Sermon-Sunday May 3, 2009
Fourth Sunday in Easter
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
Today in this morning’s Gospel lesson our Lord Jesus brings to us an image of what it means to be a baptized child of God that largely flies in the face of the independence and individualism that our culture and our society and really our country as a whole, going back even to the country’s founding fathers, see as virtuous. Indeed our country was founded upon principles rooted largely in freedom from tyranny and personal autonomy. Much of what is cherished about our country and culture is rooted in the personal freedoms that we have. In our country, individualism and independence are largely seen as virtuous.
Even the US Army has gotten in on this. In all branches of the military one of the first things that one experiences in their respective branch of service is having their hair cut nearly completely bald and giving up their civilian clothes and being issued uniforms. And one of the main reasons they do this is so you look like everyone else. The first thing you experience is the attempted curtailing of your individualism. But within the last few years, the Army began a recruiting campaign rooted in the slogan: “An Army of one.” The US Army began a recruiting campaign rooted in individualism. Certainly you can see the irony in that.
Or what about when you are young and we are nervous about doing an oral report, or meeting someone new, or even going out on your first date-what is the advice that parents will often give? “Just be yourself.” And yet in spite of our natural human tendency to embrace individualism and independence Jesus comes to us this morning in His Word telling us that we are to understand ourselves to be like sheep.
Sheep are not independent. Sheep are not individualists. In fact it’s not uncommon to hear the term “sheep” used in a derogatory manner; such as hearing someone say something like “Don’t be such a sheep think for yourself.” But in this morning’s Gospel lesson, Jesus refers to Himself as the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep. But you see, the type of sheep that Jesus is speaking of here, is actually quite different from the type that is often looked down upon in our culture.
You see, in our culture when someone uses the word “sheep” derogitorally referring to a person, what they are usually saying is that the person just kind of follows the crowd and bases their life-choices on what other people think. And indeed Jesus does not want us to be ruled by popular opinion, or social and political correctness.
But you see, the difference is in the alternatives. The alternative that the world offers is to follow ourselves and our own sinful desires. But the alternative that Jesus offers is Himself-the voice of the Good Shepherd who is Christ Jesus our Savior. When Jesus speaks of sheep, He is not speaking of their inability to think for themselves or their tendency to follow the crowd, He is speaking of their complete and utter dependency on their shepherd.
He is speaking of sheep heeding the voice of their shepherd and nobody else. He is speaking of sheep realizing that without the shepherd they are helpless and so they rely purely on the voice of their shepherd to lead them and guide them and to give them help when they are in trouble. He is speaking of sheep realizing that they are incapable of healing themselves and guarding themselves from the danger of the wolf, and are completely dependent upon others and upon the shepherd-and so they know to always keep close to the shepherd and to look to Him and to Him alone for help.
And so it is with us. For without the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for us we are helpless. We are weak, poor and helpless sinners who can do nothing to free ourselves from the sin that we are in bondage to. We are in bondage to sin, and the most powerful way that this bondage reveals itself to us, is not in the external acts of sin that we commit, although that is part of it, but the most crippling effect of the bondage to sin that we all experience, that we are all born into is in our inability to recognize the bondage that we are in bondage.
Oh there might be moments when we’re feeling down on ourselves and it might feel like we’re acknowledging that we are but poor, miserable sinners; but then we’ll see someone who, for whatever reason, seems to be much worse than we are-maybe they struggle with more addictions than you, they struggle with their weight more than you, or maybe they just seem to have a general disdain and distaste for everyone and everything around them. And we see people like that and we think “Well at least I am not as bad as they are.” And so the self-delusion begins anew.
And without the Good Shepherd this is the vicious cycle that we would always be trapped in. Without the Good Shepherd we would be left at the mercy of the wolves of this world of sin and doubt and despair. Without the voice of the Good Shepherd we would be left with the voice of our sinful self leading us into paths of despair that would ultimately lead only to the grave.
But Christ Jesus is the Good Shepherd in Whom alone we can trust. Christ Jesus is the Good Shepherd Who saves us from the wolves of sin, death and the devil by placing Himself into the hands of those very wolves, and lays down His life for us-taking upon Himself all of our sin, and going deep into the valley of death for us, and in exchange giving us righteousness and new-life.
And so, in spite of the world’s objections to the notion of being a sheep, we are called to be sheep. But it is not sheep who merely follow the pattern of the culture around us, tossed about by our culture’s wavering and groundless definition of righteousness and justice and faithfulness. No, the Good Shepherd who gave everything of Himself for us on the cross so that in Him we could receive the forgiveness of our sins and was raised for our salvation, now sits at the right hand of His Father who loves Him and us-and He extends His voice to us and calls us into true righteousness and true faithfulness and true justice.
And so as His sheep we heed the call He extends to us to love one another in truth and action. And it is the truth that produces and brings forth the action. The action is the fruit of our clinging to and believing in the truth. For the Good Shepherd comes to us and brings us the divine Word of the law that brings us the truth of who we are-we are sheep-poor and miserable sinners, completely dependent upon our Shepherd to release us from our bondage to sin.
And so He calls and gathers us to repentance-to see that there is only one voice in Whom we can trust-that following our inner voice which we delude ourselves into believing leads us to the path independence, actually leads us to bondage to our sinful self-and that in following the voice of popular opinion and the crowd-actually leads only to bondage to sin and the devil-and they both lead only to the grave.
And so there is only one voice to follow; the voice of the Good Shepherd Who comes to us in the preaching of His Word and partaking of Holy Communion. He comes to you, as He came to the people of Israel in the lesson from Acts-through Peter who, filled with the Holy Spirit proclaimed to the people that they crucified Christ Jesus and in so doing rejected the stone that would become the Cornerstone. But then Peter proclaimed to them that it was in the name of Christ Jesus and Him alone that there was salvation.
For this is how the sheep are fed-with the truth of who we are; poor, miserable sinners-and the truth of what Christ Jesus the Good Shepherd has done for us His Sheep and is doing for us-freeing us from sin, death and the devil-forgiving us, giving us new and eternal life-calling us, gathering us, enlightening us and sanctifying us in the truth and keeping us in His flock, always making sure we are fed with the truth, always vigilant, always protecting us from the wolves.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
Today in this morning’s Gospel lesson our Lord Jesus brings to us an image of what it means to be a baptized child of God that largely flies in the face of the independence and individualism that our culture and our society and really our country as a whole, going back even to the country’s founding fathers, see as virtuous. Indeed our country was founded upon principles rooted largely in freedom from tyranny and personal autonomy. Much of what is cherished about our country and culture is rooted in the personal freedoms that we have. In our country, individualism and independence are largely seen as virtuous.
Even the US Army has gotten in on this. In all branches of the military one of the first things that one experiences in their respective branch of service is having their hair cut nearly completely bald and giving up their civilian clothes and being issued uniforms. And one of the main reasons they do this is so you look like everyone else. The first thing you experience is the attempted curtailing of your individualism. But within the last few years, the Army began a recruiting campaign rooted in the slogan: “An Army of one.” The US Army began a recruiting campaign rooted in individualism. Certainly you can see the irony in that.
Or what about when you are young and we are nervous about doing an oral report, or meeting someone new, or even going out on your first date-what is the advice that parents will often give? “Just be yourself.” And yet in spite of our natural human tendency to embrace individualism and independence Jesus comes to us this morning in His Word telling us that we are to understand ourselves to be like sheep.
Sheep are not independent. Sheep are not individualists. In fact it’s not uncommon to hear the term “sheep” used in a derogatory manner; such as hearing someone say something like “Don’t be such a sheep think for yourself.” But in this morning’s Gospel lesson, Jesus refers to Himself as the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep. But you see, the type of sheep that Jesus is speaking of here, is actually quite different from the type that is often looked down upon in our culture.
You see, in our culture when someone uses the word “sheep” derogitorally referring to a person, what they are usually saying is that the person just kind of follows the crowd and bases their life-choices on what other people think. And indeed Jesus does not want us to be ruled by popular opinion, or social and political correctness.
But you see, the difference is in the alternatives. The alternative that the world offers is to follow ourselves and our own sinful desires. But the alternative that Jesus offers is Himself-the voice of the Good Shepherd who is Christ Jesus our Savior. When Jesus speaks of sheep, He is not speaking of their inability to think for themselves or their tendency to follow the crowd, He is speaking of their complete and utter dependency on their shepherd.
He is speaking of sheep heeding the voice of their shepherd and nobody else. He is speaking of sheep realizing that without the shepherd they are helpless and so they rely purely on the voice of their shepherd to lead them and guide them and to give them help when they are in trouble. He is speaking of sheep realizing that they are incapable of healing themselves and guarding themselves from the danger of the wolf, and are completely dependent upon others and upon the shepherd-and so they know to always keep close to the shepherd and to look to Him and to Him alone for help.
And so it is with us. For without the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for us we are helpless. We are weak, poor and helpless sinners who can do nothing to free ourselves from the sin that we are in bondage to. We are in bondage to sin, and the most powerful way that this bondage reveals itself to us, is not in the external acts of sin that we commit, although that is part of it, but the most crippling effect of the bondage to sin that we all experience, that we are all born into is in our inability to recognize the bondage that we are in bondage.
Oh there might be moments when we’re feeling down on ourselves and it might feel like we’re acknowledging that we are but poor, miserable sinners; but then we’ll see someone who, for whatever reason, seems to be much worse than we are-maybe they struggle with more addictions than you, they struggle with their weight more than you, or maybe they just seem to have a general disdain and distaste for everyone and everything around them. And we see people like that and we think “Well at least I am not as bad as they are.” And so the self-delusion begins anew.
And without the Good Shepherd this is the vicious cycle that we would always be trapped in. Without the Good Shepherd we would be left at the mercy of the wolves of this world of sin and doubt and despair. Without the voice of the Good Shepherd we would be left with the voice of our sinful self leading us into paths of despair that would ultimately lead only to the grave.
But Christ Jesus is the Good Shepherd in Whom alone we can trust. Christ Jesus is the Good Shepherd Who saves us from the wolves of sin, death and the devil by placing Himself into the hands of those very wolves, and lays down His life for us-taking upon Himself all of our sin, and going deep into the valley of death for us, and in exchange giving us righteousness and new-life.
And so, in spite of the world’s objections to the notion of being a sheep, we are called to be sheep. But it is not sheep who merely follow the pattern of the culture around us, tossed about by our culture’s wavering and groundless definition of righteousness and justice and faithfulness. No, the Good Shepherd who gave everything of Himself for us on the cross so that in Him we could receive the forgiveness of our sins and was raised for our salvation, now sits at the right hand of His Father who loves Him and us-and He extends His voice to us and calls us into true righteousness and true faithfulness and true justice.
And so as His sheep we heed the call He extends to us to love one another in truth and action. And it is the truth that produces and brings forth the action. The action is the fruit of our clinging to and believing in the truth. For the Good Shepherd comes to us and brings us the divine Word of the law that brings us the truth of who we are-we are sheep-poor and miserable sinners, completely dependent upon our Shepherd to release us from our bondage to sin.
And so He calls and gathers us to repentance-to see that there is only one voice in Whom we can trust-that following our inner voice which we delude ourselves into believing leads us to the path independence, actually leads us to bondage to our sinful self-and that in following the voice of popular opinion and the crowd-actually leads only to bondage to sin and the devil-and they both lead only to the grave.
And so there is only one voice to follow; the voice of the Good Shepherd Who comes to us in the preaching of His Word and partaking of Holy Communion. He comes to you, as He came to the people of Israel in the lesson from Acts-through Peter who, filled with the Holy Spirit proclaimed to the people that they crucified Christ Jesus and in so doing rejected the stone that would become the Cornerstone. But then Peter proclaimed to them that it was in the name of Christ Jesus and Him alone that there was salvation.
For this is how the sheep are fed-with the truth of who we are; poor, miserable sinners-and the truth of what Christ Jesus the Good Shepherd has done for us His Sheep and is doing for us-freeing us from sin, death and the devil-forgiving us, giving us new and eternal life-calling us, gathering us, enlightening us and sanctifying us in the truth and keeping us in His flock, always making sure we are fed with the truth, always vigilant, always protecting us from the wolves.
Amen
posted by Steve at 11:07 AM
1 Comments:
This one, while had some good parts in it, just seemed a bit long and too drawn out. I might speculate that the congregation had a hard time following it, as the kernel of the proclamation seemed to get lost amongst the rest of the sermon.
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