God is Out There

Nearly five years ago the Prime Minister of Australia gave an apology on behalf of the nation to the people we called The Forgotten Australians and former child migrants.

These were people who were removed from their mothers at birth because their mothers were unmarried, or were removed from their homes in the UK because they were displaced from their families after the war, or their families were persuaded that their kids would have a far better life in Australia.  Barnardos Homes and the Fairbridge Foundation were the big players in overseeing the settlement of such children in Australia.

Many of these children grew up believing they were orphaned when in fact they were not.  Some were adopted into new families.  Others lived in orphanage-like institutions in which many of them experienced terrible things.

I find it very hard to imagine how alone such a child would have felt.  I guess there are a number of situations in life where people can feel desolated and alone in a way that almost paralyses them.  Maybe this is how those Disciples of Jesus felt before they apprehended and understood the Resurrection.

The Disciple whom Jesus loved – John – writes his Gospel some 60 or so years after the death of Jesus and he is very keen to remind all his readers that Jesus made certain promises to his followers that meant they should never feel like that.

The promise is rendered in the Good News Bible as “When I go, you will not be left alone.”  In the NIV renders it “I will not leave you as orphans.”  Being an orphan can be an extreme form of being alone – and it can lead some into a sense of despair.

I guess that when his disciples heard these words their first thought might have been “Of course you won’t leave us orphaned.  This movement is starting to build.  You’re here for good, right?”

Just a chapter earlier in John’s story, Jesus says that the hour has come for him to depart from this world and join his Father.  In the context of this kind of familial language the idea of not being orphaned is filled with meaning.

In going to meet his own Father, Jesus knows that some of his friends will feel abandoned, and so he prepares them by saying that the loss ahead of them will not be the final ending that it appears to be.

“In a little while,” he said, “the world will see me no more, but you will see me; and because I live, you also will live.”

He is saying to them – and to us – “You will not be as alone as you feel.”

This section of John’s Gospel is not just a word of comfort, of course.  Jesus often seems to link words of comfort with some form of critique.  Just as we might be developing the idea of resting in the everlasting arms of that holy embrace, Jesus goes on to tell us what love actually is.

Contrary to modern ideas, love is not a feeling.  Love is not a mood or a magic spell under which we sometimes fall.  Love is something related to action.

"Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me.”  It is as if Jesus is saying that we will not be left orphaned, but we will be adopted into his family, and there we will all live by god’s rule of love.

It is perhaps worth noting that I Jesus’ day becoming an orphan was not a psychological issue.  Rather it was a life and death issue because by it most would be thrust into abject poverty.  Jesus is saying, then that he is offering us all a way of LIFE.  And we are called to pass it on.

Jesus will not leave us orphaned, but we are called to a radical way of loving by which no one is orphaned – by God, or by humans.  And we can do this to others, even though they are not our children, by leaving them without our help in a time of need.  As we have been embraced by Jesus and God, whom are we called to fold in loving and protective arms?

The way this is all possible is through the gift of the Father and the Son to us all – “another helper,” he says, “who will be with you always – the spirit, who reveals the truth about God.”  We may feel like we are very inadequate for this “loving“ of others we are called to do, but Jesus reassures us that the Spirit will be our helper.  It is the Spirit’s work to EMPOWER us for the ACTION of LOVE.

We will have more to say about this in a couple of weeks.  Let us for now be reassured by these promises – we will not be left alone as orphans; indeed we will receive another Helper, the Spirit of God, by which we can know that God is always with us.

I am the Way

I have three different map books in my car.  I have a map book for the City of Perth and Suburbs.  I suppose most of you have that one. 

But I also have Country Roads and Tracks of WA.  This has maps of all the roads in the country – even the gravel roads between farms and things. 

And I have a map book of Country Towns in WA.  It has street maps for all our towns.

With these three books I can get anywhere I want to in WA.  Before I set out on a journey I like to have an idea of where I am going.  Sometimes once I have looked it up I don’t have to refer to the book again.

I AM THE WAY

In our reading from John today we are reminded of some very famous words of Jesus.  “I am the Way”, he said.  What do you think he meant by that?

Let’s not consider this as a statement that stands in isolation from a context.  John has placed these words within a story that has a very clear purpose for his readers.  The people who chose the others readings to accompany this one understood this, too.

If we were to say what the big theme for today is it would be “Don’t worry”.

We need to remember that John is writing this some 50 years after the first Easter.  By this time he has seen the kind of trouble the early church would have to struggle with.  They faced persecution from two directions.  The Romans saw them as trouble makers and as traitors to the Emperor.  The Jews saw them as heretics.  Life as a Christian was not going to be easy.

When most of us read the opening comments of Jesus about “dwelling places” we almost always think about heaven – our home after this life has ended.  Maybe that is what John intended.  But there is another idea embodied in this term “dwelling places”.  It can also be referring to a resting place along the way.

Some of you may have read that epic tale of JRR Tolkein, “The Lord of the Rings”.  

Frodo and his friends embark on the journey Gandalf has charged them with.  After their first battle encounter they are taken to Rivendell, where the Elf-King lives, for what was a long rest.  The subsequent battles get worse and the resting place stays get shorter.  In this there seems to be a parable of our journey along the Way of Jesus.

So, when Jesus refers to resting places, could it be that John wants his readers to be reassured in this life, not about the life to come?

If we take it this way, then it sits more closely to the things that are said in the remainder of the story.  Thomas and Philip obviously don’t get it.  And they are obviously anxious about things that lie ahead of them.  Jesus tries to reassure them that staying close to him will ensure that they stay safe.  In fact being close to him is the same as being close to God.

So Jesus says these words we all love so much.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

Many Christian pilgrims over the centuries have found great reassurance from this idea that Jesus is the Way.  We so easily understand life as a journey.  We like this idea that Jesus is indeed the Way to God.

But Thomas and Philip wanted more instructions.  He wanted a bit more detail.  Now I don’t know about you but when you are in a situation where you are asking someone the way, which would you prefer?

Someone who says:

• ·         “Go down here to the end and turn right;
• ·         when you get to the second road on your left turn into it;
• ·         go three kilometres down that road to a sign which says “Shelter here” with an arrow;
• ·         follow that road till you come to the green letterbox on the side of the road and turn in.”

Or someone who says:

“I’m going that way.  Come with me.  I’ll get you there.”

Jesus is saying the second one to us.  “I am going that way.  Come with me.”

This is actually the simplest starting point for all Christians.  When you sing up to be a Christian there is no contract with pages and pages of fine-print – spelling out the conditions that apply. 

All you have to grasp a hold of is the “B” word – BELIEVE.  Believe in God.  Believe in Jesus.  And when you believe in God it changes everything.  Just ask someone who doesn’t believe in God what they make of life.  Their answers won’t satisfy you like the prospect of living in relationship to God the Father and Jesus.

There is nothing here about any creeds.  There’s nothing here about belonging to a particular church.  Jesus simply asks us to believe in him and God.  When we do that, when we then live in a relationship with him, then we will know the Way.

I want to speak particularly to those of you where were Confirmed by the Archbishop so recently.  But I think the rest of us have things we might need to hear too.

When you said you wanted to be baptised, or confirmed, you were obviously saying that you believe in Jesus.  How could you not?  But what happens next? 

Some people think that when you become a Christian you have to be good.  This thought gets them into lots of trouble because they then start asking: “what are the rules?”  This is a bit like Thomas’ and Phillip’s questions.  But Jesus says simply “Believe in me.”

Okay, so you say you believe in Jesus.  I think there are three key ways you show that:

•      You hang out with Jesus’ other friends.  This means being here or in your homes with other Christian friends talking to each other and encouraging each other about your life in God.
•      You start talking to God and Jesus.  Sometimes this means prayer.  Sometimes it means that conversation that goes on in your head.  You should never again be caught talking to yourself – God will always be there to be the one you talk to.
•      You read stuff about God and Jesus.  For most of us this will be reading our Bible.  This is our most important written resource.  But God can also speak to us through the Christian books people have written for us.  God can speak to us through devotional books we might use.  God can speak to us through the words people have written for songs that we sing.

And if nothing else, our story today is saying to us we will never be alone.  If we accept that Jesus is the way, if we believe in him, then nothing will ever get in the way of us being with God.

Let me finish with some words that are much more recent than these stories we have read today.  A little over 100 years ago Minnie Louise Haskins wrote these words:

And I said to the man

who stood by the gate of the year:

Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.

And he replied:

Go out into the darkness

and put your hand in the Hand of God. 

That shall be to you better than a light

and safer than a known way.

The Good Shepherd

There are two factors mitigating against our getting the most out of this idea of Jesus as The Good Shepherd. 

Firstly, most of us have long since moved to city life and lost any connections we might have had with a rural past.

Secondly, the way sheep farming has been conducted in Australia from almost the beginning has created a whole lot of different ideas about the role of the shepherd. 

Look for example at these words from our nearly most famous Australian song:

“Down came a jumbuck to drink at the billabong,

Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee.

And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tuckerbag:

You’ll come a waltzing Matilda with me.”

This most famous of Aussie folk songs underscores the yawning gulf between the value of one sheep in Jesus’ day and its value in Australia today.

In this folk song (a freedom song, actually!) one of the land-holder’s numerous sheep wanders down for a drink at the water hole.  The tramp, maybe an unemployed shearer looking for work, who is camped there, sees a mobile meal, grabs the jumbuck, slaughters it, and shoves the meat in his food bag.

Flocks in those days (1895) numbered up to 50,000 sheep.  One sheep out of so many was of little significance in the great scheme of things.  One jumbuck was a minor matter, with no personal relationship with its owner.  Value is purely monetary.  The jumbuck, or sheep, has no sentimental value in this situation. 

To understand Jesus when he calls himself the good shepherd, we have to put ourselves back in a very different rural setting, where shepherd and sheep have a close relationship.

Sheep were precious creatures, like valued pets.  A flock of 100 was extra extra-large.  Many flocks were no more than 10-20.  The sheep knew their shepherd’s voice and followed him.  He knew each by name.  They might have had names like Spot, Blackie, Timid, Bossie, Wanderer, Whiteface, Horny and so on.  By day and night the shepherd lived with them.  He was always there for them.  He would risk his life to save any one of them.

THE SHEEP AND THE SHEPHERD

I want to explore an idea or two about the implications of this for us as the Community of the Holy Cross in Hamersley.

Over My Dead Body

When the parable speaks of the shepherd lying in the doorway – being the gate – it seems to me that we are reminded that God’s care for us is absolute.  It is a bit like Jesus saying to us that any threat to harm us will meet his challenge that it will be “over his dead body”.

I suppose the Easter story has demonstrated the validity of that.  But it is a reminder that there is nothing we need to be afraid of.  This is what Psalm 23 speaks to us most about, too.

The Good Stuff is Out There

Some people have thought the sheepfold represents the church.  I don’t buy that.  It is not an adequate image.  The flock of Christ is much larger than any one sheepfold.

The fold was a place for short-term protection and hand-feeding.  For most of the year the sheep stayed in the open with their shepherd.  Let’s not forget this; the flock spent much more time out of the fold than in it.  Out in the open at night the shepherd was still the door: Nothing could get at the flock except by getting past his defence.  No sheep could leave the flock unless he permitted it.

You may notice in the Gospel Reading that there is more emphasis on going out than coming in.  In fact, it is only when the shepherd allows them to leave the circle of safety and go out that they can find pasture for themselves.  The fold is not the natural domain of the sheep.  The world is.  “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”

You and I, the flock of Christ, may be hand fed by the Lord here, but there is also good pasture out there in the wide, dangerous world.  There we are not handfed; we are supposed to feed ourselves.  There is always ample pasture in the places where Christ leads us, if we will only take the opportunity as it arises.

Those sects, or groups like the Exclusive Brethren or the Amish, who cut themselves off from the world, are missing out on the wonderful pastures of God that are in the secular world.  They wrongly think that the flock is only safe when it is gathered into the fold – or the church enclave.

It is not so.  The whole world is God’s.  The Good Shepherd is out there with us.  In our working and our talking, in our relaxing and enjoying, among our friends or neighbours, in our great literature and art galleries, in our universities and Rotary or Lions Clubs, there is pasture for the Christian.  

Out in the sunshine and rain, on smooth roads or rough, toiling or resting, climbing or descending, the shepherd has green pastures to show us if we only allow him to.  

We will never find those pastures if we hide away in exclusive flocks and huddle in folds where we are hand-fed by prattling pastors who, in spite of their loud voices, are actually  frightened of the world themselves.

The Risk-taking Good Shepherd wants us to take Risks

It is clear that God took a huge risk in the Incarnation – it might not have worked, Herod might have succeeded, who knows.

Jesus was also a risk-taker.  He left home and associated with all the “wrong people”.  He challenged the religious elite and their rules.  He exposed the domination system of the Romans as ultimately powerless. 

And I think he is challenging us to be risk-takers, too.  Too often in the church we want to play it safe, but we should learn a lesson from history. 

A century or so before Jesus was born a group of zealous men formed closed communities down near the Dead Sea at a place called Qumran.  These shut themselves way from the world in a tight knit flock within a safe sheepfold.  They cut themselves off from God’s wider world.

Although the discovery of a few of their scrolls made headlines in the twentieth century, their influence on the stream of history has been minimal.  They played it safe and waited for God to do something dramatic.  But tucked away in their monasteries by the Dead Sea, they remained unaware that in Galilee and Jerusalem God in fact was doing the most remarkable thing this world has known.  The whole Jesus event seems to have passed them by.

The challenge for us in this parable is that trusting in Jesus no matter how scared we might be, we are called to discover what he is doing in the world around us and to take the risk of bringing God’s Kingdom in there and then.