What is happening in the Middle East is an enormous human tragedy. A people, Israel, who are been persecuted over the ages by such national giants as Egypt, Russia, and Germany, has taken the offensive against Palestine refugee camps and villages in the name of routing out terrorism. In retaliation, young Palestinian high school girls have strapped bombs to their bodies and walked into supermarkets and city buses and detonated themselves and other innocent men, women, and children.
What has our world come to?
Not many four-year olds are quoted in national news magazines, but in response to the tragic events of September 11, a national magazine featured a suggestion by four-year-old Laura Beth Kelback on how to deal with terrorists who hate a country full of people they don't know. Laura Beth said: "Why don't we just tell them our names?"
Give the child a name. Make the potential killer think of her as an individual with a name. It just might take the killer instinct out of a killer.
In the movie, “The Spy Game,” Robert Redford was giving Brad Pitt his first assignment as a sniper assassin in Vietnam and about to give Pitt the name of the man he was to kill, Pitt stopped him because he did not want to know the man's name!
I find myself wondering what a terrorist waiting to board a plane in the gate area, knowing he intends to kill all these innocents, is thinking? One thing I can imagine that the killer terrorist is most surely not thinking, is about the individual names of his victims. No, I am quite sure he would not want to know his victims' names.
As long as he can think of a plane full of people in group terms, which is what I assume he has been brainwashed to think, the west, American capitalists, Pagans, the Great Satan, the killer might be able to function while following through on his insane purpose. But to know the individual names would drive him crazy. No, I can never image him asking a little girl: "Hello, what is your name?"
No. Whether the assassin is Osama bin Laden, or the German Gestapo, they don't want to know their victims names.
In1963, four girls were killed while attending the 16th avenue Baptist Church on a Sunday morning by a bomb set off by a member of the Ku Klux Klan. And I can still remember reading the Birmingham News and looking at the pictures and reading the names of those children 3 eleven year olds and 1 fourteen year old. No, a terrorist, I don't believe would want to know the names of his victims, because then that person becomes a unique child of God and you could never take their life.
"Why don't we just tell them our names?" That was Laura Beth's suggestion, which is simple enough. Makes sense to me.
The focus of the Bible lesson for us today is the image of Jesus as the good shepherd who knows us by name. What a wonderful way of visualizing and dramatizing God's love for us. God knows each of us by name. In another place, Jesus says, he knows each hair on our head.
The all knowing, omni present and caring shepherd has been one of the images used to capture the nature of the creator of the universe' relationship to us his people. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” I am the good shepherd; I know my own by name.
What an intriguing, comforting, encouraging description of our God. God knows us by name. Like a Shepherd knows each lamb with his or her unique markings. You! Even you! By name!
In the book of Revelation, which was written as a word of encouragement to the early developing church in a time of persecution. The writer, writing like a shepherd, states in 2:17 that in the resurrection, "For he who conquers, God will give some of the hidden manna, and a white stone, with a new name." God will know our name in the afterlife.
No wonder, the church has taken up the shepherd concept for our relationship to others. John Paul, of the Roman Catholic Church, carries a crooked, shepherd staff as a symbol of his shepherd's role for the church. The Bishops of our Church wear a small red lapel pin with the crooked shepherd's staff emblazed, just to remind them of who they are.
Of all the roles that ministers have to fulfill, preacher, teacher, healer, counselor, administrator, perhaps the one that captures my understanding of the role of the minister best is "Shepherd". One who knows and cares and protects.
The Church of Jesus Christ today is vulnerable by evil through individuals, minority though they are, who have misused the privileged trust of being a shepherd of the people and consequently the integrity of us all suffers.
The Roman Catholic Church has been greatly hurt because of pedophilia relationships of a few priest’s abuse of children. Such a thing pushes me to the edge of my imagination of evil at its worst. The fact that this was not dealt with as forcefully as it should have been dealt with, has led John Paul to recall his North American Cardinals to Rome to look at how their church does business.
This isn't just a national problem, Thomas Crandall, X- Roman Catholic priest at St. Rose of Lima in Milton was convicted and sentenced to prison this week for embezzlement, stealing money from the church, for selling drugs, and for exchanging drugs for favors in a homosexual relationship.
I serve on a Conference Committee Call Board Ministry and recently in a meeting examining the new ministers coming into the church, we also conducted hearings of ministers who have become involved in behavior unbecoming a shepherd of the church. Although this involved only two in 600 ministers, it was two too many.
It is an abomination to God that a person in authority in the Church would use his privileged position of trust, for personal gratification. But this abomination is not reserved for persons of the cloth. No person should ever use his or her position of authority or trust in evil ways. No person older than another person, or richer than another person, or bigger than another person, should use their position of power for personal gain. No adult should ever touch, inappropriately, a child.
In a time of transition for the nation of Israel, 520 BC, the Exile is coming to an end and the walls of Jerusalem and the temple is being rebuilt. The priests leaders, Zechariah and Haggai, look at the heart of Israel's problem which had always been the sin of disobedience. Disobedience to God's Will, to the best that one knows. To violate the best of what one knows is to compromise the very reason of our existence. Zechariah describes, with the use of symbolic language, of a false shepherd: "Woe to the worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword smite his arm and his right eye! Let his arm be wholly withered, and his right eye utterly blinded!"
God will and does judge a person who will violate the privileges of their authority.
Let Me Summarize:
God is our shepherd.
Because we are made in the image of God,
we are privileged to be shepherds.
Some years ago I walked the hills just outside of Ramallah, to the northwest of Bethlehem. I topped a hill only to discover a flock of mixed ugly goats and beautiful sheep. They blocked the trail and they looked at me and I looked at them. They covered a precarious trail on the edge of the Judean hills. I looked first right and then left, to see if anyone was watching, and then as we used to do in Marengo County when you wanted to move along a few scraggly cattle, I picked up a hand full of stones and began to throw them at the sheep to move them off of the trail. After about three well-placed stones that hit the mark, I raised my arm to send my missle home on a stubborn goat that just stood there. However, I caught myself in mid throw, as there appeared a young shepherd on the trail with fire in his eyes. What shocked me even more than his appearance was the fact that he was not a he but a she - a lady with anger-nothing like the fury of a woman. I discovered that day that a sincere apology, no matter what one's language, can be understood. I bowed and scrapped. And said real loud: "My Name is Henry. My name is Enriquie. Sorry." She smiled and I humbly walked beside her on down the precarious trail.
These last few months as the victims and the terrorists have made my morning prayer list, I have thought of that early morning experience outside of Bethlehem of Judea, when I woke up and knew as I know every morning, God knows my name and then when I encountered this stranger on a rustic trail, and I told her my name which resulted in a smile. I have often thought, "If only we knew one anther's name. Let's get to know the names of strangers. And let's call one another by name and all of this evil business, which stalks the land, will dissipate.
I'm sure all of us know someone who is the perfect host or hostess who always has the attitude; "There's always room." Come be with us. No matter how many persons are invited to a party, "there's always room for more."
That is the assurance, which Jesus gave to his disciples as he prepared them for his death and his departure. "In my Father's house, there are many dwelling places, many houses, (I always like the King James Version translation, and there are many mansions.")
Do any of you
remember the old Cokesbury hymn, "Ivory Palaces"-
"My Lord has garments so wondrous fine, and myrrh their texture fills, its
fragrance reached to this heart of mine, With joy my being thrills. Out of
the Ivory palaces, into a world of woe, only His great eternal love, Made my
Savior go." As a child I would listen to this old song sung by our small church
and lean back in the pew and my imagination would soar thinking about palaces,
so wondrously fine.
In my Father's Home,
there are many dwelling places. And Jesus goes on to tell them,
1. It is prepared for you.
2. That they will not follow him immediately, but "don't worry", he says, "do
not be afraid", because "there is room enough for all."
3. And the third lesson in this powerful scripture deals with how we can get to
this place in the nearer presence of God. Thomas raises the question with his
rather abrupt questions: "Where are you going? How can we know the way?" “I am
the way, the truth and the life.”
Room enough for all. In my father's
house, there are many rooms, there is room for you. Prepared for us. And as we
obey the commandments, the Counselor will be with us till that day.
1. Prepared for you---I so greatly miss my mother who in her 91st year recently went to heaven. One of the reasons I miss her was because with her I was the baby. The last-born. The favorite-"Don't you understand?". And when I talk to Jane about this, her attitude is "It's time you grew up." You see she was born the baby in the family also, and when two babies marry each other, there is always trouble. Both of you keep standing around expecting the other one to "take care of me, I'm the baby."
I remember Don Winslett talking about "birth order" and acknowledging that every marriage has its unique challenges. But when two first-born children marry, the bills get paid on time, but there's not a lot of fun. Whereas when two babies marry, "They have a great time but sometimes without hot water or lights."
To be the baby means that you have always had many hearts and hands to take care of you and to give you directions. Being the baby means that you are born into a structure and that you always have someone to guide you.
Consequently after I left home for college, married and had a family of my own, my mother knew that I was coming home to visit and she would always prepare special things. She would have a ham cooking in the oven, with potato salad and hot biscuits. Not store bought biscuits. Please. She prepared for the baby the best. And there would often be a Lemon Meringue pie. I don't mean a store bought Lemon Meringue pie …... I mean pie crust from scratch, grated lemons, and whipped egg white icing, lightly browned in the oven. Some of you have no clue what I am talking about. Just forget it. The point is: It wasn't what it was; it was that it had been prepared for me! My older brother would always get mad to see all of my favorites prepared, but when I tried to explain the concept of "the baby of the family," he would just close down and not listen.
For babies of the family, it is a giant leap, but one that can be made when you realize that God is your heavenly parent. Psalm 90: "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God."
Jesus said: "I go to prepare a place for you. Heaven is a place prepared for us. That's exciting. He who knows us by name also would know what we like and the people we like." Prepared for us.
Prepared for us-biscuits with no fat grams.
People who believe in themselves and in God who look at crisis as opportunities, problems as possibilities, and upon all things with gratitude in their heart.
Fresh sunrises and beautiful sunsets. With every myriad of color of the rainbow, and then some.
There is this deep need in the heart of us all for "A Place". A sense of belonging. Robert Frost has said that "Home is the place that when you go there, they have to take you in." But I think also that our Heavenly Home will be a place not only where they have to take us in, but that we will be wanted there and welcomed there."
I went to a funeral recently of a black friend whose minister said: "Welcome to this Homegoing Celebration for our friend."
The apostle Peter once said of the early church: "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people." With God is where you belong. There' a place for you!
But Jesus here in John 14, is talking not about the church here on earth, but about the church triumphant. The Church in heaven!
2. There's room for all.
One of the things that we modern Christians sometimes like to do with certain scriptures, and I put myself in that category, is to universalize them. To make them apply to the entire world, when they were originally intended only for the Church. Certainly in the teachings in the gospel of John there is this tendency, which is certainly understandable, to universalize Jesus' promises or to extend the benefits of life in Christ to all people.
The problem with that, however, is that the Gospel of John was written for the Johannine community, an early denomination of Christianity and was exclusively intended for them, and this is the case of this scripture where Jesus says: "There is room for you."
He was not talking about everybody, but those who were listening to his voice. The truth is, though there is room for all, there will probably be some empty palaces. I can't imagine some people being in heaven. They didn't want to be with Jesus or like Jesus while on earth, they would be miserable with him in the afterlife.
These words were not intended for everybody. They were intended for the church, for your church. "Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. In my father’s home, there are many dwellings. And I go to prepare a place for you."
3. As to how we are to get to heaven, Jesus, recorded by John was quite explicit: Through Jesus. He is the way, the truth and the life.
In a recent survey of Christian believers, only 18 percent registered that they believed that Jesus was the only way. There is an exclusive belief of many Christian believers and it is a controversy in our denomination with no resolution in sight. Frankly, because of my experience with many devout Jewish friends, I believe there are many trails to the top of the mountain, not just one. But for me, Jesus is the way, because he is the truth and the life.
The promise of the counselor or comforter is that God will be our daily companion.
Room enough for all. In my father's house, there are many rooms, there is room for you." Prepared for us. And as we obey the commandments, the Counselor will be with us till that day.