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WORSHIP THIS WEEK: How do we live as a healthy community at times when we’re being our most messy human selves? That’s a question we’ll explore in Sunday’s readings as Jesus and Moses challenge us to imagine new ways of being community. Join us on Sunday, September 29 at 10:00 in our physical sanctuary at 300 Shunpike Road or in our digital sanctuary for worship: https://www.youtube.com/live/FX2zs-mj0L8?si=WcNUp9AtCdx8BIRE
BLESSING OF THE ANIMALS: Bring your beloved creatures – furry, feathered, scaly, slithery, or stuffed – to the front lawn of the church on Sunday, September 29, at 1:00 for a Blessing of the Animals. We’ll celebrate the ways that these animals embody the love of God in our lives.
Gloria Dei Welcome Statement (adopted June 2024) - Gloria Dei Lutheran Church celebrates that each person is created in the image of God, and God’s wide embrace holds all of us. We trust in a living God who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, continually renews and transforms us. That Spirit holds us in relationship with God and with each other. We invite you to share in ministry here, bringing all of who you are, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, race and ethnicity, age, marital status, faith journey, economic circumstance, immigration path, physical and mental health, and any other identity God has given you to shine your light in the world. We believe that we are called to follow Jesus in serving our world and our community: welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, loving our neighbors, and working for justice. We are a Reconciling in Christ congregation, committed to the full inclusion and affirmation of LGBTQIA+ people and to the ongoing work of racial equity. There is a place for you at Gloria Dei. We welcome you – your identities, your histories, your stories. We celebrate your unique and holy gifts as we grow together in faith: created by God, saved by Christ, and nurtured by the Holy Spirit.
Psalm 23
May 8, 2022
This week I have been especially mindful of several beautiful artifacts that I have to remind me of special women in my life. There’s the quilt that the women in my internship congregation made for me, filled with the colors of the Arizona desert. The needlepoint image of the Lamb of God that hangs in my office was made by my mom; it was an ordination gift. She has done all kinds of sewing projects throughout my life, from our Christmas stockings to my prom dress. I wish I had her talent. My sister Claire has taken after our mom lately because she made several cross-stitched items for Christmas. On my wall at home hangs a gorgeous scene from Arches National Park that she cross-stitched and had framed.
And then there’s this one. My other sister Carrie several years ago made for each of us a collection of my grandmother’s recipes. Carrie typed up many of them, but several are copies of the originals in Grandmama’s handwriting – her precise script, always slanted at the same angle. There are recipes for her Swedish cookies, her cornbread, her angel food cake, her squash fritters. As you can imagine, these recipes are all the more special because she’s not here anymore to make them.
I bet you have items like this too. Things that you can hold in your hand to evoke the love and the memory of someone in your life who has passed on. A mother or sibling or grandparent. A friend or cousin or neighbor.
That’s why it’s easy to imagine that scene from our first reading. The women, gathered around to mourn their friend and fellow disciple, Tabitha. Yes, women were disciples too. The book of Acts, remember, is a sequel to Luke’s gospel. Acts gives us stories of the early church, after Jesus has risen and ascended, and as the earliest followers of Jesus start teaching and leading in his name. The author of Luke and Acts makes it clear that women were among the leaders of the early church, supporting its growth both practically and financially.
Tabitha has died, and we can easily picture that upstairs room. Her friends have washed her body and laid it out until it could be carried away. The women are gathered there, showing each other the tunics and pieces of clothing Tabitha had made. They weep together as they share memories of their friend. Notice that many of them are widows, which means that this community was especially important to them. In the ancient world widows were among the most vulnerable people, especially economically. We sense that this community of women looks out for each other.
Someone hears that Peter is nearby, and they send for him. Apparently at this point Peter already has a reputation as someone who gets things done in the name of Jesus. Peter. Our impetuous, often confused Peter. Just last week we heard how the risen Jesus asked Peter three times – “Do you love me?” Three times to parallel the three times that Peter had denied knowing him before. And look at Peter now. Bringing people back from the dead.
Peter says: “Tabitha, get up.” And she does. It’s possible no one was more surprised in that moment than Peter. But he doesn’t just raise her from the dead. He calls together her community. He returns her to her people. Turns out Peter was paying attention when Jesus healed folks because that’s what Jesus so often does when he heals someone. He makes sure they have life-giving relationships.
What I see in each of our readings today is a different kind of community.
In Acts we have the women gathering together in the midst of death to mourn for Tabitha – and then to celebrate her return to life.
In the gospel the religious leadership wants to know if Jesus will claim the role of the messiah – the anointed one – the powerful leader they have been expecting. Jesus acts as though he finds their question tiresome, and he leans instead into his identity as shepherd. He says: “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me…No one will snatch them out of my hand.” Jesus wants to hold the whole flock together, even though there are always predators threatening to take them.
I love Psalm 23, and while we often read it at funerals, it speaks to more than death. My favorite image is that table that God has prepared in the presence of enemies. When there is danger all around, when it would be easy to give in to fear, God says, “Pull up a chair and eat. I’ll keep watch.” The psalm doesn’t make it clear, but I like to think that God invites others to join us at that table so we don’t have to eat alone with those enemies nearby. And perhaps God brings the enemies to the table too so that in the sharing of the meal, hospitality can overcome hostility.
And then there’s this gorgeous passage from Revelation – a vision of a time when God’s kingdom is fully realized and all tribes and peoples and languages are joined together. It’s a kind of cosmic community, united by a God who says that there will be no more hunger, no more thirst, no more tears – only life, the springs of the water of life.
Taken together, here’s what our readings this morning say to us:
Whatever ordeal you have been through or are going through now,
wherever death and danger draw near,
whatever worry, fear, or grief is breaking your heart, you are not alone.
The Good Shepherd stands watch, ready to put his body in front of what threatens you.
The Good Shepherd calls out to you, invites you to follow his voice and join the flock as we walk together through the valley of the shadow.
The Good Shepherd invites you to the table, where you receive the bread and wine, something you can hold in your hands and taste on your tongue and know that his love, the love of Jesus, crucified and risen, is always with you. He fills our hunger and quenches our thirst and leads us to the water of life.
May we know the fierce love of the Shepherd, and may we share that fierce love with each other. Amen.
S.D.G. – The Rev. Dr. Christa M. Compton, Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Chatham, NJ
Have you ever noticed that we have certain sayings that really lean into the physicality of doing something? For example, it’s a long-standing tradition in the theater to tell the performers to “break a leg” as they prepare to take the stage. It’s considered bad luck to wish them good luck. So we say “break a leg” instead. When we’re talking about leadership, we often say that we want someone who doesn’t just talk the talk but instead walks the walk. It’s a clever way of saying that we don’t like our leaders to be all talk and no action. If someone is invested in a situation, especially a situation that carries some risk, we say they have some skin in the game.
Based on my limited research, we don’t know with certainty where these sayings came from. But we can agree they have this element in common. They rely on the language of body and movement. Legs and skin. Talking and walking.
When the stakes are high, we want someone who will put their body on the line. Someone who is willing to give it all, to make the necessary sacrifices, to take the risks.
Each year on the fourth Sunday of Easter we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday. It’s tempting to sentimentalize this image that Jesus uses to describe himself. We’ve been conditioned by countless portraits of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, gently cradling a lamb in his arms or carrying a sheep on his shoulders. We’ve developed a kind of stained-glass notion of shepherding that overlooks the grueling, messy, dangerous work that it has been for centuries.
As I read through today’s scripture throughout the week, I noticed three aspects of the Good Shepherd’s role and wondered what they might mean for us in our 21st century suburban lives.
For starters, the Good Shepherd provides.
The Good Shepherd provides the still waters beside which we can rest. The Good Shepherd prepares a table for us in the midst of fear and danger. We celebrated Earth Day this past week, and when we think about the expansive beauty of creation, it’s hard not to be awed by all that God has created and provided. Think about where you experience that most deeply. Digging in your garden, hiking in the woods, standing beside the ocean with your toes in the sand, listening to your kids shriek with laughter while they play in the backyard, hearing the rain fall gently on the roof.
My friend Jennifer sent me a picture yesterday of a northern spotted owl that she had seen in Baltimore Canyon in northern California. It’s a species that has been endangered but is slowly making a comeback. The story of the northern spotted owl seems to me a story of both creation and resurrection. And my friend searches for birds in memory of her father, who was an avid bird watcher. Often the best thing the Good Shepherd provides is the love of those dearest to us.
The Good Shepherd provides for us, but the Good Shepherd also pursues us. We hear in the psalm: “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.”
The Hebrew word for “follow” in Psalm 23 is more intense than it sounds. It’s the same verb that’s used when God parts the Red Sea and the Israelites begin to cross through the waters to escape from Egypt, but then Pharaoh and his army follow them. They chase after the Israelites with chariots and horses until God intervenes.
The Good Shepherd is unrelenting in his pursuit of us. It begins in baptism, when we are soaked in God’s love and grace without having to do a thing except let the water wash over us. That goodness and mercy searches us out and finds us again and again throughout our lives. It doesn’t always look the way we expect, but it never gives up on finding us.
Think about a moment when you were completely surprised by someone’s kindness and generosity. Perhaps you even felt that you did not deserve it. That was the Good Shepherd pursuing you, refusing to let you give in to despair or self-doubt.
The Good Shepherd provides. The Good Shepherd pursues. The Good Shepherd also protects. He is there with us as we walk through that valley of the shadow. Having a shepherd does not mean that bad things will never happen to us. It means that we are never alone when they happen.
As we hear in today’s gospel, the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. When the wolves come and the hired hands run away in fear, the shepherd stays and puts his body between us and the danger.
Jesus knows what he’s talking about here. He understands what it means to put his body on the line. Not long before this moment, Jesus has been teaching about the freedom that comes from following him. It makes the crowd so angry that they start picking up rocks to throw at him. They want to stone him to death. And right after he talks about being the good shepherd, the crowd gets riled up once more. They accuse him of being possessed by a demon. They start hunting for those rocks again.
We know of course that in the end Jesus does lay down his life for us. The cross becomes the ultimate place where he provides for us, pursues us, and protects us.
How, then, do we respond to a Good Shepherd who does all this for us? The life of a sheep doesn’t seem all that appealing
I hear some different instructions in our reading from 1 John, which says: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” It goes on to say: “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”
We are called to lay down our lives too. To walk the walk. To have some skin in the game. To love, not just with words, but with action. To face the risks that come with that kind of love.
What does that kind of love look like?
That love looks like providing for those in need. Each Wednesday when we join with other volunteers in the community to distribute food, I am moved by what is possible when we reflect God’s generosity. And each week people who are receiving that food ask me to offer a prayer of thanks for that generosity and for all the people sharing it.
That love looks like pursuing authentic relationships with the people in our lives. It means not giving up when those relationships are difficult and in need of healing. Relationships change over time. Sometimes they end. But even when they end, we can pursue a path of forgiveness. It’s hard work. It asks a lot of us. But we have a shepherd who shows us the way.
That love looks like protecting people who are the most vulnerable. When the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial was announced on Tuesday, I was flooded with different emotions. In the hours and days since then I have tried to pay attention to the voices of people of color, who have reminded me that while this was a rare and important moment of accountability, it was not justice. Justice would be George Floyd being here to spend many more years with his family. Justice would be having a system in which black and brown people didn’t keep dying at the hands of police.
Provide. Pursue. Protect. We are not ourselves the Good Shepherd, so we will have to rely on his goodness and mercy as we seek to live like him.
Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. Amen.
S.D.G. – The Rev. Dr. Christa M. Compton, Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, Chatham, NJ