Broadway Christian Church ·Columbia, Missouri
Morning Worship ·May 29, 2005
Prayer of the Day
Lord, as we receive the gift of life, we need a shepherd. In this hour of worship and beyond, keep guiding us in your way. Keep restoring your image in us. Give us the courage to walk in your way. Amen.
ScriptureJohn 10:11-18
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The hired person runs away because he is the hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this flock. I must bring them in also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one folk and one shepherd. 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 down my life and I have authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
Message
From the Separated to the Sheep
Rick Frost
You know how easy it is for us in this room to forget. Even though we live in such an incredible time and an amazing place, how easy it is for us to forget. How easy it is for us to forget we live in a community. We live in a state. We live in nation where 55 per cent of our people grow up in broken homes. Twenty per cent of our people are raised solely by our mothers. Thirty-three per cent of our people are growing up as latchkey kids. Twenty per cent, one in five persons in this country, are literally living in poverty. How easy it is for us in this room to forget.
In a national poll that was conducted 30 years ago asking 50,000 parents in this country, “If you could go back and do it all over again, would you have children?” Seventy per cent responded, “No.”
As you know, 75,000,000 Americans born between 1961 and 1980 have an X attached to their generation’s name. That X, that mathematical symbol, stands for what? The unknown. A huge number of persons, folks, who have, other than their peers, very few persons in this world, in their lives who care for them and who have taken the time to really get to know them. And they are everywhere.
They were the first generation, as you know, to be computer literate, but they were largely a generation who were unwanted and unknown. Thirty per cent of their generation was aborted. Of those who saw the light of day, there were four times as many chances they would likely be incarcerated than in the generation before them. And they were 30 times more likely to be institutionalized in a mental hospital than those before them.
Folks, we have millions and millions of people in this country and thousands of people in this community without a shepherd. Thousands, millions who want to belong to someone, because they never really belonged to anyone or anything. Millions who haven’t had anyone to take the time to find them, much less to lead them. So if there is any passage of Scripture that I could think of that speaks of the loneliness that can speak to the sadness, to the isolation, to those who literally are separated from, I think it is today’s text.
Jesus stands in the middle of all those who are gathered around him, and he says to them, “I am the good shepherd. And the good shepherd lays down his life for sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd. The hired hand sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, runs away. The wolves snatch, scatter the flock, but I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me.”
It’s all about knowing. It’s not about believing or thinking. It’s about knowing. It’s about being transformed from being the separated ones to being sheep. And we know, because we say it, and we experience it, and we live it over and over again. That takes place as an encounter by knowing the Christ.
It’s all about being brought into a new family, a real family, a family that genuinely cares for its people, who gets to know us as individuals, who loves us and values us. It’s about being brought into a family where we get to know the One who actually knit us together in our mother’s womb, carved us in the palm of its hand, cares for us more than a mother or father for a child. A family, a new family, where we matter so much that even if one of us wanders off into the sunset, the shepherd – the good shepherd – will come and look for us until he finds us and brings us back home.
Stories abound right here in this community of faith. I look around. I know you know the story. I have my story. But they are not my stories to tell in public. Perhaps the day will come when you can stand where I stand today, or maybe stand somewhere else, and you can tell the day, the night, the time, the place, that he came to you. For that is what the good shepherd does.
Some of us wander off when we get to finding ourselves in no-man’s land. Some of us, (I have experienced this), get left in the middle of nowhere. But Jesus stands among us and comes wherever we might be, even in the middle of nowhere and says, “You are my beloved. You are my sheep. I am the good shepherd. You belong to me. Indeed, you may not know it, but I know absolutely everything there is to know about you. And now I want you to know absolutely everything about me.”
Some time ago, a man sat in my office, and he said, “I’ve wandered so far off – things are such a mess right now – I don’t even think there is a God any more.” There he was, sitting in my office, and he could have just as easily come right off the pages of the New Testament. The gospels are filled with people like him.
A woman caught in adultery – the wolves are gathering to attack – and Jesus reaches out his hand and picks her up and says, “You’re free of them. Go and sin no more.” And she does.
A tax collector named Zacchaeus, the resident schmuck in the city, and Jesus spots him hiding in the sycamore tree. He says to him, “You know, I can even make sheep out of schmucks.” That’s a loose translation, but it is something like that. He says, “Come on down. Let’s go have lunch together.”
A Samaritan woman who knows nothing but shame and the scorn that comes from living on the wrong, hard side of the tracks, bumps into Jesus at a well one day, and moments later she is out telling the whole village that she has met someone who knows everything she’s ever done and still loves her anyway.
And you remember that criminal nailed to a cross next to Jesus. He was a man who had wandered so far from God, he had no illusions that he would even be able to sneak in the back door of heaven. Even he, with all of his guilt, all of his shame, is pulled back into the flock. Then he hears those awesome, awesome, powerful, undeserving, grace-filled words, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
Folks, I know it is hard. I know it’s hard for many of us in this room, in the way we are so fortunate and pleased and privileged to live, for us to remember. It’s hard for us to understand. But there are millions of us out there without a shepherd.
Now, I want you to hear something. I want you to know that you cannot save them. That’s what Jesus does. But I can tell you that you can invite them. You can be kind to them. You can invite them. You can welcome them to come and see. Come and listen. Come and meet a friend of yours.
Now they may say, “No thanks.” It happens to me all the time. It’s OK. “No” is an OK response. Don’t be put off by that. Just invite somebody else, because 62 per cent of the people who live within two miles of this very building do not have a shepherd. The amazing thing is 45 per cent of those people wish they did. They openly, admittedly wish they did. Now they are not going to take the initiative. They are just not “belongers.” They don’t go out. They are sort of that unknown “X Group.” But maybe, just maybe, you could be the link. All you have to do is ask.
Now please don’t mishear me. I’m not picking out one generation. There are five of us generations out there. Lots of folks in every single one of those generations do not have a shepherd. We just used one today as an illustration. But you might be the link. You might be the very person who just by your kind invitation made that connection.
Meanwhile, there is a passage of Scripture that I recommend you read over and over and over again until it is sort of like a mantra – a sacred saying grooved into your heart and your mind and your soul – one that you can repeat from memory any day, any place. I lead services on occasion where we repeat this particular Scripture. It is the one printed in your bulletin, and I would ask you to turn to it now. I want to not only ask you to read it with me in a moment, but to take it home with you and tape to your mirror, or put it on your refrigerator, or push it into your PDA. I don’t care where you put it; just take it home today. Let’s read it together. It’s the great 23rd Psalm. Every Christian ought to know this by heart. Let’s read it together in the old language.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
The Lord is our shepherd.
And we all say together… “Amen.”
Benediction
Shepherd of my soul, I have heard your call. Soften my heart to listen for your voice, to find myself home, here, enfolded in your Spirit and the loving arms of your flock. Amen.
