More Than
Lamb Chops
Pastor Mathew Magera – 4/22/18 – Sermon 283
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Whether they tell you or
not, whether they even know it or not, children like to be taken care of. What
child doesn't enjoy going to bed without worrying if the bills will be paid or
if the forecasted storm will turn violent, or if their cough will turn into
Pneumonia? Most children in our country go to bed each night without a care in
the world, knowing someone else is in charge. As we grow older we may begin to
understand this more and more but we always seek out those in charge to take
care of us.
Have you ever noticed just
how much we trust certain people in our lives to take care of us and point us
in the right direction? Do you realize how much personal information you give
your doctor that you may not even give to your family, people you have grown up
with and known your entire life? One of my seminary professors once made a
point that a person would be willing to go see a brand new doctor, be told to
undress to their underwear and they would do it without question, having never
even met the doctor. We trust certain people with our personal information,
with our health, with our well-being. We trust others who are stronger and
wiser than we are to take care of us.
Today is Good Shepherd
Sunday, and our Gospel reading from John 10 identifies Jesus as our Good
Shepherd. A shepherd oversees. A shepherd knows what is best for the sheep
because of their oversight. A shepherd can anticipate situations before they
happen. This allows shepherds to safely guide their sheep from danger into
safety. Our 21st Century minds, however, have greatly lost sight of the
significance of the shepherd/sheep metaphor. As a result, the best thing, it
seems, we can do to understand what Jesus is telling us, is to modernize the
metaphor to something we better understand.
If you are a fan of art, you
may know about a habit of many medieval painters in which they depict historical
events as if they took place in their current time period. If you were here on
Maundy Thursday, you might remember it being mentioned that Leonardo Da Vinci's
famous painting of the Last Supper was depicted not as it would have taken
place in Christ's day but instead how it would have taken place in present day
Italy. I was even told by someone who did some research into this that the meal
they were shown to be eating in the painting is grilled eel, perhaps a more
modern and elegant meal than the bread and wine that would likely have been
shared at the actual Last Supper. German painter, Lukas Cranach also painted a
depiction of the Nativity, dressing the characters of the Christmas story in
modern day European clothing, men wearing tights and silk shirts with puffy
sleeves and big hats.
You might imagine that this
bold move was not always met with approval. I mean, there are some modern day
depictions of biblical events but can you imagine what might be said in
response to a 21st century Nativity scene depicting Joseph in a pair of jeans,
Mary wearing a Ralph Lauren blouse and the three kings in snappy Armani suits?
There actually is a 21st century rendition of Mary and Joseph depicting them as
a young, poor minority high school couple. But, looking at these
interpretations of biblical events, for some, creates confusion and seems
terribly disrespectful, to which they would say the original meaning is lost by
mixing it up with the corruption of the modern world.
Still, for those that do not
understand the significance of Biblical events, modern interpretations have the
ability to create meaning where there previously was none at all.
While we have outgrown the
significance and understanding of a shepherd, we can't deny that we are still
searching in our modern lives for someone to fill that role. We are always
looking to someone wiser and stronger than we are to care for us, to take our
worries away. There are times I wish I was a kid again because of how much
trust I placed into others who were older, stronger and wiser than myself. As
we get older and venture off into living without the same securities we may
have had as children, we begin to yearn for that oversight, that shepherd
figure once again. "Now we know what it’s like to wait for results from
the pathology lab. Now we know what it’s like to watch a deadly storm roar ever
closer on the TV’s radar scope. Now maybe we’ve gone through the pain of having
to bid first grandparents and then parents and finally even friends a final
goodbye."[1] Just
because sheep and shepherds aren't familiar to us and just because our shepherd
figures can let us down, does not supress our desire for something to fill this
void. "We still live in a dangerous world. Wolves abound. We will never
come to a day when we will not need someone who will care for us no matter
what. We need someone who can see every wolf that runs our way and who will get
killed himself rather than abandon any one of us sheep as statistically
insignificant. We need someone with the vision and the wisdom to lead us safely
through the landmine-pocked landscapes of life in a world which is as
bewildering as this one often proves to be."[2]
We have teachers, lawyers,
doctors, nurses, soldiers, business owners, accountants, counselors, life
coaches, parents, grandparents, pastors, the list goes on. Each of these types
of people act like shepherds in what they do. Each look out for you in
different ways to ensure that you are well taken care of. When we hear Jesus
call himself the Good Shepherd, it may be easiest for us to think of him like
these different roles that people play in our lives. Our doctors take good care
of us. A good doctor listens to us when we talk. The patient of a good doctor
will hear their voice when they write prescriptions, refer to specialists, or
offer opinions. They have a plan for our lives. We trust them with our lives.
We could say similar things about any other role in that list. These are our
shepherd-like figures.
Nevertheless, even though we
have these modern shepherds in our lives, we still find that they fail to live
up to the definition of a trustworthy and confident shepherd. Each of the
people I have listed or that we have ever trusted to be shepherd figures for us
have failed us at one point or another. None of them are perfect. All of them
are subject to failure. Doctors can only do so much. Soldiers can only protect
us so well. Accountants can only help us so far, even pastors can't live up to
what you really need. Our shepherds fail us and we find ourselves looking
deeper for a shepherd to care for us, lead us and protect us in a way that
these others can't. As a result, surrendering ourselves to the one Good
Shepherd is challenging because we have been let down in the past. What's to
say that Jesus won't let us down just like someone else has let us down before?
We don't want to entrust ourselves to Jesus because we know the risks of doing
so. We don't want to be the vulnerable sheep in the fold, an easy victim to the
predators out there licking their lips and waiting to strike. We want to be
more than a tasty plate of lamb chops. We want to be protected and cared for.
But, we have been let down. Trust, as a result, is a challenge. We need to
learn to trust our Good Shepherd and to believe that Jesus is more than our
modern shepherds.
We need to know that we are
more than lamb chops. We need to know that we are more than a tasty meal just
waiting to be devoured by everything that closes in on us. That's the promise
that Jesus gives us here in John 10. He says, you are more to me than a wolf's
dinner. Others may let you down, but I won't. Jesus tasted death so that we
would not have to. Jesus rose from the dead and so will we because he is our
shepherd.
What we need to see is that
where others have let us down, Jesus will not let us down. Where others have
failed us, Jesus will not fail us. Where others have not protected us, Jesus
will protect us. Jesus promises to keep us from danger and Jesus promises a
plan for us.
If any of you have ever
flown through Chicago's O'Hare airport, you might know what a nuthouse that
place can be. When I was in college, I worked at O'Hare airport. My main
purpose and focus were the cargo ramps 3rd shift on the weekends. I worked a
cargo ramp at O'Hare that had one taxiway that planes would take in or out of
the ramp. I sat in a car, talked to the pilots and gave them permission to
enter the ramp or leave it. The goal was to prevent two planes coming nose to
nose because you can't just back a plane up like you can a car. Now, while this
was my main focus, I also had opportunity to do something quite similar during
the day in one of the control towers at the airport. From this vantage point, I
would talk to many of the regional airliners operating out of a few of the
terminals at the airport. There were more ways to get in and out of those
terminals but the same purpose and focus was in play to prevent two planes from
coming nose to nose as well as getting them into their gate and out as quickly
and as efficiently as possible. From my view up in the tower, I was able to see
the area over which I was in charge as well as much further out. Airports like
O'Hare often have times of day where most of their planes either arrive or
depart at very close to the same time. During these times, it was not uncommon
for me to have six or seven planes taking up all the space on my ramp trying to
get out. Once they got to a certain point at the end of the ramp, they would be
instructed to switch to another controller who would assign them a runway and
get them on their way. However, while the planes sat there others would want to
come in. Not knowing what was going on I would tell them that they could not
come in and they would be sent to a place on the airport that is known as the
penalty box and they would sit there until there was room for them to come in.
Pilots as well as passengers in those planes were not often happy with this
turn of events. Passengers needed to get to connecting flights, pilots needed
to get to different planes. But, from my point of view, there was no room for
them to get in, so they had to wait. Their perspective would never understand
why I told them to do what they had to do, but a longer wait somewhere else
prevented those nose to nose situations and kept everybody safe.
This is an example of how we
are to trust Jesus as our shepherd. We must remember that he has the best
vantage point over us and our situation. He can see beyond our abilities and he
can guide us in certain directions in order to keep us safe. This doesn't mean
that his guidance will be very welcome on our end. We may want to be in one
place but if Jesus wants us doing something else, it's not going to feel very
good. When this happens, we feel that anxiety once again like we are being led
down a path that others have failed us in the past. We feel as if we are just
going to be another tasty treat for those predators out there that want to take
us. Through this, Jesus promises to keep us from danger and promises he has a
plan.
Perhaps the most difficult
thing about all of this is that our idea of protection may not be the same idea
of protection in God's eyes. We want someone to take our pain away right this
very moment. We want someone to reverse our debt right now. We want someone to
take away the diagnosis now. Our trials that we go through are tough and it is
quite natural of us to blame our shepherd. You didn't look after me hard enough
and now look where I am.
You see, we use these and
think of these as another way someone else has let us down. God has let me down
because I am suffering so much. It causes many of us to lose faith or forget
faith. Why believe in something if it's not going to fix me or my situation
right now? Why bother? Not saying that God can't do that, but he doesn't appear
to operate that way. If we aren't releasing ourselves into His timing, we are
fighting our shepherd. This is where our true faith is born. Faith is born in
the struggle, the struggle to let go, the struggle to not have answers that we
want, the struggle to get up and go when we don't want to, the struggle to look
beyond our limitations and our disabilities. We can't compete with these
realities around us. We cannot do it on our own.
So, here is what Jesus
promises us from John 10. Jesus promises that as our Good Shepherd, he will lay
down his life for his sheep. He will die so that his sheep may live. Does that alleviate
the suffering the sheep may be going through? Not necessarily, but his laying
down of his life guarantees the sheep life. They will live. We will live. Jesus
says the hired worker, at the first sight of a wolf, will run because they have
no attachment to the sheep and they are only trying to save their own lives.
That is the reality of our modern shepherds. They may run, but Jesus will not.
He will lay down his life for us as he did when he died on the cross.
Another promise Jesus makes
as our shepherd is that he will know us just as we know him. He will know and
understand us from the inside out. While he may not lead us in the direction we
want to go, he leads us in the direction he knows we should go.
This is what we want as
sheep. We want a shepherd that will lay down their life for us. We want a
shepherd who knows us and has our best interests in mind. Jesus reminds us here
that he is that shepherd. He will not let us down like the others and he
promises to secure our lives. He makes us remember that we are more than just
another client. We are more than just a 20 minute appointment every six months.
We are more than just another student. He reminds us that we are more than lamb
chops. We give thanks for those in our lives who take care of us but we are
even more grateful for him who is able to go above and beyond any human
capability to preserve our lives. For we remember what has been written to us
in the book of Hebrews, "He who promised is faithful." He laid down
his life for you. Trust his vantage point. Trust him as your Good Shepherd. To God
be the glory, now and always. Amen.
[1] http://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/easter-4b-2/?type=the_lectionary_gospel.
[2] Ibid.