Easter 4 B - Acts
4:5-12/Psalm 23/1John 3:16-24/John 10:11-18
The Reverend Kirk Alan Kubicek, Saint Peter's at Ellicott
Mills
Why Listen to Him?
As is often the case, what is not included in our lessons
may be of utmost importance in our hearing what is going on in these lessons. For
instance, in Acts, a lame man has been healed, and Peter and John have been
hauled before some sort of ecclesiastical court to explain why the lame man is
not still lame. And our gospel narrative begins way back in chapter 8 where
Jesus is accused of being possessed by a demon, and in chapter 9 when he heals
the blind man by the Pool of Siloam.
Then comes one of the great “I AM” passages, “I am the good
shepherd…” of which we have a portion this morning, and which ends, “There was again a great division among them
because of these words. Many of them said, ‘He has a demon and is mad; why listen to him?’ Others said, ‘These
are not the saying of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the
blind?’”(John 10:19-21) In this we hear what is perhaps the central question
of faith, “Why listen to him?” Why
listen to Jesus? Why do we listen to Jesus at all?
After all, there are so many other voices competing for our
attention. Take, for instance, cable news networks, "reality shows",
singing competitions, dance competitions,
Law and Order on three channels simultaneously, not to mention the commercial
advertising that makes all this "Televison" possible in the first
place! Then there are the politicians of all stripes: the President and his
surrogates issuing "important announcements" and "speeches"
almost daily; not to mention those on the Primary Circuit; Mayors and Governors
all demanding we listen to them; their opponents on city councils and state
legislators crying, "Don't listen to
him/her, listen to me!"; corporate interests like "Big
Coal" and "Big Oil" insisting that the environment is just fine
and would actually be improved if we could find a way to use more fossil fuels;
investments schemes, weight reductions schemes, "this can only be
purchased on TV" schemes, all the way down to the "Pocket
Fisherman" scheme designed to take more money out of our already empty
pockets. There are family members unhappy with the family, neighbors unhappy with the neighborhood, immigrants
seeking just some shred of dignity, talk show hosts who know it all, and of
course every lay person, deacon, priest and bishop trying to convince us that
they know what is best for the church!
Like those at the end of the story, and those in the Acts of
the Apostles, who are offended by what Jesus says and does, there are all these
competing interests and voices trying to get us to turn away from Jesus and
turn our lives over to them instead.
Lord, You have spread a table before me in the presence of
those who trouble me! Lord, I know you want me to listen to you! Lord, if you
are listening for just one minute, just for one second of one minute, can you
please shut out all the competing voices, interests, merchants, politicians and
commentators for just a few minutes of silence? Lord, can you please still the
waters, can you please make me lie down in green pastures, can your rod and
your staff please, Lord, comfort me, touch me, protect me and heal me? Lord,
please give me the time, the place and the space to listen to you!
When we look and listen to the shrill voices that surround
us on all sides every day we begin to know the plight of the one who gave us
the 23rd Psalm. And if we are paying attention at all, we will stop
and listen for the Good Shepherd. We will stop and listen for Jesus. And what
we will hear if we are listening closely is just two words: “I am…” For people
of faith, for
people of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Jesus, those
are the only two words we need to hear: “I am….”
Jesus says, “I am…” The people of God have heard these words
before. Standing barefoot, in front of a bush that burns and is not consumed,
we hear a voice and we ask, like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, “Who are you?” The
answer comes back, “I am who I am….I am what I will be….just tell them I AM
sent you….” (Exodus 3:3:13-14) The one who says “I am” also says, “I know my
own, and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And
I lay down my life for my sheep.” (John 10:14-15)
Let's hear what is being said: We are known. We all want
nothing more than to be known. We spend a lifetime looking for relationships,
reflecting on experiences, searching for someone who knows us, or even more
fundamentally, to know ourselves. There is no doubt about it the most
fundamental human condition: a desire to know and to be known. All these other
voices competing for our attention do not really want to know us. Can’t
possibly know us. But there is one who does. The one who says, “I am” wants to
know us. In fact the one who says, “I am,” already knows us just as the Father
knows him.
God knows us. And in that knowledge, we know God. If we
really let ourselves hear what Jesus is saying, we can come to know God. Not a
lot of propositions about God, not things about God, but we can experience the
reality that is God. This naturally frightens us. But such fear is not mere
sentiment. Rather it manifests itself in a way of life, as the First Letter of
John speaks about it – a way of life that shows we respect the majesty and power
of the God who says, “I am.”
A life that ought to “lay down its life for another. How
does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or
sister in need and yet refuse help? Little children, let us love, not in word
or speech, but in truth and action.” (1John 3:16ff). Not even just in what we
do, but in who we are.
For all those who listen to Jesus, the shepherd who becomes
the Paschal lamb slain on the feast of the Passover to save us from our sins,
are the sheep of his pasture. We are poor sheep like those he tends and leads
beside still waters. We become his people, his body and blood for the world. "His
broken body is [our] broken body upon which others feed. His blood spilled is
[our] blood shed to rejoice the hearts of all." (Aidan Kavanagh, Christ, Dying and Living Still) We are
sheep turned to shepherds through the mystery of the breaking of the bread.
The one hope is that as folk come to know us that they find
in fact another – not the sheep turned to shepherds, but in truth The Shepherd,
The Good Shepherd. It will be so if we abide in Him and He in us. It will be so
if we let him set our hearts on fire with the breath of his Holy Spirit. It
will be so as he opens our hearts to the Word of God. The lame will walk, the
blind will see, if when he calls us by name we will only listen.
There are many competing voices. Why listen to Jesus? Because
only one voice calls us each by name. Only one voice knows us by name. Only one
voice says, “I am….” That Voice is Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and
ever. Amen.
