This is an occasional series of posts about the scripture read at our church and what it means to me. I attend an Episcopal service, and we are in Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary.
This week’s readings are particularly meaningful, as my parish church is named after the Good Shepherd, and it is readings about Jesus as the Good Shepherd that are the focus today.
First Reading: Acts 2:42-47
This being the post-Easter period, the lectionary uses readings from the Acts of the Apostles rather than the Old Testament for the first reading. This one is popular among “liberal” congregations (emphasis mine):
Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.
Damned commie hippies!
I’ve long believed that the worst thing that ever happened to Christianity was its adoption by Constantine as the state religion of the Empire. Once the religion became inextricably linked to the civil authorities and the power of the state, it could only become, itself, more temporal, more material, more officious and power-hungry. While I think separation of Church and State is good for the State, I also think it’s even better for the Church. Once God and Caesar are conjoined, it’s difficult to tell what to render to whom.
Anyway, it’s worth reading what those early Christians did, and how they lived. They were together, commune-like, and “had all things in common.” Those who had any wealth pooled it together, selling their possessions, and giving to those who were in need.
This, then, is a key message of Jesus, and one that those with a stake in material goods tend to quickly gloss over. Jesus was not about Religious Rules (indeed, he railed against the Law). He called for us to love God, and to love our neighbors. Loving God is relatively easy, in some ways — loving our neighbors as ourselves, to the point of giving up our worldly possessions for them as they are needed, and to even give up our lives as necessary, is quite a different thing, and much harder in many ways.
Indeed, I don’t claim any special virtue here. Yeah, I give to a number of charitable concerns, but I’m also about to take a very nice vacation to Italy, and not as some sort of pilgrimage. I’m bound up on the love of the world as much as anyone else — but I try to at least recognize the obligations Jesus places on me to care for my fellows.
Second Reading: 1 Peter 2:19-25
After a reading of Psalm 23 (the quintessential Good Shepherd verse), we get into something that seems much darker and more stereotypically ashes-and-sackcloth — but which really follows the same thread as the reading from Acts.
It is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.
- “He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”
When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.
Martyrdom is not easy to talk about these days, but it’s simply the ultimate expression of that self-sacrificing spirit discussed in the previous reading, as exemplified by Jesus.
What’s remarkable is how, in juxtaposition to this, we have Christians today getting the self-righteous vapors because some people have the nerve to publicly disagree with them. Imagine!
- Some Christian says, “Gays are sick, twisted, evil, perverted, sub-humans who ought to be locked up, deported, reprogrammed, or, even possibly, stoned to death.”
- Someone else says, “I believe you are trying to impose your religious faith upon our legal system.
- Said Christian replies, “I’M BEING OPPRESSED! SOON, EASTER AND CHRISTMAS WILL BE ILLEGAL! JUST SEND MONEY!”
Really?
“When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly.” Granted, that’s easier said than done, but one would expect Christians to at least recognize the way they should be reacting to those who abuse them (even leaving aside that “disagreement” is not “abuse”).
Gospel Reading: John 10:1-10
I’m not going to quote this one at length because John is sometimes a bit zany. Basically, Jesus riffs on the faithful-as-sheep motif, with religious leaders as the folks trying to lead the sheep. But there are lots of illegitimate would-be shepherds who jump the fence into the sheepfold to steal the sheep that are there, even though they don’t recognize the false shepherd’s voices.
Jesus, though, proclaims himself “the gate,” through which all legit shepherds will pass into and out of the sheepfold:
Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
There’s an old set of jokes that notes that shepherds are just raising sheep to be “fleeced,” or slaughtered. But the folks of Judea would have recognized the metaphor — whatever the ultimate fate of the sheep, the immediate need and duty of the shepherd was for them to be fed and watered and protected from thieves and predators. That’s what the good shepherd does, even at sacrifice to himself. That’s the rule for looking for a good shepherd to follow — the extent to which he actually emulates the self-sacrificing and caring nature of Christ for the entire flock.
The false shepherds who seek to steal the sheep, to exploit them rather than keep them well, to prey upon them in fact, are to be rejected. The metaphorical resemblance to “just send money!” televangelists and similar Internet sharks is to me, far too obvious — especially when the message from those false shepherds is less about care of the flock (even its weakest and most vulnerable members), but about keeping the sheep afraid. Which any livestock specialist will tell you is a way to make the animals stressed and thus less healthy and robust and capable of facing the world and surviving on their own.
The Good Shepherd seeks sheep that “have life, and have it abundantly.” The false shepherds seek sheep that tremble and shy away from life. I know which I choose to follow.
(There is an understandable rejection of the idea of equating people to sheep — though usually more along the lines of individual rejection — “I am not a sheep” — than rejection of the idea of other people being sheep. I’m willing to include myself in the metaphor, if only because I know I resemble silly sheep as often as not, and am just as likely to go astray.)
