The Mark of the Shepherd

Have you ever a boil – one of those painful, unsightly skin abscesses?   When I moved to Alaska in 1993 to begin a new ministry, I got a boil.  It wasn't like I had it on my leg or somewhere else where it could easily be concealed - no such luck!  This boil manifested itself right smack in the middle of my forehead for the whole bloody world to see!   When I covered it with a bandage, people would stare.  When I left it uncovered, people would stare!

Months later, I was at a synod gathering and having conversation with a man who was saying that he thought he knew me from somewhere, and then he remembered. "Oh yes, I remember you. You're the guy who had the boil on his forehead!"  I mean what a way to establish one's identity in a new community: "...the guy who had the boil on his forehead!"

Jesus said, "I am the Good Shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me."  The gospel this morning is, in part, about identity. It's about how we are known and recognized, and how we see ourselves!  “How are you known and recognized?” and just as important, “How are we as the community of SOTH known and recognized?”

In biblical times shepherds placed a distinctive mark, sort of like a brand, on one of the ears of each sheep in the flock for identification purposes. This was an unpleasant task, accomplished with a sharp knife and block of wood. There was pain for both the sheep and the shepherd, but from that mutual suffering emerged an indelible life-long mark of belonging that could never be erased!  

Tattoos and "body art" are certainly the rage nowadays. More and more people are shamelessly displaying to the world the artistic expression of choice engraved on the skin. I am not planning to get a tattoo, but I do have a particular admiration for those who have a tattoo conspicuously displayed - for they seem to wear it so unashamedly. 

I believe a question that arises out of this Gospel is, "Do we unashamedly bear in a recognizable and discernable way, the mark of Jesus Christ?”  Has the watery cross that was so long ago, traced on your forehead when you were baptized, evaporated into thin air, or have you allowed the mark of that cross to shape your life?  Do we as a community of faith bear the mark of Jesus in a visible and measurable way?   A question that your council and Strategic Planning Task Force have been recently discussing is just this, “If SOTH disappeared tomorrow from Taft Hill and Springfield, would anybody notice?”  Do we bear the mark of Christ unashamedly, not because it’s tattooed on our foreheads, but because we live out our corporate life in such an evident way?

This passage from Acts 2 is, in my opinion, one of the most ignored passages in the New Testament.  I believed is it intentionally ignored because it poses a dangerous threat to our core cultural values. 

^“44All who believed were together and had all things in common; ⁴⁵they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds^* to all, as any had need. ⁴⁶Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home^* and ate their food with glad and generous^* hearts, ⁴⁷praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

This passage calls our attention to the radical change that occurred in that community because of Jesus. These disciples changed from frightened, confused, fragmented individuals who fled in fear when Jesus was arrested, into a dynamic and radical community centered on prayer, fellowship, worship and perhaps the most revealing sign of their transformation was that they were prepared to sell everything they owned to support those in need.   Their response to the news of Jesus’ resurrection was to bond together as a community to the point of even practicing common ownership of material possessions.  All the issues that had fragmented them melted away, and they emerged as a new transformed community.   It was a profound and comprehensive transformation for there is nothing more difficult than to separate ourselves from our possessions and to not live territorially and possessively.  Even in the church we stake out our territory, claim it as our own and dig in to defend it,  whether it be a room, or a certain activity, or a particular worship service, or a level of influence, whatever.  Instead of emphasizing community values above all else, we are tempted to venerate individual preferences and in the process foster conflicts not only with each other that undermine a sense of community, but ultimately find ourselves in conflict with the values of the kingdom of God.

These young Jerusalem Christians’ response to the news of Jesus’ resurrection was a willingness to serve one another and surrender everything, including their material goods, in order to live a life in community worthy of the risen Christ.  These earliest disciples engaged in radical, self-denying actions for the sake of the building up of the community.  They were living out a vision of life that was distinctly different from the culture around them - and the world noticed and attracted to this Jesus community for Luke tell us that “day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

Are we sufficiently inspired by the risen Jesus to do the same?  Have we been liberated from our private agendas to follow such a course of community discipleship?  Do we bear the mark of Jesus for the world to see, and if not, then what mark do we bear? 

There are three words that we must keep straight in terms of what it means to be followers and disciples of Jesus.  I call them the “P” words.  The three “P” words are private, personal and public.    It goes like this:  “Faith is not private but personal, and not merely personal but public.” 

Because our culture holds in highest esteem the individual and the rights of the individual, we are tempted to think of faith as a mostly private matter between me and God; and often I hear it articulated in just that order, “me and God”; a construction in which God comes off as secondary to me.  But if we take the testimony of scripture and the witness of this early Christian community seriously, we will quickly see that faith is not “private” at all.  Faith is “personal” for sure, but faith is not private.  Faith is about personal transformation for sure, but faith is not private transformation.  To be a follower of Jesus Christ means that you in all of your personal uniqueness and giftedness are placed in a faith community by God’s action in baptism, and it is in and through that community that the public side (communal side) of faith is lived out.   

Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “Thy kingdom come…”   Have you ever thought about what that means?  What we are praying for is that God’s kingdom, God’s realm, God’s way, will take shape in our faith community and that through our faith community it might take root in the world.  It is apparent that those early Christians, set on fire by Jesus’ resurrection and Holy Spirit, were motivated to shape a community around the life of Jesus in which the poor, the weak, the marginalized, the powerless were not only taken care of, but were included as full and equal members of the faith community.  As a community they became Jesus for each other and to the wider world.

The crucial question that arises from the heart of these passages today is, “Does the life of Jesus take shape, not only in our personal lives, but does it take shape and find expression in our life together and community witness?  Do we bear the mark of our shepherd?” 

Oh yes, the building is standing. We gather here regularly!  The plumbing and furnace work and the roof does not leak. The place is cleaned; lawn is mowed; bills are paid; sermons are preached; babies are baptized; people are married; people are buried! The wine is poured, the bread is broken. We confess! We sing!  We pray!  We worship!  

But do we embody Jesus as a community; in the ways we treat each other; in our collective outwards actions of compassion, justice and advocacy? Do we bear the mark of our shepherd?

Do we freely, joyously, enthusiastically give to each other and offer to the world the precious things that Jesus died to give us; those things that which we have received from the gracious hand of our Lord and Savior: forgiveness of each other; mutual encouragement of one another; lifting up of the lowliest among us; bearing one another’s burdens; welcoming of the stranger; acceptance of our diversity; praying for our enemies, going the second mile. 

Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

The abundant life to which Jesus is referring is not a private life of riches and luxury, but a personal and community embodiment of his life.  The abundant life is the gift of his life as it takes shape in our personal and public witness.  I pray that we will unashamedly bear the mark of the Good Shepherd.  Amen.