I just wanna be a sheep.

It's Good Shepherd Sunday, and that's a good Sunday for us.  It's as good a Sunday as any other for us to consider what it means to be Easter people.  Consider the following - We are people who are living in the shadow of Easter, in the afterglow of the empty tomb, and it is at this time that we think about our relationshp with God the Son, Jesus Christ, as the Good Shepherd.  Seems like a strange time to think about it, but it's strangely apt.  But I'll get into that in a minute.  First of all, it's time to start talking about the sheep nature of things.

First of all, the nature of farm animals themselves - why do you raise farm animals in the first place?  Yeah, you know why you raise farm animals.  Unless that animal is a horse, you raise it up for one prime reason - for food.  As you all know, life is nature's way of keeping meat fresh, and farm animal life is no exception.  For you see, Whether it be dairy cows or egg laying hens, sooner or later, that cute fuzzy farm animal is going to end up being eaten.  At the end of its useful days, that sheep that you gained wool from for years, well, she's going to end up as mutton, and that's the end of it.  And gosh, if the cute little lambs were enough to get Lisa Simpson away from eating meat forever, we get to ask ourselves what we're doing with our continued snackage on them.  Any and all farm animals are raised to be eaten.  That's why we raise them, to be eventual food.

And so, if you read through this passage, where Jesus talks about being the Good Shepherd, it might alarm you, given that you know what farmers do with their sheep eventually.  They kill them and eat them.

Are there any farm animals, bred for butchery, that are not killed, but are instead rescued, fed, and raised in comfort and peace?  Why yes, yes there are, and they exist in the happiest place on earth.  That's right - Disneyland.  What you may or may not know is that every year, the President of the United States of America, at Thanksgiving, is presented with just a massive turkey, and every year, the President officially pardons said turkey.  That turkey is allowed to live.  But here's the thing, if you're president for eight years, you're going to have eight turkeys strutting around the white house, gobbling in the oval office, and that just won't do.  So if you're not going to eat these massive birds, what do you do with them?  Well, you send them away to Disneyland to be the grand marshall in the Thanksgiving day parade, and then away to a petting zoo.  And that's the life of the pardoned turkey.

In every way, that's like us.  We are raised for destruction.  Conceived in sin, we as human beings are all destined for damnation, riddled with guilt and shame as we are.  Just like the 45 pound turkeys given to the white house, we are destined for destruction, to be broken down and consumed.  But this is where Jesus comes in.

He is the Good Shepherd. And the Good Shepherd reverses the order of things.  We're used to the sheep laying down their lives for the shepherd, but in this case, the shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.  He tends them, cares for them, and loves them entirely to his own detriment.  In this one particular case, they're not destined for death and consumption, they're like the presidential Turkeys, in that they're raised for life and prosperity.

But there's something else, something else that comes into the minds of people when they read this passage.  They look at this and say 'I'm not a sheep.'  Yes.  We look at the situation and say 'we're not sheep, we are masters of our own domain.  Sheep are dumb, they follow whomever, they are easy to herd around, and they just go the way that things seem to be going.

Yup.  And we are different how? Here's a sad truth that none of us want to hear, which is that we are sheep.  We're going to follow someone. we are going to be led around by someone.  It'll either be by God himself, or it'll be by each other.  And that's a hard thing to hear. We all want to think that we're forging our own destiny, but we really aren't.  We're just following one another around, to one extent or another.  We roam aorund, and we follow whoever seems to know what they're doing.  This is how trends get started.  It's not as though we all spontaneously decided that granite would make a good countertop surface, or that stainless steel was the best material was the best appliance material.  It's not as though we all spontaneously decided that bell bottoms were out, and then were back in, and then were out again.  We follow each other.  We are herd animals.  But, as the scriptures say, when the blind lead the blind, they both fall into a pit.  When we lead each other around, we all stumble and fall.  That's what we do.  We are going to lead each other into danger, into trouble, because instead of following the shepherd, we're following other sheep.  That's what we do.

Following the shepherd seems dull, but there's one thing it isn't, and that's dangerous.  It's the only safe place for us to be, the only security we have in a frightening, eternal existence.  The fact that the shepherd has our best interest at heart above his own.  Honestly, you're going to follow someone, so it might as well be the one who laid down his life for you.

Finally, we get to talk about what this means for us today. It's not as simple as just 'Jesus died for you,' thought that is a core message. No, it's bigger than that, because the next step is always 'now what?'  Well, the epistle reading talks about that, talks about what we are now to do since we are

forgiven, redeemed and blessed with life everlasting. The  Bible is funny, isn't it?  No, not ha ha funny, but funny interesting.  Funny interesting in that it seems to be obsessed with life after death, the life of the world to come, and at the same time seems awfully obsessed with the charity you do in this life.  Curiouser and curiouser.

Okay, here's how it works.  And it's not too hard to figure out, really.  Most of the time you can face the things you do on a daily basis, and convince yourself that they're not that important.  That your entire life is pretty mundane.  If you're going to do something important, you'd better be the president of the United States, pardoning turkeys and the like.  You, in your tiny sphere of influence, knowing the people that you do, doing the job that you do, you're not important enough to make any sort of difference, right?  Well, you're wrong.  You get to make all the difference. Who is it that Jesus tells you to love?  Your neighbor.  The person who is around you all the time.  The person who is in near constant contact with you.  And this is where the work of God is done, not in grand sweeping gestures, but moment by moment.  When you have the opportunity to care for the other sheep.  When you have the chance to be good to those around you.  That's what you are called to do, to not ignore the pleading of the other sheep, but to love them in deed, not just in thought and word.  We are called to love and care for those around us, those whom we know, those whom we encounter, and Jesus gives us a promise attached to that - No matter when we do that work, we are doing his work.  If we weren't forgiven, redeemed children of God, then it could be that these things we do for each other honestly wouldn't matter.  But they do.  They matter because the people we love and care for, the people we put up with, they are forever people.  The promise of life everlasting means that the decisions we make for each other, the help we supply each other with, that's the stuff that matters, that counts.  Empires come and go, nations rise and fall, but the human beings, the redeemed children of God, they're forever.  It's not what we would expect, but it's the way things are.  When you are present in kindness for a friend, when you do the best job you can possibly do in your employment, you're doing God's work.  You are caring for forever people.  You are making the only decisions that will matter.

It's funny, because we spend a lot of time working on the inanimate, and less time working on the animate, which we are called to do.  We are called on to care for each other, to build each other up, to not just love in thought and in word, but in deed.  And we are most especially called to do that by the Gospel, which gives us two promises.  First, that we are forgiven for not doing this well when we fail, and seondly, that through the death of Christ, our decisions have eternal consequences.  The charity that we do for those around us desperately matters.  For eternity.

PJ.

Good for you, good FOR you.

To set up what I'm about to talk about, please enjoy this commercial about Chef Boyardee.  If you remember this commercial, then get ready for a trip down memory lane.

Hector Boyardee, in this incredibly factual documentary, says what we're all thinking.  How come everything that's so good for us tastes so bad?  This is something that you learned as a child - that if something was going to be good for you, it was going to be revolting.  Here's a list of so called superfoods - do you like any of them?  

Many recent superfood lists contain common food choices whose nutritional value has been long recognized as exceptional. Examples of these would be berries, nuts and seeds in general, dark green vegetables (such as spinach, kale, collard greens, Swiss chard, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli), citrus fruits, fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel, andsardines, vegetables with bright, dark, or intense colors (such as beets and their greens, and sweet potatoes), many legumes (peanuts, lentils, beans), and whole grains as a group.

This is from the ever-accurate Wikipedia page on superfoods, and what it tells you is that fatty fish, dark green vegetables, and beets are the foods to go for.  Anyone down for  a plate of swiss chard, sardines, and yam?  No?  

Yes, you have to really force yourself to eat the stuff that's good for you, right?  It doesn't come easily.  The stuff you want to eat, that comes naturally.  Everyone loves to eat the stuff that's bad for them.  

Yes, that all looks delicious, and no swiss chard or brussels sprouts to be seen.  But here's the thing.  Every grocery store you go into, sardines and the like are for sale.  And no, it's not as though everyone is buying them as a joke.  At least someone is buying them on purpose, going through the effort of buying them because they want to.  That means that somewhere out there, there is someone who actually enjoys eating sardines.

Someone who would have been like that would have been our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  When he appears to the disciples in the reading that we had on Sunday, he asks for, and eats some broiled fish.  Delicious.  Most likely, Jesus would be eating some kind of Tilapia.  What do you know about Tilapia's nutritional value?

Tilapia have very low levels of mercury,^[43] as they are fast-growing, lean and short-lived, with a primarily vegetarian diet, so do not accumulate mercury found in prey.^[44] Tilapia are low in saturated fat, calories, carbohydrates and sodium, and are a good protein source. They also contain the micronutrients phosphorus, niacin, selenium, vitamin B₁₂ and potassium.^[45]

Eating this sounds good, right?  What's the downside? Oh right.

Tilapia is one of several commercially important aquaculture species

(including trout, barramundi and channel catfish) susceptible to off-flavours. These 'muddy' or 'musty' flavours are normally caused by geosmin and 2-Methylisoborneol, organic products of ubiquitouscyanobacteria that are often present or bloom sporadically in water bodies and soil.^[42] These flavours are no indication of freshness or safety of the fish, but can harm the reputation of a product in the eyes of the consumer. 

I'm so happy that Jesus ate fish.  I'm so happy that he ate broiled fish in their presence, because that entire act tells us important things about our life, our faith, and about Jesus.  Jesus wants us to grow in our faith.  He wants us to love the law of God, and to meditate on it day and night.  He wants us to abide in his word, so we will know the truth, and the truth will set us free.  But what does he do with the disciples? Well, when they see him in this most recent post-resurrection appearance, they feel as though he is a ghost, or a spirit.  They don't immediately say 'behold, the risen Lord!'  Their minds are still focused on the way that things always have been; that you are born, you live, you die, and that's it.  The thing is that if something bucks that trend, then it has to be a ghost, a spirit, something like that.  It cant' just be the risen Lord.  That's not possible.  People don't rise from the dead.

Remember that these were guys who were moving around with Jesus, going with him wherever he was going, and moving with him.  They were listening to his words, and taking it all in.  They were familiar with the scriptures, and heard Jesus speak with his own mouth about how he would have to be crucified, and then on the third day rise again. They'd heard this, and yet still didn't manage to internalize it well enough to figure it out.  

Growing in the word is in every way like eating sardines.  It's the sort of thing that people know is good for them, you as Christians know it's good for you to get into the word and to hear, mark, learn and inwardly digest it.  You know it's the right thing to do.  But you don't want to do it.  Why does everything that's so good for you taste so bad?  Why is the stuff that's good for you to do hard for you to do?  Why, if you know that worship of God, growing in his word, is a good thing for you to do, why is it so hard to get it done?  Well, we're weak and frail people.  Even the disciples, who had heard the word that Jesus had proclaimed, even they didn't understand it, really.  They still had a hard time working through the issues with the resurrection, no matter how many times they'd heard  it.  So Jesus had to open their minds, and teach them everything that was in the scriptures concerning himself.  

He has to do that with you too.  This is the point behind the incarnation, is that we weren't going to get so deep into the word, we weren't going to meditate on God's law day and night, we weren't going to get our nonsense together, we were just going to continue missing the point, not being diligent, and getting things wrong.  So Jesus comes to us, both in terms of being in Israel in the first century, and in terms of being present when there are two or three gathered together, he is there in our midst.  And most importantly for us, he is present in the holy sacrament, in the celebration of Holy Communion, where we encounter the body and blood of Jesus.  He is here present, as the word of God made flesh.  And we make this word of God a part of us, not because we chose him, but because he chose us.  He does not wait for us to get ourselves straight, he comes to us here and now.  Being diligent in finding Christ, follwing his word, it's too hard for us, and we don't do it.  So he comes to us in word and sacrament, and gives the word of God to us in a form we can take.

Now, here's the thing.  Given how gross sardines are, how is it that people eat them and seem to like them?  How is it that people seem to run and enjoy running, or floss and enjoy flossing?  How is it that people look at liver or brussles sprousts and legitimately seem to enjoy the experience?  Well, like with many other things, you eat it until you like it.  Your parents told you to eat something because it was good for you, and after a while, you started not only to believe them, but to want to voluntarily eat the thing.  Once it becomes a part of who you are and what you do, all of a sudden it's not a problem anymore.  It's just what you want and crave.  So it is with church, with God's word, it's like eating that sardine.  At first you may only eat it because you feel like you should, but after a while, a switch gets flipped, and you start to do it because you want to.  

Thanks be to God for the fish, for opening the heads of the disciples, and our heads as well, to fill us in on the meaning of scripture.  And thanks for dying and rising again, breaking death, and restoring us to life.