Easter 4 (C) + Listen to the Shepherd + 4.17.16

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M. Campbell-Langdell

All Saints, Oxnard

(Acts 9:36–43; Ps. 23; Revelation 7:9–17; John 10:22–30)

I remember the moment well. I was very nervous. I was walking across the springtime splendor of my upstate New York college campus with my professor, an anthropologist of Indian extraction whom I admired greatly. Who had taught me about neocolonialism and Aboriginal dreamtime and thinking outside of the Western Hierarchical-Progress box. All of a sudden, he asked me what my plans were for after graduation.  And I explained to him, that after  almost four years of studying the effects of colonialism in Latin America and around the world, and trying to see how I could make the world a better place, I was thinking of going into one of the bastions of colonialism-the church-to become a priest. My fear was that he would snarl at me in disgust or be disappointed – this young white woman is just going to go take all that we have invested in her and use it to reinforce the establishment. But no. He turned to me and said, good! Good to go into something out of the center and work towards a better world from a different angle. And it was one of the single biggest moments for me of affirmation in my call to the ministry.

One of the things that my ultra-liberal arts education taught me was to question the typical over-confidence of US culture and search for the sometimes less-confident seeming but very strong truths of indigenous and other marginalized cultures. I was taught this as a way of engaging with the world to bring about a more just life for all. So it was interesting when I read recently in Brian McLaren’s book to the church, Everything Must Change, that he urged humility for the Western church in dealing with global problems. He said, “I became convinced that, yes, many of our world’s worst atrocities were indeed the result of overconfidence.”[1] McLaren invites invites us to consider how the ways that we’ve always been told about the world can keep us from seeing the truth and he invites us to question our old ways of interacting with the world and look for a way to listen humbly to the world’s needs and to see how to serve them.

What is interesting about this humility is that it can be confused with under confidence in ourselves. For many years I tried to approach the world with this humility, but it was interpreted by others as lack of confidence in myself. Which to be honest was only partly true. Yes, I was still learning, (and am still learning) and therefore needed to be careful and humble. But I was (and am) sure about my gifts and sure of what I could do to serve others.

This under confidence often assails us in the church. It is the fear that we are among those whom Jesus addresses in today’s scripture, saying: “you do not belong to my sheep.” What if our faith is not perfect? Who are these robed in white that we see in the Revelation to John? Are we among them? Will we share in this salvation of which they sing in glorious voice?

Many people have wrestled with these questions over Christian history-how to know that we are among the sheep. Many parts of the church have come up with elaborate rituals and ways of affirming their place amongst the saved. But as St. Paul says in Colossians, speaking of those in his time who would impose strict regulations that are really just about human teaching, but that play to our under confidence: “All these regulations refer to things that perish with use; they are simply human commands and teaching. These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-imposed piety, humility, and severe treatment of the body, but they are of no value in checking self-indulgence” (Col. 2:22-23). All that is to say that when we get all worried about whether we are saved or not, we can begin to think that if we just live a disciplined enough life we will surely get to heaven. But those disciplines aren’t for God. They are just for us, and are only helpful insofar as they help us get closer to God.

But the Jewish leaders who questioned Jesus in Solomon’s Portico today were not the under confident types. In fact, they suffered from the same overconfidence against which McLaren warned. They have just heard the truth of who Jesus is, the Good Shepherd, a completely different Lord and Savior who truly cares for his followers, and yet they still question him. Pumped up on their felt religious authority, they try to pin him down. “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” And Jesus simply affirms what is so very easy and so very hard. God is not about to spell things out for us, or give us pat answers.
It is about us being known to the shepherd, and about knowing the shepherd. It is about getting quiet enough to listen to the Shepherd’s voice, in prayer, every day. Only then can you listen to what God would have you do. And only then can you follow.
That’s it. Listening and following with a humble heart, confident in God’s love for you and in the gifts God has given you. Sharing your heart with God and letting God use you in the ways only God knows. Because, be warned: God will use you if you let God guide you. But it will be wonderful. So, listen and follow: that is all our Good Shepherd asks. It is enough. And from that, all else follows.

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[1] Brian D. McLaren, Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007), 39.