Month: April 2015

I don’t think it is inappropriate, given the nature both of this crowd and of the one who has gathered us all here, namely Margery, to tell a story about…sheep.  This seems to be the theme we are running with this evening anyway.

“The Lord is my Shepherd,” we have just heard played and sung.  And in a moment,

“My Shepherd will supply my need, 

Jehovah is his name.  

In pastures fresh, he makes me feed, 

beside the living streams.”

We’re talking of course about sheep, about us, about the places we wander to—sometimes knowingly, sometimes against our wills—and about the things that happen to us in those places where we feel lost and yet free.  And most especially we are talking about the people, the shepherds, who lovingly track us down in those places and gently nudge us onward.

This all part of the story I want to share with you, and I promise I’ll get on with it in just a moment, but first, an observation about sheep that may be helpful to the story.  (Keep in mind, this observation is coming from a guy who’s never really observed a sheep.  Even at the petting zoo, I don’t pet the sheep.)

From what I can tell, when looking at a flock of sheep, their ability to travel together and stick together does not depend upon the individual sheep.  In other words, in order for there to be unity, oneness, among the sheep, they don’t have to know each other.  It is, however, necessary that they at least recognize each other as sheep.  Stick a moose or a pig in the flock and the sheep will baa in unified protest or just shudder in fear of the one who is different.  But their togetherness, their togetherness rests solely upon the shepherd, and not upon the loyalty of the sheep towards the shepherd, but upon the loyalty of the shepherd towards the sheep.

Now I can’t speak for you, but this comes as good news to me, because as I look around, I see only one or two people that I know and who know me.  Not many of us have been introduced.  But here we are.  Thanks to the generous, spirited welcome of those who call this hallowed sanctuary home, and of Margery, here we are.  And I submit to you that in this time and place it is not necessary to our unity that we know each other.  For us to share grief and hope, as we are here to do, it is only necessary that we recognize each other as human beings.  Or, if you will, as sheep.  Which brings me, finally, to my story.  It comes from scripture, from the gospel of Luke.

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus.  And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  So Jesus told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?  When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’  Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

I picked this story to share mainly because it’s one that Margery and I read together a short while ago on the day we first met.  Margery had just received the news that what had been ailing her for months was cancer.  Life as she knew it had changed and before long it was about to change again.  “I’m not afraid to die,” she told me.  “It’s not the moving on that bothers me.  It’s the leaving behind.”

Leaning back in my chair, I pulled a page out of my Counseling 101 textbook, drummed my fingers and said, “Yes, tell me more about…leaving behind.”  And that’s when she started in about the 100 sheep and the 1 who got away.  “I worry about people who aren’t saved,” she confessed.

Now it was clear from listening to her tell it that Margery did not think of herself, nor was she likely to ever think of herself, as the sheep who got away and needed saving.  At best she was the shepherd who went off in search of the lost.  At worst she was a member of the herd of 99 who followed the rules and kept to the straight and narrow.

What we ought to remember, though, is that right or wrong, all judgments aside for a moment, we’re never told how or why the 1 sheep got away.  I mean, what kind of shepherd are we dealing with here who loses track of sheep and then abandons 99 to the wiles of the wilderness to go off in search of just 1?  Why are we so quick to wag a finger at the sheep?  Perhaps we ought to indict the shepherd for negligence?

Moreover, how do we know the 1 sheep didn’t want to get lost?  Maybe they’d had enough of living under the watchful, arrogant eye of the flock.  Time to find greener pastures.  How does the saying go?  “Not all who wander are aimless.”  Amen to that.  Sheep are not as dumb as they look.  If anything they are stubborn, persistent, far more certain of themselves than we give them credit for.

Truly, to know Margery was to know that she was the 1 sheep.

At a young age, following the separation of her parents, she and her sister had to live many years in an orphanage.  When her parents did patch things back up years later, it was Margery who kept the family afloat, who bounced from job to job, working her way up whatever ladders she could to provide for the family.

It strikes me that in recalling Margery, her youngest nieces and nephews remember her as their source for comic books and bedtime stories.  “The bedtime stories were clearly made up on the spot.  Every night she would invariably paint herself into a corner and not be able to get out of it.  That’s when she would declare, time to go to bed!  But the next night the story would pick back up and go on.”

As an adult she loved to read fantasy books about dragons and vampires, so long as the vampires were good, and she took on the Harry Potter series with all the enthusiasm of a 13 year old.

And though she was banned from the kitchen on account of being an absolutely terrible cook, she had an uncanny ability to keep cats and dogs alive forever just by giving them a lap to lie on.

I don’t know but that you don’t get through life and also help others get through their life by being just another one of the sheep in the fold.  I’m sure Margery loved dragons because they are fierce fighters, and cats because they are winsome and gritty.  She took to bedtime stories and fantasies as a way of creating more beautiful, holier worlds for us to live in, even if just for a moment.  Yes, she was in her own right more the shepherd who rescued us than she was anything else, and we owe her our gratitude for that.

But she was also the 1 sheep who wandered off.  She was the stand-out in need of saving.  And while she may not have liked to think of herself as such, I will tell you how the rest of my visit went with her that first day we met.

After reading up on the 99 sheep and the 1 who got away, and her telling me that she didn’t much care for my particular take on the story, but she did like me, she agreed that it wouldn’t be so terrible to discover after all that we may not have gotten it all right.  That while we have surely gotten some things right, we may still have a thing or two left to discover about God, ourselves, and who, or what, saves us.  Because it wasn’t the sheep who stayed put that got saved by Love.  It was the sheep who got away.

 I don’t know what you believe about who, if anyone, meets us when we are put out to pasture.  I know that Margery believed that in death God would meet her in the love of Jesus, the shepherd who traveled far and wide to seek and save the lost.  And if only for the sake of Margery, I do believe that’s just what Jesus did. 

But still, I don’t know what you believe about who, if anyone, meets us when we are put out to pasture.  Rumi once quipped that “Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.  When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make sense any more.”

Jesus, Rumi, a great big field, a heavenly gate, I don’t know what you believe about who or what meets us when we are put out to pasture.  Perhaps we can all agree though that if we want to be found we must first step away from the flock, jump the fence, and get ourselves lost?

If only that we might also rejoice over each other when we are found again.

Writing about tonight, the gospel writer John says that when they were gathered together for supper, Jesus took off his outer robe, put on a towel and began to wash the disciples feet.

John doesn’t say that Jesus asked anyone if they wanted their feet washed.  Jesus doesn’t say, “Andrew, I’d be glad to wash your feet for you if you’ll just kick off your Nikes.”

Jesus doesn’t ask them if they want their feet washed.  He just knows that their feet need to be washed.  He knows this because for one thing, he can see that their feet are dirty.  There were no closed-toe boots or sneakers or Uggs back in those days.  At best you had a pair of sandals and the dirt on your feet told the story of where you’d been that day.

There’s an ancient saying that goes, “If you want to know where you are, look at your feet.”  So we can imagine what Jesus saw, and what he could have said, in washing the disciples feet tonight.

“Wow, Peter.  I can see that you’ve got a lot of dirt here from your bedroom floor.  You’ve been in your bedroom a lot today, have you?  Behind closed doors, doing some praying, some thinking, trying to figure out your next move.  Peter, let me wash those feet of yours.”

Then there’s James and John.  The dirt on their feet is the same.  Two brothers, they’ve been out on the soccer field all day kicking the ball at each other’s head, trying to prove who can kick the ball harder.  In a few minutes an argument is going to break out around the table about who is the greatest disciple.  Make no mistake about it, James’ and John’s voices will be the loudest.  “Here guys,” says Jesus, “let me wash your feet for you.”

There’s also John the Beloved Disciple.  He’s at the table, too.  He’s caked with dirt from his feet all the way up his shins.  It’s the dirt from the field at the edge of town, the one covered with flowers.  John’s been out there all day shuffling back and forth.  We’ve heard that John is the disciple who just needs some extra reassuring.  He needs to be told that he’s loved the most.  So he’s been out in the field all day pulling the petals from the dandelions.  He loves me, he loves me not.  He loves me, he loves me not.  “John,” says Jesus, “give me your feet.”

And of course there’s Judas.  His feet are covered with the dirt of the temple and the dirt from the local sheriff’s office.  He’s been hanging out there a lot lately, scheming and plotting with the authorities on how best to capture Jesus.

They’re all at the table with Jesus tonight, but soon none of them will be at the table with Jesus. They’re all going to run, to say they never knew him.  And they know this about themselves, and Jesus knows this about them.  That it’s not just their feet that are dirty.  It’s their hearts and souls as well.  So Peter says, “Lord, wash not just my feet, but my hands, my head, and every inch of me.”  And Jesus does, because to Jesus those gathered around the table are his friends.  That’s what he calls those who are so dirty, so insecure.  He calls them friends, and he reaches out to touch the dirtiest parts of them.

I don’t know where you’ve been lately.  If we looked at our feet, what would they tell us about who we’ve stood beside, and who we’ve walked away from, what good we’ve said and what good we’ve not said?  I don’t know but Jesus invites us still to come to his table with our dirty, messy lives, to eat bread—his presence with us, his body broken for us; to drink a cup—his blood poured out for us, his life given to us.  For in these gifts and in this moment Jesus himself draws near enough to touch us, to wash and heal us, for us to hear him call us friend, that we might call each other the same.