A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter
The Rev. Patricia Gillespie
Acts 4:23-37
Psalm 23
1 John 3:1-8
John 10:11-16
Whose child are you? To whom do you really belong?
We hear that question repeatedly today. And we hear a variety of answers: "Beloved, we are God's children now." But then again: "Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil." (And which of us has never "been there, done that.") And on top of it all, it's Mother's Day: Like it or not, for better or worse, we are our mothers' children. And then, the picture changes, and we seem to be sheep belonging to the Good Shepherd.
Whose child are you? To whom do you really belong?
When my children were small,
one of their favorite books was P. D. Eastman's "Are you my mother?"
In the story, while his mother is off looking for food, a baby bird hatches from his egg. And there's no mother in sight. On the little bird's hilarious, at times very touching, hunt for his mother, he encounters a all kinds of creatures. The baby bird asks everyone he meets --including a dog, a cow, and even a steam shovel-- "Are you my mother?" And none of them seems quite right.
"I did have a mother." said the baby bird. "I know I did. I have to find her. I will. I WILL !"
Sometimes our spiritual journey feels like that. We look all over for God and we find all kinds of godlike and not so godlike things that just aren't quite right. We may meet wolves and hired hands and ask "Are you my Shepherd?" We may be led astray by money or alcohol or power or romance, and ask them, "Are you my God?" But the match is about as right as the baby bird asking the steam shovel, "Are you my mother?"
The Good Shepherd says, "I know my own and my own know me." But sometimes it's really hard to know, we're often tricked by hired hands or wolves in shepherd's clothing. We're easily led astray into sin and become children of the devil.
Just how will we know our Good Shepherd? We do have a few hints:
In fact, there's even some indication that most shepherds in biblical times were women. That suggests a picture of the Good Shepherd for Mother's Day:
Listen again to the 23rd Psalm, chanted this time, in proper anglican style:
"The Lord is my Shepherd, I have all I need.
She makes me lie down in green meadows,
Beside the still waters, She will lead.
"She restores my soul. She rights my wrongs.
She leads me in a path of good things,
And fills my heart with songs.
"Even though I walk through a dark and dreary land,
There is nothing that can shake me.
She has said she won't forsake me.
I'm in her hand.
"She sets a table before me in the presence of my foes.
Seh anoints my head with oil.
And my cup overflows.
"Surely, surely goodness and kindness will follow me,
All the days of my life.
And I will live in her house.
Forever, forever and ever.
"Glory be to our Mother and Daughter
And to the Holy of Holies
As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen.
(Bobby McFerrin from Medicine Music).
Bobby McFerrin knows whose child he is.
Not only obviously a child of our own anglican tradition,
but child of God and of his own mother,
to whom he dedicated that version of the 23rd psalm.Whose child are you? To whom do you belong? The Good Shepherd, the Good Mother. Not those imperfect mothers we all had, but the Mother who cares so much for us that She'd give absolutely everything for us, even Her own life.
Our prayer at the altar today reminds us that God cares for us "as a mother cares for her children."
And God loves us even though She really knows us -- knows our sins just as a Good Shepherd knows how easily the sheep are led astray. She knows and loves Her own, all of them. "There will be one flock, one shepherd."
That's good news. We can hope that all the sheep will be cared for by the Good Shepherd. Even those of us who tend to be rather black sheep, or who wander off repeatedly, singing "perverse and foolish oft I strayed," all are sheep of the Good Shepherd.
Whose child are you? "Beloved, we are God's children now."
"Glory be to our Mother and Daughter
And to the Holy of Holies
As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen."