Sermon for May 3, 2020 - Easter 4 - Year A - The Rev'd Isaac P. Martinez

4 Easter Year A

Lections: Acts 2:42-47; Ps. 23; 1 Pet. 2:19-25; John 10:1-10

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

We Christians claim some pretty audacious things to be true. And we are at peak boldness during the Easter season. Of course, I am talking about our foundational belief that God became human in Jesus Christ, and that he lived, died, and rose from the dead on the third day. What a truly audacious belief!

Over the last two Sundays, we have retold the stories of the risen Christ appearing to his disciples in mysterious ways. He shows up in a locked room to assure Thomas. After breaking bread with disciples in Emmaus, he vanishes. The risen Christ is both real and otherworldly, human enough to have wounds and eat food, but divine enough to show up where he is needed most. What a daring claim!

On Pentecost, the fiftieth day of our Easter celebration, we remember how God, in the form of the Holy Spirit, came down on the disciples with wind and fire, causing them to speak in languages they didn’t know. Such a bold story!

So at first glance, it may seem like today’s readings are something of a letdown after so much audacity. There are no miraculous tales of resurrection. No one walks through walls or disappears from sight. Disciples do not gain supernatural abilities. 

Instead, on this Good Shepherd Sunday we seem to get an extended riff on an agricultural metaphor that may have lost some of its meaning in today’s post-industrial economy. The metaphor begins in ancient Israel, a pastoral society dependent on sheep and cattle herding. It reaches poetic heights in the 23rd psalm we recited this morning: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Throughout the prophetic books of the Old Testament, the metaphor is used to shame and disparage the kings, priests, and false prophets who led the Israelites astray, while at the same time, used to comfort the people with an image of God as a compassionate caretaker who gathers the people and provides for them. It is no surprise then, that Jesus takes on this rich and well-known literary device to continue explaining his own identity and purpose. 

In the part of the Good Shepherd discourse from John’s gospel which we heard today, Jesus introduces us to new aspects this metaphor. Jesus says he is the gate to the sheepfold. He is the means of moving safely from the enclosure to the pasture, from our places of refuge out into the world, and back again. He is the protection against the thief who comes only to steal and kill and destroy, because he has come so that we might have life, and have it abundantly. 

And it is this word, abundant, that gives me pause. Abundant life, really? I don’t know about you, but my life feels anything but abundant right now. And that causes me to take a closer look at Psalm 23 and the entire metaphor of the Good Shepherd and realize that it truly is a bold claim. To imagine God as a shepherd who will provide for our every need, protect us from all harm, and bring us safely home is a promise; and to believe in that promise during this period of pandemic requires every bit of audacity that believing in the resurrection does.  

Some of you may remember this story from a note I sent out after my ordination in January, but I have a special attachment to the 23rd Psalm, especially in times of trouble and trepidation like these. The story goes that when my parents divorced when I was 4 years old, my mom, my siblings, and I moved in with my grandparents. My grandma, the most faithful woman I know, tried to make the transition easier by instituting a new ritual before mealtimes, when we would all recite the same prayer and the first lines of the psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Over the years, that verse has become a touchstone of my own faith, a reassuring caress when I have faced new or uncertain situations. It is a reminder that even though I feel alone, afraid, or unsure what to do next, there is someone—my Maker, my Savior, my Friend—who knows me by name, who loves me, and who stays with me through every part of this life and brings me safely back home.

I have desperately needed that promise, especially these last couple of weeks, as the crisis lengthens into months and any good news seems to pale in comparison to the repeated missteps and disappointments and the slow grind of putting life on hold. The shock and grief I felt at the beginning of the shutdown has given way to a depressed resignation that warps my thinking, and yes, even shakes my faith. At my lowest points, it seems not just foolish to pray Psalm 23, but obviously incorrect to do so. I have many needs that aren’t being met. I very much feel like we are in the shadow of death and there is so much evil I fear. And I’m one of the lucky ones. Instead of approaching God like a loving caretaker, my mind goes to other scriptures, like Psalm 13, a song of lament, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget us forever?” 

So what is a priest to do? Well, I try to take care of myself. I try to remind myself that just because I have been living like this for over 7 weeks now, it is still an unprecedented time and there’s no blueprint, no guidebook, for how to cope. I try to be gentle with myself. And just as important, I reach out for help. Part of why I consider myself so fortunate during this crisis is that I have so many people who know me and love me and will listen to me. And it’s only then, when I’ve opened my heart and shed my tears, that am I able to look up and realize that the audacious promises of Psalm 23 were true all along. My Shepherd does supply my every need; it just comes in forms my isolated soul didn’t expect—through the love and care of my family and friends.

But of course, I should expect it. The existence of mutual support that springs from self-sacrificial community is another daring claim we find in today’s readings. In the brief snapshot after the first Pentecost from our first reading in Acts, we have a truly miraculous description of over 3000 people, most of them strangers to each other, who voluntarily gave up all their individual possessions in order to ensure that the needs of every follower of Jesus were met. Think about it: every kind of need of every single person was met because they trusted each other to believe in the audacious promises of a God who will be our shepherd, a savior who brings abundant life. That is truly an extraordinary claim, perhaps as extraordinary as someone rising from the dead or walking through walls.

And just as concrete acts of love and care help me believe that God is my shepherd, so too does the self-giving mutuality I see from you, St. Paul’s, help me believe that an Acts 2 kind of church is real. The examples are almost endless: from our Covid-19 relief fund, to our continued support of the Brookline Food Pantry, to the emergency grants our Ministry Outside the Parish committee has made, to our recently launched neighborhood groups, to our daily times of prayer and check-in, and to all the countless small ways we meet the needs of each other and our wider communities. So thank you, beloved, for helping me to trust in the audacious promises of a Good Shepherd, whose resurrecting love supplies all our needs and brings us safely home. Amen.