Message Delivered at Christ Church
April 11th & 12th, 2008
TEXTS: Acts 2:42-47; John 10:1-10
Delivered by Paul A. Johnson
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I’m sure that many of us have heard of Parker Palmer. He’s a Quaker; and a university professor; and an author whose written lots of books. I think his most famous book is Let Your Life Speak. But a few years ago he also wrote one called A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life.
It’s a book about the spiritual journey pretty much every human being is on towards wholeness. He’s not the first to observe that there is a human tendency to live what we might call a separated life; one where our outsides and our insides don’t always match up. In his language, there is a voice inside us that speaks to the truth of who we are, or what we do, or the world we live in. And that when we hear this voice and act upon it, we’re living the life of wholeness; our outsides match up with our insides. Of course, if we’re not listening, it’s hard to hear the voice. And of course, sometimes we hear it, but because of our anger, or disappointment, or fears, or resentments, or something else inside of us, we don’t listen; we ignore it, and then for all sorts of reasons divide our lives up into the part that everybody sees and the part that we keep hidden from the world.
Now I’m talking as if I’ve read the entire book when I haven’t, but I do think his observation about the human condition is right on. Pretty much most of us have those parts of our being we’re happy to have made public, and the parts we would prefer to stay hidden. We are, after all, mystifying creatures. We are capable of miraculous acts of mercy, love, and justice; and then the next moment we can be small, mean, and jealous. We are this complex mix of the character traits that are heroic and noble and self-giving, and then there are those parts that are something else that we’d rather just keep to ourselves.
This whole notion of a divided life makes me think, oddly, of Thomas Jefferson. If you ever go to Monticello, which—and this is stating the obvious—is a pretty spectacular place, you know that he designed it so that the entrance to the slave quarters are on a lower plain than the rest of the house. The slave quarters go right back from the sides of the house, but they’re lower, and the doors are hidden so that when Jefferson looked out the back of his house he never really had to see the slaves and the work they were doing. And this may be some cheap psychology, and if there’s a Jefferson scholar in the congregation this morning you can correct me on this…but I think he designed it this way because he couldn’t accept the division in his own soul; that the same man who could write “We believe these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal” and believe these words—not superficially, but deeply enough to put his life at risk because of them--could also look out his back door and see how unequally he was treating the men and women who were his slaves. So he had to hide from himself one part of it. So he hid his slaves.
Jefferson’s not unique. He’s just a bigger character than most of us. Like us, he did the best he could. We all do. Again, it just seems to be that human beings are this curious conglomeration of light and dark; not far below the angels, as the psalmist writes, but still capable of such mischief. We hear the still, small voice in our souls; but sometimes the fears, and hurts, and shames, and secrets, and disappointments, and the problems we do our best to solve but can’t—they just get the best of us, so that we don’t listen.
Thus, the search for the undivided life, as Palmer writes, and the desire to be whole.
Well, let me tell you something. Today is a Sunday called “Good Shepherd Sunday.” Always on the fourth Sunday of Easter season we hear readings of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. It’s a day when we remember that there is another voice besides our own that says our name. And that it’s the voice of the Good Shepherd.
And all that stuff that’s inside us; maybe stuff we’d like to keep inside us; all that stuff that wants to create division within our souls…with all that stuff that’s there, Jesus is still and always our Good Shepherd—never stops; and we are still and always his sheep—that never stops; and that what he wants, what he yearns for, what he begs us to give him is our entire selves. Not part, but the whole thing…the beautiful and the ugly, the light and the dark, the virtuous and that which is something less than virtuous. You see, I think that sometimes we fall into this belief that there are parts of us that Jesus won’t take. But a shepherd would know his sheep; and he takes it all because what he desires is it all--all of us…all of me; all of you; all of everybody. It’s the whole thing he’s after. That’s the offering that he yearns for…a full offering, because with him that full offering is always safe.
A few minutes ago we read from Acts, and there’s a lot that can be said about that reading. But taken as a whole, there’s something in that reading about this notion of full offering.
Acts chapter two begins with the gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost; which is followed by Peter’s great sermon after which 3000 people give their life to Christ. That first very small community invites others in, and then what they do is start trying to figure out how to order their common life.
And all sorts of things can be said about the details of what’s here. That it was important to teach and learn; that it was important to be in fellowship with one another; that it was important to break bread together; that it was important to pray together. And that they held all their goods in common. People argue over what, exactly, that means, but on some level the early church lived a communal existence, offering and sharing one another’s goods.
Now the details here are worth a five week teaching series in themselves. But take the whole thing together, and it offers a picture of complete offering; of giving over every part of one’s life…one’s prayers, and relationships, and wealth, and time, one’s work…the whole thing, handed over.
I mean, remember what we say this time of year, because it’s really a pretty crazy and scandalous thing: “Alleluia! Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed. Alleluia!” We proclaim that Jesus of Nazareth is not just Jesus of Nazareth. He is Jesus, God the Son. And unlike everyone else in human history, he didn’t stay buried. He’s alive…not just then, but now. Alive forever. He is always the Good Shepherd, and the Good Shepherd guards the sheep. The thieves, and bandits, and wolves…the external ones, but also the internal ones…they don’t get in to steal, and kill, and destroy. Doesn’t happen on his watch. It’s life that we’re promised, and it’s an abundant life, that’s rich, and full, and whole.
That’s their experience in Acts, and that’s our experience. And these words in Acts testify that the response to this Good News is to give the whole thing; and to make the whole offering; because it’s what Jesus yearns for, and because it’s safe to give it to him, and because what he does with this whole offering is make us whole.
You see, we never have to edit ourselves with Jesus; and we don’t have to hold anything back; and there’s no performance requirement to receive his mercy. There’s no sheep, and no part of a sheep, he won’t take. The Good Shepherd just is. We are made free from that internal confusion that divides us because in the simple act of listening for our name and giving it over, it’s not ours anymore. The Shepherd—who just is, and who is good—takes it, and takes the whole thing, because it’s all of us that he yearns for.
Can I tell you a little story? Actually, can I give a little witness to the Good Shepherd who takes it all? I’ve told this story in a different context, but I don’t think I’ve told it in worship, so let me share this little witness, one fellow traveler to another…
There have been a few times in my life when I believe that God has spoken to me so clearly that I have no doubts it was God who was doing the talking. Now, there haven’t been a lot of those moments. My experience of living in relationship with Christ is that 99.99% of the time it is seeking Christ in the mundane and everyday. But every once in a while it’s different…
One of those different times was when I was student in seminary. When I was in seminary I had this peculiar experience of a recurring daydream. Now, it wasn’t a vision. It wasn’t something ethereal. It was just a daydream. I’d be sitting in my Old Testament lecture, and supposed to be taking notes on the Book of Judges, and I’d find myself looking out the window and experiencing this series of images pass through my mind.
It was always the same, and it was like this. There was a baseball field. And I don’t know why it was a baseball field; but it was a baseball field…one of those kinds of baseball fields you find in a neighborhood park; just a backstop and a diamond. It’s daytime, but it’s raining; real heavy; one of those kind of rains so that you splash when you walk. And I’m at home base; and Jesus is out in center field. I don’t know why he’s in center field. That’s just where he is. But no one else is there. It’s just me and Jesus. And I kind of look like me, and he kind of looks like Jesus…he’s in a robe, and long hair, and a beard. And in the daydream, I run out as fast as I can to him, and fall down to my knees, and get all wet, and I say “what do you want from me?”
I mean, do you ever wonder whether there’s something you have to do or be to be “enough” for God? Because I think that’s the question I was asking.
But all he does is stand there, and look at me gently, but not say a thing.
And then the daydream would end, and it would be back to Judges. And this happened time and time again; it never changed. I would happen when I was in class, or driving, or studying. It just kept coming back.
Well, one day I was in the basement of the chapel building, and I was alone in a classroom working on some important paper I’ve forgotten about. And one more time, the daydream came back.
And the whole thing happened the way it always happened. Baseball field; raining; just me and Jesus; and me running from home base to center field, falling at his feet, getting all wet, clenching my fists, and saying “what do you want from me?”
But this time, it was different. This time he reaches down, and pulls me up and sets me on my feet. And he looks me in the eye and says something. And here’s what he says: “I don’t want any thing from you, Paul. I just want you. I just want you.”
And if it’s not clear where I’m going with this, let me say it clear: He just wants us. The whole thing. If we’re wondering what the acceptable offering is to the Good Shepherd, it’s just us. When the Shepherd calls us by name, it’s our whole being he’s inviting into his presence—to nurture, and to lead, and to give abundant life. There is no part the Shepherd won’t take; and there is no part that would cause the Shepherd to not take it all. All of us is exactly what he yearns for; what he desires, and welcomes, and celebrates. The full offering. He’ll take it all, because he wants it all, he relishes it all, and it is always safe with him.
You know where it’s safe to completely be a sheep? With the Shepherd.
Palmer’s right about the divided life. It’s a hard way to live ignoring the voice inside us. But there’s another voice calling our name…the voice of one who yearns for it all; receives it all; makes us whole; and never leaves. It’s the voice of the One who is always alive; the voice of the One who is risen, indeed; the voice of the gateway to abundant life. And it is the voice of the Good Shepherd, who restores our soul; whose goodness faileth never, and in whom we lack nothing, for always, in our entirety, we are his.
The King of love my shepherd is, whose goodness faileth never; I nothing lack if I am his, and he is mine for ever.
-From “The King of Love,” words by Henry Williams Baker (1821-1877); paraphrase of Psalm 23.
