Fourth Sunday in Easter
Acts 2:42-47
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.
John 10:1-10
Jesus said, “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. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. 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.”
Sermon by the Rev. Carole Horton-Howe
We catch up with the disciples in our lesson today from Acts. We find them in a much different place than we found them in the gospel lessons of the last two weeks. Immediately after Easter, the disciples were locked in a room in fear for their lives and we heard about Thomas, the only one who had missed out on seeing Jesus. And then last week we find two apostles making their way out of all the fear and heartache they’ve witnessed walking on the road to Emmaus, just trying to go somewhere else.
Today we find them today in a totally different environment. Now we find them openly and obviously performing signs and wonders as they’ve always been empowered to do, even if they didn’t quite believe that they could. They’re actually healing and preaching and teaching. And the whole community is in awe of this. Because they can see God alive and active and moving right there among them. And it’s a powerful statement to everyone watching. Because now they know that this story they’ve heard about Jesus having died and risen – now they know it’s true and that God is acting in their midst. God is right there.
And so these early believers begin doing what they need to do which is embracing the apostles teaching – being in fellowship, breaking bread together, being in prayer together. This community has united around the truth that they have taken to heart as their own.
And something incredible happens. In the midst of all this, they realize that their faithfulness is kind of contagious. As they begin worshipping together in the temple and growing in community with one another, other people are joining them. And we’re told that God blesses this by bringing more and more and more people into the fold. Because the community of faith that they are becoming is stronger than the people and processes that would oppose it.
Now if we believe the things that we read from places like Pew Research Center and other groups that keep statistics on various things, you hear over and over that the Christian church is in decline – in the United States and all over the world. We hear, especially here in this county, that the number of young people that claim any religious affiliation at all is lower now than at any time in our country’s history.
And that’s frightening – because those are folks that have not connected to the lover of souls, to their creator and the one who gives them life and breath and the one who will be with them when everyone else has failed them.
There are experts who have lots of suggestions about how we grow church – like build a gym, a work out facility. People will come to work out and get healthy, they say. Or -- put a coffee kiosk in your narthex. They won’t have to stop at Starbucks on the way to church, they’ll just pick up a cup right here and settle right into the pews. Or create a great mobile app to download study tools while the service is going on to help them learn. That’s what we hear. That’s how you build church – right?
Well, I never want to put the Holy Spirit in a box. I’m sure each of those ideas would work out well for some church somewhere. But I wonder. I think actually that the early followers of Jesus had a better idea about how to build church, how to form them as sheep and shepherds than today’s so-called experts. What can we learn from them about building church in our current context? In our gospel lesson today, Jesus uses sheep and himself as the shepherd to describe the flock and their relationship to him and also each other. So we might say that our Acts lesson is a church building lesson also.
I’m going to go off script a bit and remind us of the parable of the Lost Sheep. You’ll remember that one sheep, in the flock of 100, goes missing. And the Good Shepherd leaves to go search for it. Each one is precious, and so he goes in search of it. But what about the other 99? Sheep left on their own don’t wander off in 99 different directions, that’s not their nature. Instead, they group together. They are matrilineal creatures. They find grass together, they huddle together at night and in storms with the strongest on the edge and the most vulnerable in the center. One or two might peel off but not that far. So in talking about sheep and a shepherd, it’s a perfectly lovely metaphor for community that Jesus has given us today.
One of the things we see going on in the ancient community is that they are sharing their lives together, growing in faith together, learning together and serving together. God did not intend us to isolate from one another. This is the truth that belies the “spiritual but not religious” claim.
I ran into a parishioner in Temecula at a restaurant that I hadn’t seen in a very long time. He told me that he and his family chose to watch the service from National Cathedral in Washington DC each Sunday, that it was a lot of trouble to get dressed and get to church just a couple miles from where they lived. And as magnificent as that service at National Cathedral can be, it’s not possible for them to have community with the congregation 3,000 miles away. They had no formation as people of God, no support, with their sisters and brothers in Christ. They get the flavor of worship but at arm’s length. To be part of Jesus’ flock is to be community.
What happens here is that it’s the place where we get fed – not only spiritually but also we are fed at this table physically. We are nourished by the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we are sent forth from this place to go out into the world to meet people that do not yet know our God and what it means to be God’s beloved people. So many good things happen here, within these walls, on this campus. It can’t be replaced by an arm’s length engagement.
What else can’t be replaced is what happens when we walk out of here. Because if all we do is come to take in, to absorb and if we don’t go out and share the love and care of this community with the world, we’ve only gotten half the message. When God sends us out of here and into the world, then we become the messengers for our just, merciful, loving God. And our God works through all of us. Through our hands, our hearts and our labor, our God works in the world.
We also come away with something else that that early community understood: we’re told that they owned everything in common that they used their resources to help if anyone had a need. We hear those words today and it sounds extreme to us. But the point here is the knowledge that the love and abundance of our God won’t ever run out. We won’t run out of God’s mercy, God’s love or God’s resources.
So when our own hearts look at our brothers and sisters we see that if one person is struggling, we are all struggling, if one person among us is sick we are all sick. If one person among us is homeless we are all homeless. We are all God’s beloved sheep. We are all given a chance to be Shepherds.
Each of Whittier’s city council meetings are attended by a man named Tom. He’s well known to the staff and council members who greet him when he arrives. He always goes immediately to sign up for a timeslot to address the council, rolling up to the desk in his wheelchair. His topic is the same each time: the trees. When it’s time for public comments, Tom makes a thoughtful, cogent presentation about the benefits to the city of the trees – the science, the beauty and the tradition with a final plea to keep the trees. They don’t exactly listen to Tom with rapt attention. But he is acknowledged by the mayor.
Now I don’t know if Tom is religious, but he has clearly been called to shepherd the flock in this particular way that honors God’s creation for the benefit of God’s people, to the building up and benefit of this community.
So we can believe all the rhetoric about the decline in Christianity. We can believe that the church is dwindling and there’s really nothing we can do. OR we can believe that we can do a lot. We can believe that when we leave here today, that there will be one moment that we stop to help a brother or sister in need. And when we do, that rewrites the script. Because just like those apostles who had no idea they could perform signs and wonders we can too. We all have those gifts from our God to be able to perform all kinds of signs and wonders in this world. We just have to unleash them.
Today is a great day for us to believe that God is active and working through each of us. Today is a great day to believe that someone who does not know our God needs to hear from us. And that we can change lives. Jesus promised that we would be known by the love we share with one another. And that is how we will always be known. May it be so. Amen.