Easter 4 (A) – 1 Peter 2:19-25. “Good Shepherd Sunday.” Other readings for the day included Psalm 23.
Singing:
I just want to be a sheep. Baa-baa-baa-baa.
I just want to be a sheep. Baa-baa-baa-baa.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
I just want to be a sheep. Baa-baa-baa-baa.
Having sung all that, I have a confession to make. I don’t want to be a sheep.
Good Shepherd Sunday is one of those days that so many people look forward to every year, because we get to read Psalm 23 and read all these wonderful texts about sheep and shepherds. And that’s so true that there are people in our culture who have never stepped foot in a church, who know Psalm 23 and love it, and find great comfort from it. It’s one of those text that just sings to God’s people. But I don’t get it.
I’ve heard it and read it all my life, and it doesn’t work for me. I don’t want to be a sheep. I don’t need that kind of care. I am an independent person; I want to take care of myself. My mother raised me well. She taught me all of the things I needed to grow up and be an adult and be independent. And now I’m 31 years old. And for the first time in my life, I really am independent. I’m living on my own, and I think I’m doing a pretty good job of it. I have an apartment up in Leominster–I had an apartment in seminary and in college, but living on your own in college is different from living on your own “for real.” So I have an apartment of my own and a rent payment of my own that I always seem to make. I have a job and career that I love. I have a life. And I don’t need anyone else to support me.
That’s our goal, isn’t it? In our world, that’s how we’re raised, and that’s what we learn. We look down with scorn on people who are 30 years old and living in their parents’ basement, even though sometimes, that’s what they need; that’s the best they can do, and it’s a loving, wonderful thing that their parents can continue to provide for them, and a relationship that can continue to grow and deepen because they’re so close to each other. We rejoice with excitement when someone buys their first house, as if that were the most important thing one could ever do in their lives. And it is a good thing.
But we’re so focused on independence that we can’t let other people help us. Even in the worst of our times, even in our greatest sorrow and suffering, we have trouble asking for help. Two weeks ago, I was on vacation visiting my Uncle Bob in Michigan. Bob is dealing with stage 4 kidney cancer, which is not good news, in case you’re not sure. And thanks to some tumors which were pressing on his spine and the subsequent surgery and recovery time, he is now confined to bed. He can’t even go to the bathroom without help. And yet he sees his wife, my Aunt Chris, run around like a chicken with her head cut off, taking care of him–something she loves to do because she’s got a little bit of that martyr streak in her where it just makes her delighted for everyone else to see how hard she’s working. And really, more than that, she loves him, and cares for him. And he sees her do this, and doesn’t want to ask her for help. He doesn’t want to be an imposition. He’s confined to bed and has trouble for asking for help! Now where on earth in our culture does that come from?
But at some level, that’s how we all are. We take our suffering and we bear it, and we use words like “bearing our own cross,” because other people have theirs and so we belittle our own suffering. And in 1 Peter, we learn today that it doesn’t have to be like that. It sounds at first glance that 1 Peter is saying that suffering is a good thing. Something like, you should carry your suffering and know that it earns you merit when you don’t deserve it. That’s not really what he’s saying; listen to his reasoning. “For to this you have been called because Christ also suffered for you.” For you! “Leaving you an example so that you should follow in His steps.”
Suffering when it serves a purpose can be valuable, and can be a holy thing. I want to be very careful in this: Suffering when it serves no purpose is not. If you are creating suffering for yourself, stop it. You don’t need that. There’s too much else in your life to deal with. And if someone else is hurting you, tell someone and get help. We don’t say that often enough from the pulpit, and that’s a mistake.
But if your suffering, if what you’re bearing, what you’re dealing with in your life has purpose–even if that purpose is just the suffering of grief that reveals the love you have for the person you have lost; or the suffering that happens when you lose a job, that show how much you love the people you care for and have an obligation to provide for, and you suddenly find it much harder to fulfill those obligations–even if it’s those kind of purposes, it can be a wonderful thing, and it doesn’t have to be borne alone.
A good friend of mine from seminary, her name is Angie, she was about five blocks away from me on internship, we had churches that were very close to each other, and so we dealt with some of the things that we were going through together, and it was so much better that way. I’m amazed; she graduated a year before I did, and has only more recently than I gotten a call, called to a little church in Ohio that really can’t afford to pay her a living wage, but she finally had to take something. It’s really heartbreaking to me that with all the controversy and challenge that I bring with me, I still find it easier to get a call than an African-American woman in today’s church.
And so I was talking to Angie one day, and I said, you know, it just amazes me that every day, you walk out the front door of your house, your home which is a sacred and safe place for you, and you walk into a world that is hostile from the moment you walk out the door because everyone can see the color of your skin. And I know that can’t be easy. And I said to her, I know in your church, there are people who will deal with you for the year of your internship but will rejoice when you go. I don’t know where you get the energy for that. And she said to me, some days it is hard. But for the privilege of preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ, I would do anything. Because I don’t do it alone. Jesus suffered for me and continues to do so, and continues to walk with me and love me and care for me and guard me and protect me from all those things that would do me harm. And from Him I get all the energy and strength that I need.
Sisters and brothers, we want to go it alone. We want to be independent. But we are forever dependent on the God who loves us. And that is a good thing.
Whatever it is that you’re bearing, you don’t have to carry it alone. Jesus walks with you. And loves you and cares for you and guards you and protects you. Because he is the shepherd and the guardian of your soul. Amen.