Listen to the Shepherd: Presented to Trinity UMC, May 12, 2019 - Mother's Day
Psalm 23
John
10-22-30 (The New Revised Standard Version)
22 At
that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It
was winter,
23
and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.
24
So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, "How long will
you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly."
25
Jesus
answered, "I have told you, and you do not believe. The works
that I do in my Father's name testify to me;
26 but
you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.
27 My
sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.
28
I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will
snatch them out of my hand
29What
my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can
snatch it out of the Father's hand.
30 The
Father and I are one."
Mother's
Voice.
Of
the many voices that we hear, listen to, pay attention to, the first
and perhaps most significant is our mother's voice. Even before
birth, babies can hear their mother's voice. Of course, babies don't
know the words, but they hear to tone and cadence. By the third
trimester 6th -9th month, babies can recognize
their mother's voice and respond with increased heart rate,
suggesting they are more alert or excited when mother is speaking. We
know when we are born that mother's voice is important. We respond to
that voice as to no other. Mother's voice is deeply imbedded in who
we are.
How
many of you are sitting in church this morning because of what you
heard from your mother or grandmother? Probably every one of us.
Some of us may remember our mother as a pious or saintly woman – a
woman of God- but not everyone has that kind of mother. Yours may
have been a busy woman, overworked and underpaid, irritable,
quick-tempered, not sparing the rod. You may have been raised by a
grandmother or aunt or foster mother. Whatever your memory, that
mother figure was central to your becoming who you are today. So much
of what we know about how to be a person in the world, we learned
from them, whether we are living up to it or living it down. And
because we are here today, I'm guessing that our first introduction
to Jesus, church, the Bible – all of what we call religion and
faith- originated with our mother or grandmother or mother-figure.
Her voice may be the one that primed us to hear the voice of Jesus,
the Good Shepherd, calling to us.
Many
of you know my mother, Clara Nelle Westmoreland Taylor. There are
many positive adjectives that I could use to describe by mother,
including Christian woman of faith, but pious or saintly are not
adjectives that I would choose. Mother taught me many important
lessons, or at least she tried. I didn't always listen. Can you
believe that? I was more than a little stubborn and usually
convinced that I was right. Sometimes I ignored my mother's voice,
usually to my peril. Sometimes I just heard what I wanted to hear.
We call that selective hearing. We all have selective hearing with
certain people or certain issues. We've made up our minds, so we
don't really listen.
Jesus
said that there is another way of speaking, “ The works I do in
my Father's name testify about me.” The most significant life
lessons I learned from my mother were by her examples. I don't think
that in day-to-day life she was always conscious of setting an
example, but children observe and mimic. Many parents' vocabulary has
been cleaned up after hearing their words repeated by toddlers! I
learned from her actions and deeds what kind of woman my mother was
and what kind of woman I could become. I know she valued truth and
courage and hard work and dependability. I'm still learning lessons
from her as she teaches me with her life how to age with spirit,
grace and dignity.
Jesus'
Voice
I
think we have often listened to Jesus the way we listened to our
mother. We have heard him speak as we have read scripture, listened
to the preaching of the word and talked with others about him. I
have never personally, literally heard his voice. Have you? We have
always heard his voice second hand. Like that baby in the womb who
is separated from the world by mother's body, we are separated from
Jesus by the physical barrier of mortality and the voice we hear is
muffled or muted. We don't really have direct knowledge. As Paul
says in 1 Corinthians, we “see through a glass darkly,”
and we hear dimly.
The
Jews in today's gospel reading didn't have that barrier. They were
walking and talking with Jesus himself – no muffling, no
translators or interpreters needed. And they asked him: If you are
the Messiah, tell us plainly. And he answered just like our mother
might have responded: I told you a hundred times! Didn't you listen?
Didn't you hear what I said?
And
the true answer is No, they hadn't heard. Maybe they had already made
up their minds. Maybe they were trying to trip Him up. Maybe they
were only listening for a particular kind of answer and Jesus wasn't
giving it to them. Jesus had not answered the question the way they
expected. They had their pre-conceived notions, their fixed ideas
about what the Messiah should be and Jesus just didn't fit the model,
so they didn't hear him clearly. They practiced selective hearing.
Jesus said they didn't recognize his voice, because they didn't
belong to him – didn't want to belong to his flock.
How
smug we can be from our perspective, 2000 years later. If we are
Christian, we already take for granted that Jesus was the Messiah, so
that is a question asked and answered. We've made up our mind. We've
heard about him all our lives, almost from the womb. Are we really
so different from those Jews of old. We know the stories. We have
already made up our mind about who he is supposed to be. So when our
questions arise, when we glibly ask, “What would Jesus do?” can
we really hear his answer. Or do we, too, practice selective hearing.
No
matter where we are in life, questions do come up that must be
answered anew. How do we adapt to our aging bodies? How do we manage
care for loved ones or for ourselves when we can no longer live
independently? How do we cope with losing loved ones? How do we
extend our love to people who are very different than us? How do we
reach out to a community when everyone is not like us? How do we
respond when new issues come up such as the Methodist Church is
currently grappling with. What will be our response and our church's
response to the current issue of the role and status of
non-traditional gendered clergy and marriage, even to the future of
the United Methodist Church?
When
we ask Jesus what we should do – as we pray, read scripture, listen
to sermons, talk with others – can we hear his message to us? In
order to hear Jesus' answers to our questions, we need to let go of
what we expect to hear or want to hear and listen to what Jesus is
really saying.
How
do we know what he is really saying? He tells us as clearly as he
told those Jewish leaders - “ The works that I do in my Father's
name testify to me.” or as “The
Message” says
“Everything
I have done has been authorized by my Father, actions that speak
louder than words.”
He tells them (and us) that he was not just a “miracle worker,”
or magician. He was and is one with God. His works are God's work. We
know him by his deeds and by knowing Jesus, we know God.
What
kind of work was Jesus doing? In the 4th
chapter of Luke, it is reported that Jesus went to his hometown of
Nazareth and spoke in the synagogue. He said of himself here in the
beginning of his ministry, quoting Isaiah “The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He
has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to
the prisoners, and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the
oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”
The people heard his words, but didn't hear his message and they ran
him out of town. They were looking for a different kind of Messiah, a
political Messiah. Jesus' ministry was not to be from a pulpit and
among the religious leaders. His ministry was among the common
people, the poor and dispossessed - healing, teaching, offering love
and acceptance and forgiveness to those who heard his voice – those
who had ears to hear. The New Testament shows us over and over that
Jesus went out of his way to minister to those who had been excluded.
I
told someone recently that our Pastor preaches just one message.
Every sermon is a variation of that message. And the message is
about the love of God poured out through Jesus for us and the world.
The imagery of the 23rd
Psalm speaks about God's abundant love for us. The Shepherd imagery
that Jesus uses speaks about God's abundant love for us. Jesus'
actions demonstrated that love to those who are least in the eyes of
the world – the poor and shunned. We know him by his actions.
So
when we ask, 'what should I do, how should I respond, what would
Jesus do?' let us look to his works as our guide. Offer love and
acceptance to all of God's sheep, without exception.
Once
a teacher, always a teacher. Therefore, I will leave you with a
homework assignment: three questions for your personal reflection.
- How do Jesus words and deeds help you understand God?
- How does this church nurture belief and discipleship – following Jesus' example?
- What do your works (deeds) communicate about your identity and discipleship?
Closing
Prayer:
Good
Shepherd, as the baby in the womb knows its mothers voice, may we
know you. As your sheep who know your voice, may we hear hear. Help
us to let go of what we want to hear in order to hear you anew with
all our heart, our spirit and our mind. Let us never give up in
loving you and loving others as much as we love ourselves. In the
name and spirit of the Messiah, we ask it. Amen.
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