The Mayberry Preacher

REVISITING REVELATION: A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT

Revelation 22: 1-5, Ezekiel 47: 7-12
Steve Lindsley
July 3, 2011

Last week I had the pleasure, along with Pepper Mayes, of taking six of our middle schoolers to the Massanetta Middle School Conference.  In addition to having loads of fun with a fantastic group of kids, I also got to reconnect with some of my ministry colleagues who were there with groups of their own.  Kind of weird – years before we had attended these things as kids ourselves; and now we’re the “responsible adults.”  Funny the way life works!

Anyway, I was telling one of my friends that I was going to revisit a sermon series on Revelation that I preached a few years back.  I explained that recent events like Harold Camping’s prophecy about the world ending in May had spruned on an interesting debate in our culture about what the Bible really says about the end of the world.  I told her I felt the need to reignite that conversation with my church.  Kelly’s response was not very affirming: Good luck with that!  she exclaimed.  I could hear what she was also saying between the lines: Better you than me! 

And, you know, I guess that’s to be expected, don’t you think?  It’s interesting how we interact with the last book of the Bible: we don’t talk about Revelation as much as we talk around it.  We know it’s there and maybe we can quote a verse or two, but when it comes to really understanding what it says, we do one of two things.  We either ignore it all together, due to lack of interest or fear.  Or we put an awful lot of trust in what other people say about it.

Everyone remembers the most recent example with Harold Camping, a pastor out in California, who created quite a firestorm when he predicted that the world was going to end this past May.  But he certainly wasn’t the first.  Back in 1992, a pastor in South Korea, Reverend Lee Kim, predicted that the Rapture was going to take place on October 28th. Twenty thousand Koreans in South Korea, Los Angeles and New York City took the prediction seriously.  In an eerie nod to Camping, hundreds quit jobs and left their families to prepare for their trip to heaven. Rim’s church paid for costly ads in the Los Angeles and New York Times, urging readers to prepare for their journey through the skies – which, as we all know, has not come to pass yet.

You probably know about the Left Behind book series, a fictional account supposedly based on Revelation.  For those hungering for something after the 16 books, there’s an accompanying website, www.leftbehind.com, which offers up-to-date analysis of world events and their relation to the second coming of Christ, based on the collective interpretation of authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.  It does come with a price – literally.  $19.95, to be exact, which gives you membership in its “prophecy club” and grants you “preferred access” to special sections of the website not available to the average internet surfer. Because when it comes to knowing important stuff like what the Bible says about the end times, only those who can afford to pay should get to know!

Things like this are the reason my job as pastor is never boring, often challenging; and why I’ve chosen to revisit this sermon series, updating it to 2011.  Because while predictions come and go, whether they’re from Harold Camping or someone else, one thing hasn’t changed: and that is our tendency over the past 2000 years to focus on what we think is in Revelation, rather than doing the hard work of actually finding out what is.  And perhaps most importantly, what isn’t. 

Case in point (and this is going to shock some of you): if I were to ask you to name two concepts that lie at the heart of Revelation, chances are you’d say the rapture and the antichrist, right?  But here’s the thing: neither one of those terms are found anywhere in Revelation!  An “antichrist” is mentioned a couple of times in 1 and 2 Peter; it’s the name the writer uses for someone who is promulgating incorrect doctrine in the early church.  Their teachings, in the writer’s opinion, were “against Christ” – anti-christ.  Now we, of course, have made it out to mean something else entirely – son of Satan ushering in the end of the world, and the arch nemesis in apocalyptic horror movies.  But if we are talking about what is in the Bible – the foundation of our faith and, second to Jesus himself, the revelation of God to the world – if we’re talking about the Bible, an antichrist was nothing more than a misguided teacher.

And as you’re digesting that, try this on for size:  “Rapture” was a concept developed not by an inspired writer of scripture but by an 18th-century Baptist preacher who randomly strung together verses out of the Old and New Testaments to create a cosmic calendar concluding with the world’s demise.   Now you can read the 22 chapters of Revelation as many times as you want, but no matter how many times you do, you will never find the word “rapture” in there.  It’s a simple fact!

So why do we make such a big deal about these things?  Why do we talk about the Antichrist like we do, and why do we blindly accept the idea of Rapture as the gospel truth?  Sometimes it’s easier to believe what someone else tells us, rather than doing the hard work of finding out for ourselves.

If we’re going to find out what Revelation has to say to those of us trying to live faithfully in the 21st century, we have to dig deeper.  We have to embrace the mystery of Revelation.  It’s kind of like in The Wizard of Oz, you know, when Dorothy and the rest are standing in the heart of the Emerald Castle before the Great Wizard.  It’s a powerful and shocking and frightening scene – until Dorothy’s dog Toto grabs the green curtain in its teeth and pulls it to the side.  Remember that?  Remember how different things looked on the other side of the curtain compared to what they looked like in front of it?

That’s what you and I need to do when it comes to Revelation – we need to pull the curtain aside to see what’s really there.  In fact, that’s pretty much what the Greek word for “Revelation” means – to uncover or reveal; to pull aside the covering so that what was not previously known is made known. That’s what I hope you and I get to do over the next three weeks – to tug at that curtain a little bit each Sunday and move beyond our fear of the unknown, or what we’ve heard from others, so we can see something we haven’t seen before.

Like, for instance, a river.  In the very last chapter, there’s this river.  We kind of miss the river, don’t we?  We’re much more drawn to the bloodshed and war and death and famine in Revelation – which says something about us, doesn’t it?  But there it is – this river.  And we find ourselves alongside it; a river whose waters are “bright as crystal,” flowing from the very throne of God.  And that’s not the only thing we see – on either side of the river is the “tree of life.”  And what’s significant about this tree is that it bears fruit year-round; fruit which has the ability to “heal the nations.”  That’s some pretty amazing fruit!

Pull back the curtain a little more and we discover that this is not the first time we’ve happened upon this river – the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel mentioned it, and the trees, near the conclusion of his book:

On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food.  Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary.  Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.  Wherever the river goes, everything will live and be fresh.

You know what the great thing about Ezekiel’s river is?  It flows from the sanctuary – the sacred temple in Jerusalem.  Which is extraordinary, to say the least – because the people the prophet was speaking to had seen with their own eyes that very temple burned to the ground, as the Jewish people were taken from their homeland to live in Babylon. 

So Ezekiel’s prophecy is a vision – a vision of old things being made new.  And not just the temple!  Even the people are transformed through this river.  Healed of their past sufferings; renewed once again to serve and worship God.  Of course, it’s not a literal river or tree Ezekiel describes here.  It’s something more significant than that!  It’s a metaphor; a powerful metaphor for the restoration of God’s people as their time of exile comes to a close.  It is a commanding symbol and promise of hope when all hope seems lost.

That same river – liturgically speaking – flowed some 600 years into the future, all the way to a group of Christians in middle first-century Palestine who knew all too well about lost hope. Like their predecessors, they too had seen their holy city and temple burned to the ground – this time by the Roman Empire.  Over the years this new power persecuted those who professed faith in anyone other than the Emperor.  And it wasn’t always persecution in the classical sense: hangings on crosses and beheadings and all that nastiness.

To be a Christian in that day and time was about being a social outcast, a weirdo; unable to participate in the commerce of the day.  It meant sacrificing your social status, your financial well-being, your clout and your standing.  It meant not being able to buy in the marketplace because the only coins they used were ones with the emperor’s image on it, and you didn’t use those kind of coins.  Being a Christian back then meant loving your enemies in a world where enemies were either converted or destroyed.  It meant pledging your allegiance to a crucified carpenter in a world which daily sold out its soul to power and conquest and victory.  In some ways, that kind of persecution was worse than death.

And yet even in that world – especially in that world – a river continued to run through it.  God’s river.  A river of life, surrounded by trees of life; reminding the faithful that there is hope in a hopeless world, that healing can take place in a world torn asunder.  And a river whose flow never, ever stops – because things like grace and mercy and love are continuous, like a current that can’t be diverted, even when those things are sometimes hard to sense or see.

So today, you and I drink deep from the waters of Revelation’s river.  We eat heartily from the fruit of Revelation’s tree.  And we do this every time God’s people gather together in worship, every time a child is baptized, every time the bread and cup are laid out on this table.  We drink and eat from Revelation’s river and tree every time someone chooses to lay a grudge aside, every time a hungry person is fed, every time someone goes out of their way to do what they think Jesus would’ve done.  We embrace the truth of Revelation every time we put our trust and faith not in what others or our culture have to say, but in a God who never forgets God’s people, who brings the exiles back home, who promises all of us sanctuary and shelter and an eternal home.

This is the message Revelation speaks to us, if only we listen, if only we put aside our fears and pull back the curtain to see what’s really there: hope in a hopeless world.  I wonder what other things we’ll get to see!  Thanks be to God, AMEN.

ALL WE NEED IS AN INFLATABLE CHURCH

Ezekiel 1: 1, 4-5, 12-21
Luke 5: 1-11
Steve Lindsley
November 7, 2010

It has all the components of your typical sanctuary.  It stretches 47 feet into the air.  It has Gothic arches as you walk in the front door, shadowed by two towers on either side and a steeple in the back that reaches for the heavens – reminiscent of a traditional English cathedral.  When you walk inside you’ll find pew space for roughly 60 worshippers. Up front you’ll come to a pulpit, an altar table, and off to the side an organ.  Surrounding you on both sides are beautiful stained-glass windows.  It is a fully-functioning church sanctuary that sees action every weekend.

Oh, and one more thing – it’s inflatable.

That’s right, inflatable.  As in “blow it up,” “just add air” inflatable.  The Inflatable Church, which you can check out at www.inflatablechurch.com, is the brain child of Michael Gill, a 40-something year old English bloke who debuted his creation a few years ago.  He’s hoping it will, as he “tongue-in-cheek” puts it, “breathe new life into Christianity.”  The Inflatable Church makes its way to village squares or open fields for impromptu services and portable weddings.  Now granted, you have to get past the polyvinyl pews and the pop-up pulpit.  And it may take some getting used to the puffy plastic walls or the pseudo-stained glass windows.  But you can purchase your very own for a mere $35,000.  Think about it – a luxury sedan or a house of worship.  Take your pick.

You can imagine how frequently this might serve as the punch line for any number of jokes.  Bring your Bible; leave all sharp objects at home!  Upon hearing about the Inflatable Church when he asked what I was preaching on, my brother quickly quibbled that it’s not just the preacher who’s full of hot air!  And while the idea of worshipping the Almighty from within what basically amounts to a moonwalk at the county fair seems a bit over-the-top, I do have to hand it to Mr. Gill for addressing in creative fashion what is a critically challenging issue facing the church today. 

That issue is revealed when Gill answers the question he undoubtedly gets over and over again – what possessed him to come up with the idea to create the inflatable church?  His response, somewhat surprisingly, is quite theological.  There was a time, he says, when churches were the center of community life; but now, he laments, that is no longer the case.  Waiting for communities to come back to the church might prove to be a pretty long wait.  So why not bring the church to the community?  That's why he made the Inflatable Church – it goes wherever you go.  All you need is air.

As members of this congregation and people who have a vested interest in the church, we ought to pay attention to folks like Michael Gill.  They shed light on the challenge that comes with proclaiming the gospel to people who are eternally “on the go.” The espresso society, the high-speed internet culture, the fast-food community.  Churches used to relish in being the center of community life, but nowadays churches are struggling just to keep up with the pace of everything.  It’s a different world out there compared to what it was just half a century ago.

Perhaps no one knows this better than Jim Kitchens.  As pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Jim recalls a Sunday morning service a few years ago that fell on July 4th.  Now it was tradition in that community that a local civic club would sponsor a late morning Independence Day “kiddie parade” which culminated in a family celebration at the city park – the park that was right next door to the church.  As Kitchens stepped into the pulpit to begin his sermon that morning, the local university band, standing practically right outside the church window, launched into a rousing rendition of Eric Clapton's, “Cocaine.”  And no matter how loud he spoke, Kitchens' voice was drowned out by the blaring music.

Community leaders would later confess that it never occurred to them that there might be a conflict between their annual festivities and standard Sunday morning worship services.  Nor did the university band ever consider the irony of playing a song about recreational drug use right outside the church walls.  As Kitchens would later put it, “The community, which on the whole would be thought of as friendly toward its churches, didn’t even have us on its radar screen that day.” (Jim Kitchens, The Postmodern Parish: New Ministry for a New Era. The Alban Institute, 2003, 14-15)

Now whether incidents like this are frightening omens of a society spiraling to the depths of moral and religious depravity, or simply a sign of the changing times in our culture, all that's up for discussion.   The question we're faced with is this: how does the church respond to this?  And what does any of this have to do with an inflatable church?

Long ago in the ancient world, there was a man sitting by a river.  It had all the elements of any other river he has seen in his life – running water, sandy banks, refreshing air.  But there was something very different about this river – something that made him uneasy and melancholy.  It was the river Chebar of Babylon, and it was not at all familiar to him.  Four years before, the powerful Babylonian nation descended on the capital city of Jerusalem with every ounce of their military might.  They literally set the town ablaze and displaced much of its population, dragging them back to Babylon to live as a conquered people.

So the waters of Chebar that flowed before him served as a painful reminder of where he was not.  He and his people were not just, as the Psalmist would later say, “strangers in a strange land.”  So intertwined was their sense of God and their homeland that to be apart from that land meant to be apart from God.  They were strangers in a strange land, but more devastating, they were nomads without a spiritual home.

I have to think Ezekiel was mulling all of this in his head as he sat by that river, even as God’s spirit descended upon him in the form of a grand vision.  There's all kinds of wild stuff in this vision – a stormy wind, flashing fire; winged creatures with human and animal faces, and a dome and a throne – presumably on which sat the Almighty himself.  It's not the kind of stuff one typically sees by the riverside!

And while I’m certain all of this caught Ezekiel's eye, I imagine what came next really got his attention:

As I looked at the living creatures, I saw a wheel on the earth beside the living creatures…, their appearance being something like a wheel within a wheel.  Wherever the spirit would go, they went, and the wheels rose along with them.  When they moved, the others moved; when they stopped, the others stopped; and when they rose from the earth, the wheels rose along with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels…

Wheels.  Now think about that for a minute.  Can you imagine what a strange sight this must have been – “God on wheels?”  Can any of us begin to fathom what this vision meant to that nomad by the riverside?  To discover beyond your wildest imagination that God is not tied to any one place; that God is not restricted to the Holy Land hundreds of miles away, but is in fact right here, right now, with you and every one of the exiles?  They may have been in the strangest of place, the circumstances around them unfamiliar and perhaps even threatening, but they still knew who they were and whose they were.  Ezekiel’s astounding vision is a vision of many things, but perhaps most importantly it is a vision to the people that God is with them, wherever they are. 

Fast forward a half-millennium to another man alongside the waters, teaching the crowds from a boat owned by a salty fisherman.  Nothing Jesus does is ever by chance.  After he finishes his sermon he asks the boat’s owner to push out to water and cast the nets.  Simon has no interest in entertaining the whims of a religious teacher.  It’s already been a long day, and an unproductive one at that.  But for whatever reason he does as he is asked.  And as he and the others begin to pull the nets up, much to their shock, they are full of the fish that had eluded them all day.  So full are the nets, in fact, that they start to break.  Jesus has their attention now.  Come with me, he tells them, and you will be catching people.  And they drop their nets right there and devote the rest of their lives to him.

I’ve often wondered, as perhaps you have, why in the world Simon, James and John would leave their livelihoods, their families, the only life they knew to follow this man whom they met just hours before.  Surely it couldn’t be just about the fish.  They had to have known that there was something special about this man, something that transcended their daily mundane routines.  Could it be, quite simply, because he was the one who came to them?  They didn’t have to go down to the synagogue to hear him teach.  They didn’t have to seek him out.  He sought them out.  He came to them on their own turf, got in their boat, and chose to reveal his identity through something they knew well – fishing.  And when it was time to extend the invitation, Jesus didn’t say, “I’ll teach you to get a bunch of converts” or “I’ll help you save some souls.”  No – he spoke in terms that a fisherman would understand: From now on you’ll be catching people. 

The truth of the matter is this: like those Israelites of long ago, we, too, are in a strange land of sorts.  We live in a society that for the most part no longer embraces the church-at-large and the religious convictions we share.  And to be perfectly honest, my friends, that is not such a bad thing.  It's not a bad thing because it forces us to be the church, not just show up for it.  When the band is playing an Eric Clapton tune right outside our walls, we are reminded that being part of God's mission is not a passive kind of thing.  It's always active.  So our job is not to work to achieve some “past glory” as the church; it's not to “bring God back” into our midst.  God is already here!  God is on wheels, meeting the people right where they are. 

And because God is on the move, we should do the same.  You know, we in the church are guilty sometimes of falling victim to a complacency of sorts – of waiting inside our comfortable sanctuary walls, among our lovely stained glass windows, waiting for the people outside to come in to us.  Perhaps there was once a day when we could get by doing this – but not any more.   Now, like Jesus, we are being called to go outside our church doors and greet the people where they are. 

For Jesus it was at the fishing docks; for us it’s the Shepherd’s House or Yokefellow or Medical ministries.  For Jesus it was meeting three ordinary fishermen; for us it might be a single mom with no job or health insurance, a family of five whose house burned down, or an elderly couple with an empty pantry.  Or perhaps it’s even people like you and me – people who struggle keeping up with things in this fast-paced world, people needing to experience the transforming love of Jesus Christ in their lives.  Those are the kinds of people God calls us to meet out there and bring back here.  That’s the kind of church God calls us to be.

So maybe Mr. Gill really is on to something as he travels the English countryside with his contraption.  But you and I, we know there's more that goes into being the inflatable church.  It's not about the polyvinyl pews or the pop-up pulpit, it's about the people.  People like you and me who heed God’s calling, even God's very example, to be on the move – going out and catching people in a world that just won't slow down.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

BITTER WORDS NEVER TASTED SWEETER

Ezekiel 2:1-3:3, 12-15
Steve Lindsley
January 10, 2010
Officer Installation/Ordination Sunday

In the comedy She’s Having a Baby, actors Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern play a young couple making their way through the joyous trials of life.  One of the more entertaining scenes takes place at the couple's wedding.  The two are standing at the altar and the minister, a stoic elderly gentleman and not the least bit personal (and isn’t that they way clergy are typically depicted on the silver screen?  Why is that?) The minister muddles his way through the “do you's” as if reading a restaurant menu.  They sound familiar at first: Will thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?

Just as Bacon’s character is about to answer, however, the voice drifts off in a dreamlike-state, as if we’re getting a peek into the groom's subconscious.  And the vows we now hear take a noticeable turn: Will thou provide her with a four-bedroom, two and one half bath home?  Will thou listen patiently to stories about kids' colds, shoes, kids' clothes, sore feet, and decorater checkbook covers?  The camera captures a beleaguered Kevin Bacon wiping sweat off his brow and then, without the least bit of confidence, musters a rather unconvincing “I do.” 

“Overwhelmed” is probably the best way to describe him, don't you think?  I guess that's why this scene still sticks out in my mind.  Maybe it was also at the altar for us, or perhaps at some other point in our life, but chances are we've all felt that way before.  In fact, I'm wondering if our seven newest elders could claim that sensation about right now.  Just a few minutes ago they stood before you and essentially said “I do” to a long litany of questions; of responsibilities they are committing themselves to - Do you trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior, acknowledging him Lord of all and head of the Church?  Will you fulfill your office in obedience to Jesus Christ?  Do you promise to further the peace, unity, and purity of the church?  I'm tempted to wonder if, like Bacon, they heard other questions in their head: Do you promise to attend session meetings, even on freezing cold January mornings?  Are you willing to take a stand on difficult and perhaps controversial issues, even when others may disagree with you?  Do you promise to make needed budget cuts and replace burnt-out light bulbs and lock the church up on Easter Sunday?

It is, after all, a big responsibility – being an elder.  It's why we have worship services like this.  Our congregation takes great care in prayerfully nominating and electing the individuals who serve as leaders on our session.  All officers of the church are ordained to ministry.  Ordination is literally a “setting apart” of individuals for specific tasks in ministry – meaning that being an elder is different from serving on some community board or agency.   Individuals ordained to ministry are called by God just as clergy are.  The “office” may be different, but the ministry is one and the same.  And it is not to be taken lightly.

It seems to me that the prophet Ezekiel was just beginning to realize this in our scripture reading today.  He, too, was called by God – to speak God’s word to people in exile.  You know the story.  Their beautiful city Jerusalem destroyed, decimated; the entire Hebrew nation carted off to live in captivity in Babylon.  Their identity as God’s people, like their city, in ruin.

Ezekiel was, in many ways, very much like you and me.  He had a career – he was a priest, actually.  He was married, had children, had a home.  He and the rest of God’s people had been living in Babylon for five years when one day, out of the blue, God called him to something special; something he would've never imagined in his wildest dreams.  God called Ezekiel to speak God's word to the people and serve them only.  

Now Ezekiel was no dummy.  He knew that speaking on behalf of the Almighty was risky business.  The Word of God, after all, may be what they people need to hear, but it isn’t always what they want to hear.  That’s the rub.  And what God’s people needed to hear, apparently, was, as scripture puts it, “words of lamentation, mourning and woe.”  What rotten luck, eh?  It’s one thing, like the angel Gabriel, to get to bring a message “of good news and great joy” to a bunch of shepherds in the fields that first Christmas.  It’s something else to be faced delivering the kind of the message Ezekiel had to!

The beautiful thing about this story, though, is that God knew – God knew how hard it would be for Ezekiel to do what was being asked of him.  So God equips the prophet with everything he needs to speak – only God does it  in rather peculiar fashion.  I mean, when was the last time you had to eat a scroll to get God's blessing??  Kind of strange, isn't it?  I mean, of all the things God could've given Ezekiel, why a piece of rolled-up paper?  And as if eating it wasn't strange enough, the prophet makes note that the scroll tastes “sweet as honey” - which seems odd for a scroll in the first place, much less one that contains all that lamentation and woe stuff. 

There got to be something to it, but what?  Many a wise mind has pondered this sweet scroll over the years, trying to figure it out.  On one level, the scroll itself is the means by which the prophet receives the words he's to speak.  By eating this scroll, Ezekiel internalizes the word of God – the very word he must share with the people.  If he ever had the concern – as most servants of God do – that he wouldn’t know what to say, wouldn’t know where the words would come from, now those very words are literally a part of him, part of his flesh and blood; they are as close to him as his own insides.

But there’s a deeper significance to the scroll, isn't there?  Because it not only gives Ezekiel the actual words to say, but the power and the courage with which to say them.  It equips him to share this message – a message that is now part of him – with boldness and confidence.  It equips him with the ability to carry out this calling; a calling he would otherwise not be able to do on his own.  That's precisely why some have taken to calling this eating of the scroll, most appropriately on this day, an “act of ordination” – a response to God’s calling and an equipping to carry out that call. 

Today, thousands and thousands of years later, Ezekiel and the story of his “ordination” has something to say to us, especially to our seven newest elders this morning.  And while we can assure them that no one is going to make them eat any scrolls today, it is important to understand that God is calling us to things that are just as critical, just as important, and even perhaps just as treacherous as what God called Ezekiel to way back when.  As crazy as it sounds, we can actually learn a few things from the tale of the prophet and his scroll.

Like the fact that sometimes God calls us to do difficult things.  Serving on the session is not just about obtaining influence and power in the church.  It is covenanting with God to act on God’s behalf in the life of God’s congregation.  It is promising to do God’s work and, in many different ways, to speak God’s word.  And often this sort of thing winds up clashing with those forces that would prefer things be done “they way they've always been.”  Often, following God's call compels us to latch on to that six-letter word that most churches relegate to four-letter word status: change.  That's one thing the scroll teaches us.

Here's another one – how about the fact that God enables us to do what we need to do when there’s no way we could do it ourselves.  Just as the scroll gave Ezekiel the authority to speak God’s word, no matter how bitter those words were, so ordination in our church grants elders and ministers the ability to carry out the many tasks and ministries that lay before them, no matter how difficult or challenging they may be.  Elders move ahead with a huge capital campaign to renovate and expand a facility to meet the ever-growing needs of a congregation, despite some resistance from folks who like things the way they are.  A session prayerfully considers whether the church should become actively involved in a controversial local missions initiative.  The elders in charge of Christian Education and Nurture debate the idea of adopting a new curriculum model that will dramatically affect the content and structure of the church’s heralded Sunday school ministry.  All of these are accomplished not only through the people's determination and will, but the very God who calls them to serve in the first place.

There's one other thing that the scroll teaches us, and it's best summed up in a story you may have heard about a piano virtuoso and a little boy.  The boy had arrived with his mother to a concert by the great Polish pianist Jan Paderewski.  Once they were seated, the mother spotted a friend in the audience and walked down the aisle to greet her.  Seizing the opportunity to explore the wonders of the concert hall, the little boy rose and eventually found his way through a door marked “NO ADMITTANCE.”

When the house lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and discovered that her son was missing.  Suddenly, the curtains parted and spotlights focused on the impressive Steinway on the stage.  In horror, the mother saw her little boy sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.”

At that moment the great piano master made his grand entrance.  When he saw the boy sitting at his piano, he didn't miss a beat.  He quickly moved to the piano and whispered in the boy’s ear, “Don’t quit, keep playing.”  Then leaning over, him reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part.  Soon his right arm reached around to the other side of the child and he added an impressive run.  Together the old master and the young novice transformed a most awkward situation into a wonderfully creative experience.  The audience was mesmerized.

Don't you think that's the way it is with God sometimes?  What we accomplish on our own is hardly noteworthy.  We try our best, but the results aren’t exactly graceful, flowing music.  And then God steps in and puts God's arms on either side of us and makes the music all the more beautiful.

And that is what Ezekiel learned at his scroll-eating; that is what our seven newest elders have experienced this morning as they have been ordained and installed: that God doesn't call the equipped.  God equips the called.  God doesn't gather people who already have everything they need – God brings us together and gives us what we need as elders, as ministers, as servants; to make a difference in this world, one day at a time.

So as we ordain and install these elders this morning, as we gather here to worship our God, we are left asking ourselves that all-important question: what are the words written on the scroll God lays before us?  What might God be calling each of us to do in the life of this church?  May God guide us as we discern what those words are, and as we seek to speak that word to a world in desperate need of hearing it.  So elders - welcome to the ministry!  All church members - welcome to the ministry!  Thanks be to God!  AMEN.

SHEPHERDING 2.0

Ezekiel 34: 1-16, John 21: 15-17
Steve Lindsley
November 16, 2008

I have a college buddy in Atlanta who owns a small business with a dozen or so employees.  We were catching up a few weeks ago – we were instant messaging on Facebook!  We do this about once a month.  I guess we could pick up the phone and actually talk, but Facebook is so much easier.

Anyway, our conversations usually revolve around the standard “how are you doing” stuff.  I, of course, I tell him about this wonderful church that I have the pleasure of serving, all the great things we have going on here; the fact that there's a little bit of dust around because of the construction but you know, at least we're warmer now....

It's a different kind of response when I ask the same thing of him.  It's one of those deals where you ask someone how they're doing, and you kind of figure it'll be the obligatory “fine” or “great,” but you wind up with a five-minute answer that's much more than you bargained for – you know what I mean?  My friend usually goes into some story about how things are tough with his company, and it's not just the economy.  There's the employee who didn't get the package in the mail on time, the office manager who missed their deadline, the business partner who never seems to carry his own weight.  My friend laments that he has to step in all the time to keep the wheels spinning, even if it means taking on the work of others. 

And most every time he's nearing the end of his rant, he closes with the well-known line: You know, Steve, if you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself.  And every time he says this I can't help but feel a little sorry for him, you know?  That he feels like he's the only one who can do it right; that he doesn't feel he can put his faith and trust in his fellow co-workers, that he seems to think his way is the only way.

Maybe that's what's going on here – I kind of have a suspicion it is.  But then again, maybe it's not.  Sometimes people really do mess up, fall down on the job; and the boss has to come in and straighten everything out, make everything right, do it all on their own.  I mean, it doesn't say it explicity in our scripture reading today, but that seems to be pretty much what God does in the 34th chapter of Ezekiel, don't you think?  If you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself. 

It's the middle of the sixth century before Christ, and the lives of God's people have been thrown into chaos.  The entire nation of Israel had been hauled off to live in Babylon, taken away from their homeland.  The people were defeated and demoralized, and their leaders were either gone or had become a shadow of their former selves.  They had failed to be the kind of leaders God had hoped they'd be, and the people needed them to be.

So the prophet Ezekiel enters into the fray, preaching a message of hope and renewal for the captives.  Except he doesn't call them captives, or people even.  He refers to them “sheep.”  And if you think about it, it's a perfect image, albeit not a very flattering one!  Sheep, generally speaking, are not the smartest animals in the barn.  They kind of wander around in groups, always in danger of going astray and never finding their way back to the fold.  They are fully dependent on their caretakers, the shepherds, to guide them from one green pasture to another.

As rough as the sheep have it, it isn't a picnic for the shepherds, either.  It's a 24-7 job just to keep up with all those sheep.  Good shepherds have to be attentive at all times, watching over their flock to make sure every one is okay.  But they can't just be focused on the here-and-now.  Shepherds have to always be thinking ahead of the game, to where the next green pasture would be, and make sure that their sheep get there safe and sound.

So the way Ezekiel sees it, Israel is the sheep, and their leaders are the shepherds.  Over the years God had sent them many shepherds, kings and priests and the like, to watch over the people and lead them to “greener pastures.”  But in this time of exile, when the sheep needed help the most, the shepherds had failed them.  The leaders of Israel had not been leaders; and they had failed their people in four specific ways:
     - They had not strengthened the weak;
     - They had not bound up the injured;
     - They had not brought back home those who had strayed;
     - And they had not taken time to seek out those who were lost.

Now according to Ezekiel, God has something to say about this.  God calls the leaders on the carpet, essentially saying to them, “You have failed your job!”  But that's not all God does.  In the next few verses, God puts on his best Donald Trump, “Apprentice” imitation and tells them, “You're fired!”  These no-good shepherds are out of a job, because they didn't do the job.

God has one more thing to say, and happens to be the divine equivalent of, if you want a job done right, you gotta do it yourself.  Amazingly, God declares, “I am the new shepherd!”  And God proceeds to do the very things the old shepherds should've done all along.  God will be the one to give strength to the weak, to bind up the injured, to bring back those who have wandered away, and to seek out the lost.  God will take care of the people, and no longer will they be forgotten or left to fend on their own.  God will be the new shepherd of Israel, and Israel – even in captivity – will be all the better for it.

Now no verses in scripture capture this image of God as shepherd any better than the 23rd Psalm – The Lord is my shepherd, it begins.  And what does this shepherd do?  He makes us lie down in green pastures; he leads us beside still waters.  He restores our soul.  With God as our shepherd, we are cared for, and we will never be forgotten again.  With God as our shepherd, we are protected from those who would do us harm.  With God as our shepherd, all wrongs are made right.  It 's great that God is our shepherd, isn't it?  It's something we celebrate in the joyous moments of our lives; and it's something we cling to when life is dealing out its worst.  It is a wonderful thing to have God as our shepherd.

I know I could end the sermon right here, but I'm not going to!  Because you know something?  At the risk of discounting God's love and grace, which I'm certainly not doing, there's a small part of me that feels funny about this.  And it's not God's fault – I think we're all grateful for all God does.  I'm pretty fond of the green pastures and cool waters myself.  It's just....it's just that it's a shame that God had to step in and take over the shepherding business in the first place.  It's a shame that God had to go all Donald Trump on us.  Because that used to be our job.  That's what we were supposed to be doing.  So while it's great that God stepped in like God did, shouldn't we feel sort of bad about failing to be the shepherds we were called to be?  Shouldn't we want our job back?

And I say “we” very intentionally here, my friends.  Because it is “we” that Ezekiel is speaking to.  When we're talking about “shepherds,” we're not just talking about the pastor, or the session, or the Congregational Care ministry team.  We're talking about all of us.  Do me a quick favor if you would – take your bulletin and look at the back, at the bottom, where all the staff are listed. Do you see the very first thing?  It says: Ministers: All the members of the church.  I'm not the only minister here, folks.  Every single one of you is a minister too – a shepherd.  Which makes it kind of interesting, really; because the fact is that you are both the members and the ministers; you are both the sheep and the shepherds.  You need to be cared for and kept in the fold, nurtured and loved.  But you also need to be the ones who care, who are the “keepers of the fold.” You're not just sheep.  You're shepherds too.

Jesus himself made this crystal clear when he met with his disciples on the lakeshore one morning after his resurrection – hanging out on the beach, munching on some grilled fish. He turns to Peter, whom he had previously called the rock upon which he would build his church.  And what does he say to Peter, what are his last words as he prepares to leave the future of the church in their hands?  Feed my sheep, he tells him.  That's what shepherds do for their sheep.  And that's what you and I are supposed to be doing for each other.

And that's the problem, isn't it? That's where we fall short.  Because we still don't quite have this shepherding thing down all that well, if we're honest with ourselves.  I mean, sometimes we're pretty good at it.  Sometimes we're great about seeing the needs around us and responding as the shepherds we're called to be.  But other times we're not so great.  You know, maybe we're okay with being a shepherd, but for a particular kind of sheep – the easy ones, the ones that don't require a lot of effort.  Or maybe we're fine with the whole shepherding thing, but we really want to do it as it's convenient for us, on our own timetable.  Then we can be shepherds.  Or maybe we feel, you know, that we've already done our time as shepherds, so we walk away from the flock, assuming that someone is going to step in take our place. 

I can't help but think as I read this story in Ezekiel that God's action forces us to ask ourselves all kinds of questions.  Are we really being the kind of shepherds God needs us to be?  Are we?  Are we being the kind of shepherds God needs us to be in our families?  Are we being the kind of shepherds God needs us to be for this church – because there's a whole lot of sheep here, ya'll, and there's plenty of shepherding to do!  Are we?  Are we being the kind of shepherds God needs us to be for our community, for our world; where the needs are great, where plenty of people have strayed from the flock, where there is precious little of those green pastures and cool waters to nurture and sustain us.  Are we being the kind of shepherds that God needs us to be?

That's the question this story poses to us, and the mandate Jesus gives us – to be shepherds in a world of lost sheep.  And I wish you and I could see, every minute of every day, what a wonderful privilege it is to serve God, to serve this church, and to serve our people.  I wish we had the ability to fully grasp how awesome it is, with God's help, to pick up our shepherd's crook and go out into a world of lost sheep.

I really wish we could be more like the lady that Shasta spoke to on the phone this past week.  This lady had called the church, like so many other people this time of year, about Thanksgiving meals – the ones the youth fundraised for and you all donated for.  You know, every year about this time there's a running joke around the church office – that when the phone rings we really don't need to answer it “First Presbyterian Church” but rather “Shasta's Thanksgiving meal answering service!”  You have no idea how many calls we get from people asking about their Thanksgiving meal.  It gets crazy.

On a particularly crazy day this past week, Lynn buzzed Shasta in her office: Phone for you about you-know-what.  Shasta picked up the phone.  The lady on the other end quickly introduced herself and then cut to the chase.  I need to talk to you about Thanksgiving meals, she said.  So Shasta dutifully launched into her spiel – how this woman would need to speak with so-and-so at the Salvation Army, how they would reserve the meals with them, how she could pick everything up on the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving at such-and-such a time.....

Shasta said that when she finished, the lady patiently responded that she was not calling about a meal for herself.  She was calling because she wanted to make a donation, and she explained why.  She told Shasta about how her two sisters had experienced difficult times in recent years, really struggled with some things in their lives, and money was more than tight.  But thanks to the work of this church, their families had not had to experience a Thanksgiving holiday without a Thanksgiving meal.  This lady told Shasta, “You all fed my sisters and their families when they couldn't feed themselves.  Now it's my turn to help you feed someone else's sister.”

Feed my sheep, Jesus said.  Wow.  I don't know about you, but that woman on the other end of the phone sounds an awful lot like a shepherd to me.  Because a shepherd strengthens the weak and binds up the injured.  A shepherd brings home the strayed and seeks out the lost.  A shepherd serves God and serves everyone around them, not necessarily because they want to all the time, but because God needs them to all the time.  And listen – I don't doubt for one second that God will always be our shepherd.  It's just that I think we should do everything we possibly can to get our old job back.  Let's get our job back, shall we?  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.