postID: 7053; title: The Fourth Sunday Of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday)
groupKey: secondary
groupKey: other
The Fourth Sunday Of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday)
O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of thy people; Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calleth us each by name, and follow where he doth lead; who, with thee and the Holy Spirit, liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Array
(
[date] => 2011-05-15 11:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 948
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => formatted
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2011-05-15 11:00:00
)
1 post(s) found for dateStr : 2011-05-15postID: 7053 (The Fourth Sunday Of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday))
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7053; date_type: variable; year: 2011
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 7053
displayDates for postID: 7053/year: 2011
Array
(
[0] => 2011-05-15
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2011-05-15 with ID: 7053 (The Fourth Sunday Of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday))
The Fourth Sunday Of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday)
Array
(
[date] => 2011-05-15 11:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 948
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => simple
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2011-05-15 11:00:00
)
1 post(s) found for dateStr : 2011-05-15postID: 7053 (The Fourth Sunday Of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday))
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 7053; date_type: variable; year: 2011
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 7053
displayDates for postID: 7053/year: 2011
Array
(
[0] => 2011-05-15
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2011-05-15 with ID: 7053 (The Fourth Sunday Of Easter (Good Shepherd Sunday))
The reading_id [73417] is already in the array.
No update needed.
Scripture citation(s): John 10:1-10
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
John 10:1-10
✛
The Spring Lambs and the Shepherd
Array
(
[0] => 60758
)
book: [Array
(
[0] => 60758
)
] (reading_id: 73417)bbook_id: 60758
The bbook_id [60758] is already in the array.
No update needed for sermon_bbooks.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
If you have never seen a spring lamb, you should; but you’ll probably have to go beyond Manhattan. Those little lambs are not only born in the springtime, they also, literally, spring as well, jumping a good two feet into the air. It’s amazing and endearing. Sheep are wonderful creatures. Where would the world be without wool? And lamb is a symbolic specialty at Passover and Easter; which brings me to a story from Saint Thomas’ 2008-2010 capital campaign.
The leaders of the capital campaign were meeting to identify parishioners who might be donor prospects, and of course the Rector has to take a lead in approaching such people. But at one point I bridled at what I thought were too aggressive suggestions by our hired fund raisers, and I found myself saying that as priest of this flock I didn’t want the sheep thinking that their shepherd was looking at them and seeing nothing but lamb chops. It was no joke, but it got appreciative laughs from the capital campaign committee.
Today in Saint John’s Gospel Christ uses four terms which define our relationship to him, all from the world of shepherding. He refers to himself as the door and the shepherd. He refers to his people as the sheep and to their community, his Church, as the sheepfold.[1] Christ says he is the door of the sheepfold and the shepherd of the sheep in it. We do well at this point to remember Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep, in which the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to find the one. [2]
The idea of Jesus as the door of the sheepfold is essential to the integrity of the Church and her leaders and members. The door of the Church is the way in, where the sheep enter for safety. The door of the Church is also the way out, where the sheep go into the world and find pasture. The sheep go in and out through Christ. “They must not come in,” says Archbishop William Temple (an authority on this Gospel) “for convention or respectability or for any other reason than trust in Christ. Their pasture is outside, in the world. Clergy often forget this,” Temple continues: “Here is the root of the difference between the religion of the clergy and the lay people. The layman finds in religion the strength for doing in a Christian spirit work which unbelievers also do. The priest’s work is religion; he is in the special sense ‘religious’ all the time. One of our chief needs is a clear recognition of the proper difference between the religion of the lay person and of the cleric. Then we may at last reach the point where the priest, a shepherd under Christ, will stand for the things of God before the laity, who seek the priest’s help in order then to stand for the things of God out in the world.”[3]
The Lord is especially concerned with the use of the door to the sheepfold by the shepherds, the clergy and leaders. The ministry of those leaders who do not enter the sheepfold by the door, which is Jesus Christ, is a false ministry of what Jesus calls thieves and robbers, killers and destroyers. How does anyone dare to attempt the office of a Christian priest and minister? The answer is by going through the door, through Christ.[4] Saint Augustine writes, “Whoever would enter the sheepfold, let him enter by the door; let him preach the true Christ. Not only let him preach the true Christ but also seek Christ’s glory, not his own. For many, by seeking their own glory, have scattered Christ’s sheep rather than gathering them.”[5]
Jesus also calls himself the Shepherd, the True and Good Shepherd of all the sheep, including Shepherd of the apostolic leaders ordained in his name. For we are all, clergy and laity, sheep of Christ. He calls us each by name, and we know his voice; and when we hear it, there is something in the very hearing that enables us to obey and follow it. The voice itself contains the power arousing us to hop to it.
The Good Shepherd’s purpose is that the sheep may have life, and have it ever more abundantly. Were we to read on beyond today’s ten verses of Saint John, Chapter Ten, we would hear Christ say that as the Good Shepherd he lays down his life for his sheep, and furthermore that his death, his self-sacrifice for his sheep, is something he undertakes voluntarily, with power, on our behalf. No one, he says, takes his life from him. “I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.” The Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, has died, has harrowed hell, on behalf of his flock. No one, no wicked person, not the devil himself, is able to pluck them out of his and his Father’s hand. He and the Father are one, and his sheep, for whom he lays down his life, are safe. [6]
This is Christ’s word for both the sheep and their ordained leaders. For the sheep, they must know that the one true voice of the Lord is the Word of God, not the opinion or cult of a human being. For those ordained, they must know that either their ministry is about and for Jesus Christ, or it is counterfeit. Those spring lambs are dear to our Lord. He bought them by his death. And to his apostles, his clergy, he says, “Feed my lambs.”[7]
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
_______________
[1] B.F. Westcott, The Gospel according to St. John, 1903, pp. 152-153. Bishop Westcott’s classic commentary remains a very present help to students.
[2] St. Luke 15:3-7. The Good Shepherd passage in St. John is set in the context of Christ welcoming the man born blind to whom he gave sight, but whom the Pharisees, the false shepherds, cast out. (Jn 9:1-41; 10: 21) The formerly blind man is the lost sheep sought and brought home by the Good Shepherd.
[3] William Temple, Readings in St. John’s Gospel, 1952, p. 163, another classic Johannine commentary here quoted, excerpted and paraphrased.
[4] Ibid, p. 164.
[5] Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, NT, IVa, John 1-10, p 338.
[6] St. John 10:11-30.
[7] Three times, after thrice asking St. Peter if he loved him, the risen Lord, said this. St. John 21:15-17.
