me to take anything else in after the ordination and installation.

All I could do was look at her, smile, nod and say, "if you were there for the reception, you'd understand."

...But then it happened.

Suddenly all those highs I had been riding came crashing down.

It was during a break in the conference. I got on Facebook...

What do these people's status mean, I wondered...

"Prayers for Boston,"

"What a tragedy,"

and things of that nature.

So I scrolled down a little further in my news feed.

Oh my God.

I sat in my chair.

A bomb went off, a bomb went off during a public marathon.

I sat there, I sat there and I felt afraid.

I wasn't there for the marathon, but this public act of violence stripped me of my sense of safety, all those miles away.

Who could do such a thing, I wondered.

Before the conference started again, I showed a news article to one of the conveners.

They made the announcement, and as they spoke you could see the shock settle over every pastor in the room.

We sat there, all of us, feeling helpless.

Feeling afraid.

Feeling angry.

So it was in that moment, in that room, that I came crashing back to earth after so many highs.

After that news, during the second day of the conference, when there was a break, I went to do a little work. When I looked at my planner to start working on this sermon, I will admit; I felt like someone was pulling some kind of mean joke...

I looked at my planner, at the Bible, reading that today was "Good Shepherd Sunday."

"Good Shepherd," I felt like scoffing.

"Yeah right."

Where was the Good Shepherd at the Boston Marathon?

As we know, it tends to be that trouble seldom comes alone.

During our mid-week book study, I found out that all the gun-control measures failed in the senate.

I grew up in a house where my father hunted, and he still does.

We had a guns in the house. Guns that had a trigger-lock, that sat behind a locked cabinet, separate from a locked ammunition box.

We had guns. I am by no means some anti-guns fanatic.

In fact, my father is a member of the NRA.

As I spoke to him about Newton and the aftermath; he told me it didn't seem unreasonable to him that there should be background checks to purchase something with the power to take human lives.

He wasn't the only person, either. As I spoke to other people who are more in favor of access to guns; I cannot think of a single person who said they had that big of a problem with background checks.

In fact, survey after survey showed that about 90 percent of the population has no problems implementing some forms of gun control.

 

And so as I found out a bipartisan bill of moderate measure to curb gun violence had failed, I came crashing back down again.

Good Shepherd, ha!

Best buy more and weapons.

Who needs a shepherd when anyone can buy any kind of gun to blast others away?

 

Good Shepherd...

At least that shepherd's crosier could be turned into a good billy-club, I figured.

In light of the senseless bombing, the failure of our representatives; whenever I would think of Good Shepherd Sunday and close my eyes, imagining that picture of Jesus walking through the pasture, in a white robe with a blue-sash, hair combed and clean carrying that little, pearly white lamb; I got angry.

Good Shepherd, where is the good shepherd?

I don't imagine that I need to tell you that when it came time to do my serious study for this sermon; all I wanted to do was argue down any author who dared talk about Jesus the good shepherd, meek and mild.

The things is, though, something else happened.

What I found in my study was those painting of Jesus, cleaned and without blemish, carrying the baby lamb, aren't historical...

What I found out was that shepherding was not a respected vocation, in the ancient world.

Being a shepherd was a dirty job.

It was a job that required you to break the commands by working on the sabbath.

What I found out is that shepherds were people who lived on the margins of society, people who were dirty, people who weren't in the temple, people who knew the rough edges of life.

As I learned more about what a shepherd's job really was like, my picture of the good shepherd changed.

I began to see, not a clean and smiling, gentle Jesus; but a dirty one.

I began to see, not a strong Jesus carrying a single lamb; but a haggard man, searching for any lost lamb.

I began to see that when Jesus calls himself the good shepherd, he isn't saying he is some strong, always together gentleman.

No.

When Jesus describes himself as the shepherd, he is describing himself as someone deep in the mess of this world.

He is describing himself as someone vigilant, watching every sheep.

He is describing himself as someone dirty, someone out of the temple and in the world.

When Jesus calls himself the shepherd he is not saying he is someone upright and handsome; rather he is saying that he is someone bent under the sorrow of the world, someone standing next to the flock that is in need.

When I learned that is what Jesus meant when he called himself the shepherd, something else happened, too.

I saw Jesus in other places...

When I saw those terrible images of the chaos and combustion of the Boston marathon; no longer was I scanning to try to find the possible bomber; instead I saw Jesus amidst that violent nonsense, near his flock.

When I saw those images of the parents of Newtown grieving the failure of the senate to take any action, I wasn't looking with anger for elected officials who failed to represent the voice of those who elected them; instead I saw Jesus standing near those grieving.

And when it happened, as it always does, as I sat in the office alone; sitting angry, sitting sad, sitting broken thinking about all the events of this week, I turned my office chair and there, there sitting in the red rocking chair...

There, sat Jesus...

Not clean shaven and recently showered.

Not sitting tall and smiling.

On that chair sat Jesus, bent over, bent over dirty and weeping.

Weeping over the senselessness,

and weeping not just with me,

but with the people of Boston,

with the people in the gallery of the senate chambers,

with you,

with all of us.

What happened as I came to see what kind of a job being a shepherd really was; was that I also came to see why it was so important that Jesus calls himself the good shepherd.

It is important that Jesus calls himself our shepherd is because that is exactly the kind of God we need, isn't it folks?

We need a God who is willing to get out of the temple.

We need a God who is willing to get dirty and join us in this broken world.

We need a God who knows the much, the pain, the sorrow of this world we live in day and day out.

We need this kind of God because then when Jesus says, "my sheep follow me. I give them eternal life. No one will snatch them out of my hand," we know he is trustworthy.

The Jesus who makes these promises is not a man who is always put together and clean-shaven. 

No the Jesus who gives us these promises is a man who knows sorrow, who has been covered in the dirt of this world, a man who amidst the broken world tends, keeps his sheep.

The Jesus is the good shepherd we need.

Amen.