A reading from the Acts of the Apostles.
Peter,
Filled with the Holy Spirit,
Addressed them,
Rulers of the people and elders,
If you are questioning us today about an act of kindness to a cripple and asking us how he was healed,
Then I am glad to tell you all and would indeed be glad to tell you the whole people of Israel that it was by the name of Jesus Christ,
The Nazarene,
The one you crucified,
Whom God raised from the dead,
By this name and by no other,
That this man is able to stand up perfectly healthy here in your presence today.
This is the stone rejected by you,
The boldards,
But which has proved to be the keystone for all of the names in the world given to men.
This is the only one by which we can be saved.
The word of the Lord.
A letter from 1 John 3.
Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God's children.
And that is what we are,
Because the world refused to acknowledge him,
Therefore it does not acknowledge us,
My dear people.
We are already the children of God,
But what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed.
All we know is that when it is revealed,
We shall be like him,
Because we shall see him as he really is.
The word of the Lord.
The Lord be with you.
A reading from the Holy Gospel according to John.
Jesus said,
I am a good shepherd.
The good shepherd is one who lays down his life for his sheep.
The hired man,
Since he is not the shepherd and the sheep do not belong to him,
Abandons the sheep and runs away as soon as he sees a wolf coming.
And then the wolf attacks and scatters the sheep.
This is because he is only a hired man and has no concern for the sheep.
I am the good shepherd.
I know my own and my own know me,
Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.
And I lay down my life for my sheep and there are other sheep I have that are not of this fold and these I have to lead as well.
They too will listen to my voice and there will be only one flock and one shepherd.
The Father loves me because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.
No one takes it from me.
I lay it down of my own free will and as it is in my power to lay it down,
So it is in my power to take it up again.
And this is the command I have been given by my Father.
The Gospel of the Lord.
The readings today kind of took me by surprise.
Um,
Christmoth may be the right word.
It set over well.
With all the layers and promises and ideas coming up at the same time,
Different viewpoints.
Jesus repeated to himself when he said that I am the good shepherd.
And we see here that the hired man,
The people who do not have necessarily the best interest,
All those that they need to look after their father,
Run away at their first sign of trouble.
Yet this is not what Jesus did.
And I know many people have spoken about this before,
That he's given up his life for us.
I want to go back to our second reading.
Where John wrote that when the future is revealed we shall be like God.
Because we shall see him as he really is.
And we repeat that when we entrust somebody's soul into God's care when they have passed.
That we shall see God and be like him.
That's something that we cannot really fathom.
How could we be like the Lord who is everything?
And it's easy to get overwhelmed in those concepts.
So what can we do to try and stem that overwhelm?
We don't know and we can acknowledge that.
We can acknowledge that once we pass,
The Lord will open our minds,
Our hearts,
Our souls.
And if we have eyes,
Our eyes,
To see him as he really is.
But what can we do today?
It is interesting that Jesus in the Gospel of John says,
And these I have to lead as well,
And they too will listen to my voice,
And mainly will be only one flock.
So we often,
I think,
Miss that part in the beautiful story of the Good Shepherd.
We miss the fact that our flock is not the only one that Jesus came to save.
Jesus came to share unconditional love.
Period.
Unconditional.
And yet,
Here we are today and we find ourselves judging those that are from a different flock.
We are judging those who experience God in different ways than we do.
We judge those that experience life and love in different ways than we do.
And oftentimes we do that out of hurt.
There's so many of my religious friends from different religions who are hurting from past wrongs done to them.
They cling so much to that hurt that it becomes part of their identity.
And it happens in the Christian community as well.
We cling so much to the past,
Past rules of,
If I don't pray in this way,
Then I cannot,
Or if you don't pray in this way,
It's rather,
Call us faithless faith.
If you don't pray the way that I do,
Then you are going to help.
Then you are not a true Christian.
Then you are not really religious.
How fickle is that of us?
I find myself doing the exact same thing,
Constantly having to remind myself that I'm not a judge.
And here Jesus says it so clearly about,
There are other sheep I have that are not of this fold,
Different folds,
Different ways of expression of the Lord,
Of God.
And Jesus came to share the message of love that is unconditional with us all.
Before reading this and preparing,
A song by Joan Osborne came out in my mind very clearly.
What if God was one of them?
Just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home.
Can we see that we are the children of God,
We have God inside of us,
Every single one of us have God inside.
If we can go into this week asking ourselves,
How am I willing to treat the Lord?
How am I willing to speak to a stranger?
How am I willing to speak to God?
Because at some stage we will all become one.
And then the question will be asked,
How did I treat myself?
How did I treat my neighbour and God?
And those are the only two commandments that Jesus gave us,
Love God,
Love thy neighbour.
Which in essence is very much part of the same thing.
So when somebody of a different flock or a different fold challenges your thought patterns this week,
Perhaps take a moment to acknowledge the fact that they are also part,
One of God's sheep,
Maybe not in the same fold as you are.
And that you can still treat them with compassion and love,
Even if they think in ways that are completely different.
Amen.
