Be good shepherds to one another

 There seems to have been a recent renewed interest in sheep and shepherds, Philip Walling’s “Counting Sheep” and James Rebanks best selling “The Shepherd’s Life” both published in the last five or six years come to mind and I am sure there are others, fuelled by the renewed and special subject of traditional breeds. Walling suggest that the lives of shepherds and those connected with sheep husbandry are these days in a parallel world largely unnoticed by the majority of the population yet this was not always so: the wealth of our nations was founded upon woll and in Jesus’ day the flocks were huge and the shepherds numerous although poor and distrusted. Jesus says “I am the good shepherd”, a fine metaphor - if you have a few sheep Anthea has some in her little paddock for example - then you want to entrust them to somebody competent, honest and eligible, someone who knows what is best for them, who can aid their lambing and collect them from their wanderings when they need to come down from the hills in winter. 

Not that all sheep are alike; a few names to think about: The Leicester, Swaledale, Cheviot, Suffolk, Hardwicke and so on each of which have a distinctive appearance and they do have a varied lifestyle. The sheep of Ronaldsay, for example, travel up and down with the tide and are so fond of seaweed that they will sometimes swim out to discover tender shoots on small islands. I have taken lunch with a sheep who, having gained access to the dining room, refused all efforts to budge him out again. So it is worth considering this metaphor some more to substitute any view we are holding of white dots of cotton wool on a green hillside with a much more varied population akin to the variety of the human race. Jesus is the good shepherd and we are all of his flock. 

Of course when we are out and about in the dales the sheep are there doing sheepy things, looking strong and independent and yet as we know they need help quite often. My catalogue of rescued sheep and lambs continues to grow and this week Frances’ phone call included a story of saving an ewe and her lamb from the Dorset highway. We too need help and assistance quite often, especially when shadowed by sorrow or need and we are then able to turn to the great shepherd of the sheep in prayer asking for the help we need. Our shepherd laid down his life for us, and will answer our prayers but most often now in the agency of other people. 

Returning to the letter from John where we read that:

“… we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abode in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need but refuses help?”

This gives a different emphasis to laying down our lives. There are thankfully few who are called to physically give their lives for a cause but we are ALL enjoined to lay down our lives in the sense of dying to self, setting aside our own wishes, dislikes and priorities to help others. We did see this during the last year in many communities, including our own. The team which twice a day, every day for week after week checked on the RED/GREEN cards to be sure that residents were safe had to forgo a warm morning or night at home and sometimes probably more. In this sense they laid aside something of their own lives. There are many other examples but all of them help us to remember that we each need to be Good Shepherds to one another. 

Have we not seen miracles enough? Exodus 16:4-15

I love the Old Testament  and tonight's reading from Exodus illustrates one of the reasons. I noticed the other week or so in the Guardian an article lamenting the performance of Sir Keir Starmer as leader of the Labour Party. Now such a lament is to be expected from the Telegraph but since this was in the Labour Party’s house journal I sat up to take notice. After all, it was not so long ago that the same paper had so high an opinion of Sir Keir that they daily polished his reputation. What had happened? Well it does not really matter because I want to return to the Israelites. Only in the chapter before our reading we hear the song of Miriam:

“I will sing to the Lord for he is highly exalted
Both horse and driver he has hurled into the sea
The Lord is my strength and my defense
He has become my salvation
He is my God and I will praise HIm 
My father’s God and I will exalt him.”

But at the beginning of our chapter the Israelites are grumbling: “Why have you brought us into this desert, we should never have come, at least in Egypt we sat around pots of meat and had all the food we wanted, but you, you have brought us to this wilderness to starve us to death.”

It is the same you see, “Kier at least under Corbyn we knew where we were, now we are lost straddling fences shy of attacking this horrid government “ or anyway something like that.

And I love that the people of the Old Testament are as real, as human and as fickle as we are. For then it is easy to get inside the story. The Israelites were unhappy as slaves of Pharaoh, they watched the various plagues sent, they saw the parting of the Red Sea, the defeat of their enemies and now on the 15th day of the second month, so a mere 45 days after the Passover they are unreasonably cross with Moses and Aaron. Had they not seen miracles enough?  But yet they complain. The Lord hears them, has compassion upon them and sends quails in the evening and so much manna in the morning that it seems like frost on the ground. 

Which is why I am optimistic about the environment. Have we not seen miracles enough? God gave us the miracle of this planet and all its abundant life and I am certainly not saying that we should continue abusing it in the ways we have been nor that we should not amend our ways but I am confident that we were given miracles in the past and that there are miracles we do not yet know about and that there are more to come.

Amen

 

Peter from wayward to obedient

 Peter sometimes gets a bad rap. We remember him trying to set up booths for Moses, Elijah and Jesus. We remember him having insufficient faith to walk across the sea to Jesus, we remember him refusing to let Jesus wash his feet, and that threefold denial before the cock crows. His frailty and fallibility are undoubtedly encouraging to us for even with all these weaknesses Jesus makes him the head of the church. 

This morning’s reading from the book of Acts, Luke’s account of the early days of the church has been set adrift from its context. “When Peter saw it he addressed the people.” A strange beginning which prompts us to look back to answer our question “When Peter saw what?”

The preceding story is set at the beautiful gate of the Temple where a lame man is being carried in as he is every day to lay there and to beg for alms from the people going in for the three o’clock prayers. Peter and John seeing him there begging from them declined to give him any money but instead Peter said: “I have no silver or gold but what I have I give you - in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth stand up and walk.” The lame man is spectacularly healed and he enters the temple walking and leaping about praising God.” When the people saw this they all ran to Peter and John who by now are in Solomon’s portico. And this is what Peter saw, an excited, enervated crowd running to them to hail them and give him and John the credit for the miracle. Now this is a new Peter, not the one who ran away from a servant girl and the taunting when she said “He is one of them!” but one who has been empowered by the events of recent weeks. 

The transforming effects of the resurrection and of Jesus’ appearances to them all the coming of the Holy Spirit (for all this takes place after Pentecost) not to mention his own self confidence boosted by these miracles of healing have so altered Peter that he wants to confront, argue with and if possible change the crowd in front of him. He absolutely grasps the opportunity to do so which may be even more surprising since here in the Temple he leaves us in no doubt that this audience are the “crucify” crying people of Good Friday. Brave therefore in the face of possible attack or arrest yet he does not hide his belief and allegiance. 

In our Gospel reading Jesus stood among them and said “Thus it is written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be procl;aimed in his name to ALL nations beginning with Jerusalem.” Notice how closely Peter follows these instructions. He and John are at the Temple in Jerusalem at the very centre of the Jewish world; they are to take the message of the Messiah to all nations. Peter begins his preaching by recalling Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to underline that Jesus is from the one true God, the God of these people, of their ancestors and of Peter. By this power has the lame man been healed, we Peter and John are but witnesses, just as Jesus said, and look at what Peter proclaims - repentance and forgiveness. He says repent and your sins may be wiped out.

Peter, previously known as wayward; “Get behind me Satan”, Jesus told him, is now fully in line, following the instructions to the letter, he is changed forever. There are the transforming results of all they had seen, felt, herald and now fully believed. Can we reach back to grasp this and be transformed ourselves?

Do not worry C of E

 Deuteronomy 7:7-13

Moses knows full well and so do we that the Israelites can be stiff necked and rebellious, witness their behaviour in the wilderness or at the foot of mount Sinai. Now they are established in Egypt, Moses, is exhorting them to obey God’s commandments and statutes especially those concerning the worship, or I should say the prohibition to worship, foreign gods and idols. As I say they have form on this one. Moses has just reminded them that they are a Holy people to the Lord God and that they have been chosen to be a special people above all the people on the earth. He then explains that this is an outpouring of God’s grace, there was nothing to commend them at all. They were an inconsiderable number when brought out of Egypt and even now settled as they are they are the fewest of all the peoples. [Hittites, Girgashites, Ammonites, Cananites, Perezites are all more numerous.] God chose to love them but not for their merits. God is not earthly, where the greatness of our kings is measured by the numbers of their peoples. He loved them because he would love them. I have mentioned before that Peter Schaeffer’s play Amadeus opens with Salieri looking at a picture, he tells us it is of an Old Testament God, the sort of God you could bargain with. There is a hint of this at the end of Moses’ speech “If you heed these ordinances … he will love you, bless you and multiply you, the fruit of your ground, grain, wine,oil, cattle and flock” which sounds like a good deal doesn’t it. I think that considering it as a bargain though must I think to misread Moses' intent.

Rather he seems to be saying “Look without you deserving anything, God chose to love you and remember that a fruit of that love was the oath he swore to your ancestors so recently exemplified by bringing you out of Egypt. This love moreover is steadfast, returned to you who love HIM to the thousandth generation. 

Actually it seems we already have the gifts of grain, wine, oil, cattle and flock not to mention much else besides all of which are the fruits of his love for us.

So please can we take this on board? I have from time to time commented that in these recent  times the Church of England has become an anxious place; our leaders worry about the size of the declared membership (prepare for probable rending of garments following the census), they worry about balancing their budgets (see the clergy pay freeze and the call for bishops to be paid less) they worry about our buildings (committee after committee in a constant state of review) they worry  about how many clergy there are (see our own diocesan deployment review). Where is Moses in all this? Where is the simple faith “God loves you, he loves his church  - obey the statutes, stick to the great commission and God will bless and multiply you.?

So please do not worry, C of E, do not be disheartened, hear the promises of God which he made down to the thousandth generation. 

Amen