If you could hang just one religious picture in your
home, a picture capturing the essence of your faith, what would it be?
We had just one picture of Jesus in our home as I was
growing up. Know as the “Head of Christ”
or as “Sallman’s Head”, it was a wildly popular depiction of Jesus painted by
Warner Sallman in 1950. It portrays
Jesus as being strong, serene, and compassionate. He is facing the right hand side of the
painting and gazing slightly upward as light comes down to illuminate his face
and blondish-brunet hair. Over 500
million images of the painting have been sold worldwide, making it the single
most reproduced piece of art of the 20th Century. It was especially popular during the Cold War
because it served as a reminder Jesus is watching over us. Our picture hung in the hallway leading to
all of our bedrooms.
Years ago I came across an obscure novel by Elizabeth
Goudge called The Dean’s Watch. One of its main characters, Isaac Peabody,
was the son of a clergyman of the Church on England in the eighteen
hundreds. His family had one religious
picture in their home. It hung above the
mantel of the fireplace and depicted the Final Judgment. Can you imagine? It was under this stern rendering that
Isaac’s father administered equally stern discipline. It is no surprise Goudge portrays Isaac
Peabody’s adult character as having lost his faith.
I suspect many of us, if we could have just one
religious picture in our home – a picture somehow capturing the essence of what
we hold most dear, most essential about God and the Christian faith – might
choose one depicting Jesus as the Good Shepherd. If we had to focus in on just one aspect of
God – the God we know and love – this might be the best choice for us to
make.
Today is informally known as “Good Shepherd” Sunday
because each of the readings gives us a glimpse of God’s shepherdly care. And even though most of us don’t have firsthand
experience of shepherding, it is an accessible image because it captures how
God relates to us and how we trust ourselves to God when we are most in need.
From the beginning of the Bible, our ancestors in the
faith, who themselves tended herds, have used this image as a way of describing
their relationship to the Holy One. The
first reference to God as a shepherd is found in the Book of Genesis. Jacob, having discovered his son Joseph is alive
after many years of thinking him to be dead, blesses his newfound grandsons
with these words:
The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac
walked,
The God who has been my shepherd all the my life to
this day,
The angel who has redeemed me from all evil,
Bless these boys, and may my name live on in them…
Today’s readings remind us that God’s shepherding is
manifested to us in two distinct ways.
The first is personal, the second communal. In the Book of Genesis, God’s care comes
directly to Jacob. It is not mediated
through other people. It is the sense of
the 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my
shepherd.” It is also conveyed
through Jesus’ teaching: “My sheep know
my voice.” The readings affirm that
it is possible to have a mystical, personal experience of God’s care coming
from beyond to bring comfort, healing, and protection in the here and now.
When have you experience God’s shepherdly care? Was it a spiritual comfort when you were
grieving? Perhaps a calm certainty when
you were anxious? Maybe it was a sense
of direction when you were lost or a conviction when you were uncertain? Such experiences of the Good Shepherd come to
us quite apart from anything or anyone in this temporal realm. It is a sensing of God’s presence we feel in
our heart, in our mind, in our soul, in a place where we know that a Mystery
from beyond has joined us in our time of trial or moment of need.
The reading from Book of Acts highlights a second way
through which God’s care is manifested.
In addition to coming directly to us in a spiritual way, it is also
mediated in real, physical, practical ways through a community of faith.
Last Sunday we read that over 3,000 people were
baptized after hearing Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost. Today we learn about their common life. They devoted themselves to the Apostles’
teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers – a pattern
so basic to Christian living it is the first thing we pledge to do in the
covenant we make with God at baptism.
· The Apostles’ teaching – molding our beliefs to the mind
of Christ as it has been revealed through his earliest disciples.
· The Apostles’ fellowship – being a member of a
community in relationship with Christ’s earliest disciples. Are you familiar with the phrase “Apostolic
Succession”? Jesus’ earliest followers
are also referred to as “the Apostles”.
They choose their successors by laying hands of them to invoke God’s
blessing and the power of the Holy Spirit.
These successors soon became known as “bishops.” In our Anglican tradition, a person becomes a
bishop through the laying on of hands by one or more bishops who have received
the laying on of hands by other bishops whose lineage of this sacramental act
is traced all the way back to the first Apostles. When you are confirmed or received by a
bishop of the Episcopal Church, the person placing his or her hands on your
head and praying for you is a direct sacramental descendent of Jesus’ earliest
followers. This is just one of many ways
we cherish what it means to continue in the Apostles’ fellowship.
· The Breaking of Bread:
Every congregation I have served has been what I describe as a “parish
with two tables.” One table is in the
worship space. The bread we break here
is sacramental. The other table is in
the Parish Hall. The bread we break there
is in fellowship. Both speak to the
mystery of Christ’s love and presence in our midst, each in its own essential
way. A parish with only one table is
missing something. A life lived without
either table lacks something central to the Christian faith.
· The Prayers: I
worry I am always picking on those who say “I can worship God just as easily in
_________, as in church.” While I
understand what they are saying – and believe me, it resonates with a part of
my own experience – here is my testimony: I pray and worship more fully, more
completely, and more deeply when I am in the presence of others than when I am
by myself. Communal worship blesses,
enlarges, deepens, and challenges me in ways not possible when I worship on my
own.
Just as each of us has known the personal presence of
the Good Shepherd, so too many of us can name at least one time when, we might
say, “the church was there for me.” It
is a phrase and feeling acknowledging God works through the community to meet
our needs.
Perhaps more difficult to name, but surely just as
real, are the times when you have been there for a member of the church… when
God’s shepherding has been manifested through you. It comes through a card or a hug or a
listening ear or the gift of food or a flower delivery, or simply by showing up
at the hospital or calling hours or memorial service. Only rarely does it require heroic sacrifice
on our part. More often than not, God is
working through us in ways we neither notice nor understand.
This is why commitment to our faith community is so
important. God cannot use you if you are
not present. God cannot use you if you
do not make an effort. But when you do,
God does. Your inch becomes God’s
mile. Your ounce of effort becomes God’s
ton of love.
Very few, if any of us, have direct experience with
shepherding. Still, it remains perhaps
the most endearing image of the Christian faith because we have personal
experiences of God’s care for us. And
because, when you make yourself available to a person in need, he or she will
sense the Good Shepherd in you. Show up,
make yourself vulnerable to a person in need, and the Mystery of God’s care
will be manifest in the moment.
