God Prays for Us

Many of my sermons include a call to love each other. The passage for today from John 17 has been called “the high priestly prayer of Jesus”, in which Jesus prays for unity. We could focus on that unity and preach another sermon on love, but our text stops before those appeals. Our ability to love each other is based on the deeper truth that God takes care of us. This morning, I want to reflect on an essential fact of the Christian life – that Jesus is on our side.

John 17

The high priestly prayer is set in the context of the Last Supper. In John 13, Jesus washes the disciples’ feet and eats his last meal with them. In chapter 14, Jesus tells the disciples that he is the way to God and that he himself is going to God. He promises them the “advocate”, the Holy Spirit, who will remain with them after he is gone. The chapter ends with the words, “Come now, let us leave”, which sounds as though they are headed to the Garden of Gethsemane.

In chapter 15, however, they remain in the house together and Jesus teaches them about the true vine (himself) and its branches (the disciples). He repeats his call for them to love each other and promises them that the Holy Spirit will help them to overcome the hatred found in this world. Chapter 16 then finishes this time of teaching as Jesus says again that he must leave them so that the Holy Spirit (or Comforter) may come. He tells them that the time of grief they are entering will end and they will be filled with joy as God fills them with God’s love.

Following this extended time of teaching, preparing his disciples for his coming death, Jesus starts to pray to his Father. The verses we read are the beginning of this prayer.

• Verses 1 to 5: Jesus prays that God will glorify him so that he may glorify God. All that will happen is for the greater glory of God. All that he has done in his life – his teaching, his miracles, and finally his death and resurrection – has been to bring glory to God.
• Verses 6 to 8: The centre of his work has been to reveal God to the disciples. They now become the ones through whom God is seen in this world. They know what Jesus has taught, and they believe that Jesus reveals God.
• Verses 9 to 11: Now that his work here is done, Jesus is ready to go through the culmination of his life, his death on the cross. He asks that God’s Spirit will now care for the disciples and give them strength and courage to do God’s work in the world.

For our purposes this morning, I observe simply that Jesus prayed for his disciples, and he continues to pray for us – to be on our side as we live in this space between his ascension into Heaven and his return “in the same way as he was taken up from his disciples” (Acts 1: 11).

Psalm 68

The verses we read from Psalm 68 state this truth as a song of triumph and joy. God is on our side! God is for us! When we feel that all is lost, we know that God is with us. When outward circumstances threaten to destroy us, we know that God will save us. From the way Jesus prays in John 17, we know that he sees saving us as his greatest work, bringing glory to God. Unity and love are God’s gift, given through the Holy Spirit, to help us in times of distress and danger.

Linking with Ascension

Last Thursday was Ascension Day in the church’s calendar. Reflecting on Jesus’ ascension into Heaven can help us grasp how God is available to us in times of danger and how God helps us in our distress. Acts 1: 1 to 11 recounts the ascension of Jesus most fully. Jesus spent 40 days with the disciples after his resurrection. He taught them about God’s Reign in this world and repeated the promise of God’s Holy Spirit, a promise that also figures prominently in John’s Gospel.

All this talk about God’s Reign and the promise of the Holy Spirit starts the disciples thinking, and they ask if now is the time that Rome will be expelled and Israel will again be free as God’s kingdom. Jesus redirects their thoughts – as he had done so many times throughout his ministry – from this political manifestation to the birth and ministry of the church. They are to be God’s witnesses as God’s Reign spreads throughout the earth, filled with God’s Spirit: A social and theological reign, rather than a political plan.

Then Jesus ascended from them into Heaven. We don’t know exactly what “taken up” means, since Heaven is not in the sky; rather Heaven is a dimension beyond our present existence, as close as our own skin, but as far away as our minds can make it. The veil between this life and the next was made thin, and Jesus rose before them into another dimension or plane of existence. They watched and watched, until “two men dressed in white” (we can assume angels) sent them on their way with the promise of Jesus’ return.

What’s It All About?

God is on our side. Great! God’s presence with us is guaranteed by the presence of the Holy Spirit. Wonderful! Jesus will return and end all danger and distress in our world. That is really good news! But what’s it all about? Why do we even need to remind each other of these things?

Consider the way people feel stretched and distressed at the moment. I know of one work group who were Zooming together. One of them broke down crying as he described the stress of working at home, as the boundaries have become blurred between home life and work life. He had to leave the meeting because he was feeling the stress so deeply. I think of others in our community who have experienced loss – such as one who had to bury a parent with a few close relatives at the funeral, while other well-wishers attended only online.

We could name other losses and problems within our congregation, but we have care groups and deacons as places where we talk about those struggles more fully. We speak about such things in public only with the permission of the individuals involved. Nevertheless, we know that they are part of our lives, and many people feel a level of stress that is hard to describe. We don’t want to make a fuss, but we know we need help. So, what should we do? How do we respond as people who believe in Jesus and live under the Rule of God?

A Digression

Let’s take a rabbit trail, which should bring us back out on to the main road: the question, “Why did Jesus ascend into Heaven?” Jesus came into our world to bring us the good news of God’s Reign. “Repent! The kingdom of God is here!” In his death, Jesus took the sins of the world into himself, reconciling the world to God. In his resurrection, he defeated sin, death, and hell.

Why then did Jesus not stay with us? Risen from the grave, he could have ruled over all creation as the eternal and triumphant Son of God. Instead, he went away. Why? In John’s gospel he says that he goes away so that the Holy Spirit can come, but if Jesus had stayed with us, we would have the fullness of God present and would not need anything else. Why did he leave?

The text does not really give an answer. Here is my speculation, based on a common way of understanding this matter down through the centuries. When Jesus returns “in power and great glory”, the time for choice is past. As Paul puts it in Philippians 2, “Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Another term for the return of Christ. When Jesus returns, everyone will see the choice that they have made in this life – to follow God or to turn away from God. C.S. Lewis portrays this event in a remarkable way at the end of the final book in the Narnia Series. I adapt his picture this way: At the end of time, when Jesus returns, every person on earth will walk past him and look him in the face. Everyone will recognize Jesus for who he is, the Eternal and Glorious Son of God. Some will recognize Jesus and know that they love him: They will enter God’s presence forever. Some will recognize Jesus and know that they hate him: They are banished from God’s presence forever. There will be no choice in that moment; rather each one will discover and see clearly the choice that each one has made throughout life.

Jesus left his disciples and this world in order to create the space within which we can choose to follow him or not. He gives us the Holy Spirit because no one can choose to follow God without God’s help. He removes the full glory of God’s presence in the person of the Risen Lord because that presence would overwhelm our senses and we would lose the power of choice.

There is great mystery in all of this – that God should give us the dignity of choosing to follow, that God should agree that we may reject or accept God: this is mystery beyond words. It is also at the heart of reality. When Jesus returns, the time for choice is past; while Jesus is gone and we have God’s Spirit, God also gives us the time and ability to choose for or against God.

Back to the Main Road

The great danger of our lives is that we may choose against God without even realizing what we are doing. We have good intentions, as they say. We want to do good things, but we are faced with the pressures of daily life. Over time, we become less and less aware of God, so that when we finally come face-to-face with God, we don’t like what we see. We become caught up in the struggles of our time, and we forget the most important relationship of all.

Think of it this way. I don’t turn off my computer at night anymore; I just let it “go to sleep”. The trouble is that computers gradually build up little bits of information in their “random access memory”, and these extra unneeded bits of information gradually clog up the computer’s ability to run. Occasionally, my computer gets so full of stuff it doesn’t need that I can see a lag of five seconds or so between typing something and the words appearing on the screen. When this happens, the best thing to do is turn the computer off, which lets it dump all the information it no longer needs. When you turn it back on, it runs almost as good as new! One of the first pieces of advice that IT support gives you is to reboot your computer. It’s amazing what a reboot can fix!

One way that we could respond to all that has happened is by stopping our frantic rush to do things and listen for God’s voice and dwell in God’s presence. We can, if you will, accept the lockdown as an opportunity to reboot the computer of our minds and allow our souls to shed all of the busy-ness that has taken over our lives. We can choose to experience this time of trouble as God’s grace, reminding us to dwell in God’s presence and in the fountainhead of God’s love.

The Province of Manitoba has announced various relaxations of the lockdown. We are watching people across Canada and the United States emerging from their homes, wondering how we are supposed to live in the “new normal”. It has struck me how many people want to pick up where they left off with no change. They have a chance to reboot their lives, and they say, “No!”

When my computer freezes and I have to shut it off by unplugging it completely, it asks me a question when I turn it back on: “Do you want to restore the pages you were working on?” There are those who treat the lockdown that way: Restore the pages I was working on! Give me my life back, with all of the overwork and stress and everything else! I don’t want to learn anything!

Conclusion

The miracle is that God gives us choice. Just as Jesus did in the Ascension, God withdraws enough for us to decide what we want to do. God gives us the Holy Spirit to help us to re-orient our lives around God, but God will not compel us to do so. When Jesus returns, all choice is over. Meanwhile, we can choose to embrace God, to reboot our lives, to restore the original operating system with which God made us.

A few evenings ago, I made a mistake typing on the computer. It was a simple mistake, and the level of frustration that I felt was out of proportion to the actual problem. Afterwards, Lois asked me, “Why were you so upset?” It felt much bigger than it was, because we are under a lot of stress after two months of lockdown. I am under less stress than many. I think of those whose business is threatened by the measures we have taken as a province, or those who are out of work, or those who have lost loved ones, or those who live alone, or those who have had to work on the front lines of the pandemic. It’s not surprising if we experience a collective breakdown. A news report on Thursday said: “It’s estimated that roughly 11 million Canadians will experience ‘high levels of stress in family and work settings,’ according to Health Canada data revealed to Global News. Close to two million Canadians are predicted to show signs of ‘traumatic stress.’” That’s somewhere around 30% who face debilitating stress. These are people we know.

My message this morning is one of faith and of hope. We are experiencing the stage in which Jesus withdraws into Heaven; we also have the promise of God’s continued presence through God’s Spirit; we know that Jesus will return. Our task is to become silent in God’s presence, knowing that God gives us space to choose God’s love and care. During the going deeper time, perhaps we can explore how we do this. It is a great opportunity, but it is also a challenging and frightening time. Perhaps I can say it best in the words of a hymn (#502 in HWB):

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart, wean it from earth, through all its pulses move.

Stoop to my weakness, mighty as thou art, and make me love you as I ought to love.

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies, no sudden rending of the veil of clay,

no angel visitant, no opening skies; but take the dimness of my soul away.

Hast thou not bid us love you, God and King? All, all thine own, soul, heart, and strength and mind;

I see the cross, there teach my heart to cling. O let me seek thee and O let me find!

Teach me to feel that you are always nigh; teach me the struggles of the soul to bear,

To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh; teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.

Teach me to love thee as thine angels love, one holy passion filling all my frame;

The baptism of the heaven-descended Dove; my heart an altar, and thy love the flame.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

24 May 2020

Texts

Psalm 68:1-10, 32-35

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm. A song.

¹ May God arise, may his enemies be scattered; may his foes flee before him. ² May you blow them away like smoke—as wax melts before the fire, may the wicked perish before God. ³ But may the righteous be glad and rejoice before God; may they be happy and joyful.

⁴ Sing to God, sing in praise of his name, extol him who rides on the clouds;
    rejoice before him—his name is the Lord. ⁵ A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. ⁶ God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.

⁷ When you, God, went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, ⁸ the earth shook, the heavens poured down rain, before God, the One of Sinai, before God, the God of Israel. ⁹ You gave abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance. ¹⁰ Your people settled in it, and from your bounty, God, you provided for the poor.

…

³² Sing to God, you kingdoms of the earth, sing praise to the Lord, ³³ to him who rides across the highest heavens, the ancient heavens, who thunders with mighty voice. ³⁴ Proclaim the power of God, whose majesty is over Israel, whose power is in the heavens. ³⁵ You, God, are awesome in your sanctuary; the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people. Praise be to God!

John 17:1-11

Jesus Prays to Be Glorified

17 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. ² For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. ³ Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. ⁴ I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. ⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

Jesus Prays for His Disciples

⁶ “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. ⁸ For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. ⁹ I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. ¹⁰ All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. ¹¹ I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.

Going Deeper Questions

1. What do the ascension and the second coming of Jesus mean to you?

2. How have these been preached in your experience?

3. I suggest that the pandemic is actually God’s gift to help us discover God’s presence. How does this claim fit with your experience? 

4. “God is on our side.” How does this claim fit with your experience?

Peculiar People

What follows is the Children's Story for Sunday's Service (which we recorded today). I don't often do the children's story -- harder I think than preaching any day! But here it is, as best as I could do.

Lee’s sermon is called “A Peculiar People”. What do you think the word “peculiar” means? It means strange or unusual – and not always in a good way. If I look at you and say, “You’re peculiar!” you might not like me very much. But what do you think when Pastor Lee says he’s going to preach about peculiar people?

I think he means us, the church! I can tell you what I think about this, and Pastor Lee will tell us what he thinks in his sermon. You can ask your parents if Pastor Lee said the same thing as I did. If we say the same thing, that’s great! And if we run down different tracks, that’s okay too.

Anyway, my grandparents would have said that the church is “a peculiar people” (or a peculiar group of people), and they would have meant “unusual” – and in a good way. They were unusual because they wanted to follow Jesus more than anything else in the world. The way that they showed it was definitely unusual. They dressed differently than the people around them. I have a picture here. You can’t see it, but I’ll describe it to you.

My grandma is wearing a long dress all the way to the ground. She always kept it buttoned up all the way. She is also wearing a bonnet that covers her whole head. My grandpa is wearing a plain coat and trousers of dark material and a white shirt, buttoned up all the way without a tie. They dressed what they called “plain”. They said that people outside the church dressed fancy, and that they wanted to show that they listened to Jesus and not to the people around them. So they dressed plain. If you saw them today, you might think they were Amish or Hutterite or something like that.

When they walked down the street, some people might have thought they were peculiar – and not in a good way – because of how they dressed, but what they really cared about was not this “peculiar way of dressing”. What they really cared about was what Jesus thought of what they were doing.

Now that’s the kind of peculiar I want to be. I don’t dress like my grandparents! I don’t wear a plain coat, and Lois doesn’t wear a bonnet. But I want to follow Jesus just like they did. I want Jesus to guide my life. I care more about what Jesus thinks of me than I do about what people outside of the church think.

I think that’s probably what Pastor Lee is talking about too. We don’t have to look peculiar to love Jesus. The way my grandparents dressed was one way that they tried to follow Jesus, but they did a lot of other things too. They loved the people around them, and they helped those who needed help, and they cared for their family, and they always asked what God wanted them to do. That’s a good kind of peculiar. We are a peculiar people – unusual because we want to follow Jesus wherever he leads us.

Appendix
The issues this memory of my grandparents get us into are complex indeed, far too complex even for the full sermon. They understood that dressing plain was only a symbol, and they held on to that inner meaning (following God faithfully whatever the world says) fiercely. I remember them with deep respect, even if I never put on the plain suit or ask Lois to wear a head covering. I wish we today had half their desire to follow Jesus; we would make our world a better place if we did.

Mothers Day Memories

My mother -- Dorcas Climenhaga (nee Slagenweit) -- grew up on a dairy farm in Western Pennsylvania. One of eight children -- five boys and three girls. She inherited her mother's get to work attitude, always on the move. (Many years later, I married Lois Heise, who shares the same get moving approach to life. Now she is Gogo -- Zulu for Grandma, and expressive of her constant motion.)

Mother also inherited her father's penchant for jokes and laughter. When I first met PapPap as a three-year old boy just "home" from Zambia (where we lived as a missionary family), he got down on all fours and approached me as a growling bear. I backed up until I reached the wall; he kept coming. Finally, against my parents' standing rule, I pointed my finger at him and went "Bang!" He rolled over and played dead. Mom and Dad decided I hadn't broken their prohibition on "shooting people", since I had really shot a bear.

Mother had the Slagenweit humour to the full. I remember when I was a moody teenager, she would come up to me and start bobbing around me, jabbing and saying, "Let's box!" How can a 14-year old boy stay moody when his 4'11" mother is trying to start a boxing match!

We lived in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe then. We had servants inside and outside the house. People needed work, and refusing to have servants meant making them go hungry, but it was hard for a Pennsylvania farm girl to have someone else cleaning her house. She would tell Rida that they needed to wax the concrete floor (a red concrete I know from Zambia and Zimbabwe) and he would get to work. Then she would get down on her hands and knees beside him and they waxed and polished together. She said that they solved the world's problems working on the floor together. Rida said, "When uMfundisi [meaning my Dad] is the president of the United States and I am the Prime Minister of Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), we will make everything right!"

Mother had the ability to work within the structures while subverting them with God's love and a sense of everyone's essential human-ness. What the Ndebele and Zulu people call "ubuntu". She was a Pennsylvania farm girl and a Bishop's wife and an African mother all together. She was and is my and my sisters' mother, our children's grandmother, and someone we love and miss more than we can say.

We All Need Some Protection

I spend too much time on Facebook – at least that’s what Lois tells me. One of the things that becomes increasingly clear is that people today are frightened and that in our fear we tend to lash out at anyone we think might make our problems worse.

Governments have taken extreme measures in response to the pandemic sweeping the globe, and at least some of us lash out at the government. Others lash out at those who protest the actions taken by local and federal authorities. One person says that the authority figure is a bad person – greatly to be feared, and another replies that the protestor is a bad person – greatly to be feared.

Underlying the protests and the anger are fears that we all share. Will our lives ever be the same again? Will our economies survive? Will our children and our grandchildren have a good world to live in? These fears are rational, and we take them seriously. Real problems exist. The anger and accusations, however, are often irrational, and we need to set them aside. The trouble is, we still need to deal with the real dangers that lie beneath our fears. This task gives our context for reading our passages this morning. Hear them again with me.

John 10

There are at least three contexts for us to keep in mind as we listen to the text from John 10: The original context in which Jesus spoke; the context within which John wrote; and our own context as we read today.

The original context. Often, when we speak to someone, we have more than one audience in mind. The primary audience here are the Pharisees; the disciples are the secondary audience. Jesus tells the Pharisees that they are false shepherds – thieves and robbers. He is also reassuring his disciples that he is the way to life for them and for all who come to him.

The people of Jesus’ time lived in a society full of uncertainty and anxiety. There were political parties who promised to save people: the Sadducees and the Zealots were two such parties – the former advocated complete compliance with the political authorities, and the latter advocated complete rebellion. Jesus says, “You’re both wrong. Your efforts lead to destruction: ‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.’” There were also spiritual parties who claimed that they could save the people: the Pharisees and the Essenes were two such parties – the former emphasized Torah Law with their guidance, while the latter took holiness even further and insisted on even greater ritual purity. Jesus rejects their efforts as well.

To the Pharisees, Jesus said that he was the gate through which any such party would enter, if they really meant to help the people of Israel – the sheep of God’s sheepfold. To the disciples, Jesus said that safety and security were found only in him, not in any other religious or political group or program.

The larger text in John 10 includes these words (v. 17f): “The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” A basic point in Jesus’ words is this prediction of his own death, which is the true way of salvation for the world.

The Writer’s Context. John wrote these words many years later. My own guess is that he wrote the gospel near the end of his life, perhaps 50 years or so after the events. I believe that John, the writer, is the same John who was Jesus’ disciple – “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” You might call this book “the gospel of love” – but I get ahead of myself. He had thought about these events all his life. He had told the stories many times, and the details were clear in his mind. John lived in Ephesus and probably wrote his gospel down in that city, on the coast of modern Turkey, within the Roman Empire of his day. The island of Patmos was not far away in the Aegean Sea.

Just as there had been when Jesus walked this earth, there were significant dangers facing the early church as John wrote his gospel. Some years before (in the mid-60s), Nero had struck out against Christians, leading to the executions of the apostles Peter and Paul. As John was writing, a new Emperor controlled people’s lives, the Emperor Domitian. This is the same period in which the book of Revelation was written, and we can see behind the gospel record the same awareness of those who would indeed seek to “steal and kill and destroy” the church.

In this context of persecution, many parties promised salvation. Some advocated collaborating with Rome, even if it meant going against faith in Christ. Others wanted to fight against Rome. Some offered new religious answers, saying that they alone knew the special spiritual meanings of the teachings of Jesus. Some said that Jesus was not really the Son of God and that they could tell you what God really wanted everyone to do.

To all of them, John says clearly: Jesus is the gate by which a true shepherd comes in. Indeed, Jesus is the true Shepherd. If your answer to the problems of life does not go through Jesus, the Son of God, you are an impostor, and we should not listen to you. Jesus is the Messiah, the Chosen One of God; all other “saviours” are impostors.

Our Context Today. As I said at the beginning, we also face real dangers today – political, economic, and spiritual. Although many of us have lived relatively safe lives, this year, our world has been turned upside down by the corona virus, and many now experience trouble much like the days when Jesus walked in Palestine and the days when John taught as an old man in Ephesus. Such times bring out the usual constellation of people and movements who think they can save us. We have economic saviours and political saviours. We have religious saviours and psychological saviours. I’m not interested in analysing them this morning: We don’t need to argue politics or psychology as part of the sermon. I am interested, however, in one characteristic they all share: They tell us that they and they alone can save us.

John reminds them and us of Jesus: “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.” Whatever our political views and whatever our economic plans, salvation and real life comes only through Jesus. We’ll explore what that means after we consider the Old Testament reading.

Psalm 23

Psalm 23 is perhaps the best beloved passage in all Scripture. In the old Mennonite Hymnal, the psalm appears four times in the space of five hymns in four different arrangements!

¹ The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want for anything. ² He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, ³ he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.

⁴ Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. ⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

⁶ Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

One notes that the psalmist lacks nothing even in the darkest valley, even when surrounded by enemies. This is a Psalm for troubled times. It has one clear theme: That “the Lord”, the Ruler of the Universe, is on our side. The Psalm never suggests eliminating the problems or the surrounding enemies. This is not a good text for the prosperity gospel! “Goodness and love” follow the faithful every day – not just when times are good, but also when times are hard; not just when the sun shines, but also when storms gather and threaten to sweep us away.

In this Psalm, we hear a foretaste of Jesus’ words promising safety and peace to his disciples. Safety and peace are found only in belonging to the Lord, who is the true shepherd. The figure of the shepherd is often identified with the king in the Old Testament; here “my shepherd” is God, the true king of Israel. There is no substitute for faith in God.

Synthesis

We return now to the question I hinted at a bit ago: What does it mean to come to trust in God alone (as Psalm 23 calls us to do)? What does it mean to rely on Jesus as the true Shepherd (as John 10 calls us to do)? It is not enough to say, “I believe in Jesus.” That is a necessary first step, but it must be acted on and lived out in concrete terms. What then does it mean?

A Tangent: We could talk about how we find protection and safety – what it means to “rest in God’s presence” and be in the sheepfold. “Be still and know that I am God” is a basic step in knowing God’s love and peace. I am asking, “Once we do that, what do we become? How do we act?” Not, how do we find peace, but how do we live when we have received peace from the true Shepherd?

John, the writer of the gospel and the disciple of Jesus, was clear about what he thought this means. In John 13, he recalls Jesus’ words: “Love each other as I have loved you. This is how people will know that you are my disciples.” In John 17, he recalls the way Jesus prayed for unity in the garden, preceding his crucifixion. In 1 John 2, he writes, “⁴ Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. ⁵ But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them.”

John’s letters are full of exhortations to love. Among many other verses, I refer to just one more set of verses, in 1 John 4:

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. ²¹ And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

It is clear that at least so far as John is concerned, we show our faith in God by living lives of love – love for God and love for all people around us, love “for the household of faith” and also for every person in the world.

So What?

I began the sermon with memories of Facebook conversations about the Corona Virus. As I reflect on the fear all around us, I am reminded that Jesus promises protection; and we all need protection. I am reminded that Jesus promises safety to those who come in through the gate, that is through him; and we all need safety. Jesus tells us that no one else can offer safety and life. These are available only in and through Jesus.

Many Christians would agree with me that far, but I am pushing the point further. Responding to people in love means that I do not attack them. I do not suggest that my “enemies” are bad people who want to destroy me. I treat them always with respect and concern for their good. This is harder than it sounds. In times of distress, people often attack others indiscriminately.

Families know this truth. When a parent refuses a child’s request for something that would be bad for the child, the child may respond with an angry “I hate you!” Yet the parent knows that the outburst represents frustration rather than rejection. A good parent responds with love, not with an attack in return. The point is that when someone attacks us, we respond in love – even as parents do to their children and as Jesus has done for us.

Jesus wants us to embody love and care for the people around us. In the political arena, danger leads us to divide and attack. Jesus says, “Love each other as I have loved you.” In the business arena, danger and the threat of failure leads us to fight for our lives. Jesus says, “Love each other as I have loved you.” In all of our relationships, danger leads us to be suspicious of each other; Jesus says, “Love each other as I have loved you.”

Conclusion

You will have to work out for yourselves what this means in practical terms. The sort of thing I remember is how I felt in one of my job interviews as a pastor. I felt as though the board interviewing me treated me unfairly, and I told my bishop about it. He reminded me that the community makes these decisions and we can trust them to do what is right under the Holy Spirit’s guidance. He was right. Several of the board members who interviewed me are personal friends, and I know that they were seeking to do what was best for the church. I’m reminded of the old BIC Bishop who went to a particularly contentious conference. Afterwards, his son asked him what he thought of the decisions made there. He replied, “I don’t like what they did, but I trust the Brethren.” That is the response of love. When we to the true Shepherd, we follow his desires in our lives, and we live in faith and love for all people around us.

Steinbach Mennonite Church

3 May 2020

Psalm 23

A Psalm of David.

¹ The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. ² He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters, ³ he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.

⁴ Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. ⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

⁶ Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

John 10: 1-10

The Good Shepherd and His Sheep

10 “Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. ² The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. ³ The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴ When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵ But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.” ⁶ Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.

⁷ Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸ All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. ⁹ I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

·         Focus statement: Everyone needs help, but where we get it from and what we use it for is what matters most.

·         Thought provoking question: Where do you turn for help with the current pandemic, and what do you do with the help you receive?

·         Going Deeper Questions:

1) What are some of the sources of help you see people around us turning to in crisis?

2) What are the beneficial and negative effects of the help we receive?

3) How can we respond to fear and anxiety in life-giving ways, so that we grow stronger, not weaker?