May 3, 2009 Fourth Sunday of Easter, Good Shepherd Sunday,
Open and Affirming 11th Anniversary
First Congregational Church in Thetford, Vermont, UCC
Psalm 23; John 10: 1-16
Jesus said, “Do not judge,” (Luke 6:37), but think of how much of our lives we spend
judging. We seem obsessed particularly with judging who is in the flock and who is out;
especially, we judge whether we are in or out, the weight of which leads to much of our
painful shyness, anxiety and depression. We make these judgments in myriad ways every
day, and the number of different sheepfolds or flocks we define is staggering. There is the
fold of the attractive or successful, where we judge others’ appearance or performance, and
we obsess about our own. There is the fold of the politically correct, where we take pleasure
in dividing the sheep from the goats. There is the fold of the normal, the acceptable, the
familiar. We put up our fearful gates to shut out those we judge to be strange, and we are
eager to have those who seem like us, or seem cool, recognize our being of the same flock.
All this is just human nature, and yet Jesus says, “Do not judge.” In today’s passage in
John he says, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and
they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” This is not as bold as
saying “Do not judge,” and so it is one of those verses we can let go by without much
attention to it, but its implications are every bit as extreme.
For one thing, it works directly against our desire to know who is in and who is out,
and our yearning to feel special by being in the “in crowd.” Whatever fold we happen to be
in, we need to know that there are other folds that we know nothing about, made up of strange
sheep who may have only one thing in common with us, and that is that they also listen to the
shepherd’s voice. We cannot judge even by that standard, though, because we cannot know
what or how the voice is speaking to those folds.
C.S. Lewis illustrates this beautifully in The Last Battle, the final book in his Narnia
series. The story ends in paradise, in Aslan’s country, and Aslan, the Christ-like lion, and all
his faithful followers are there, as you would expect. But so, too, is a person who worships
another god, a greedy, bloodthirsty god.
Lewis raises the question how this man ended up in heaven. Aslan explains that the
man was always trying to be good and loving, merciful and just, and anyone who tries to do
those things is actually listening to Aslan’s voice and following and serving Aslan’s way,
even if they do it in the name of another god, or no god.
Jesus tells us he has other sheep not so that we can be wiser in our judgment, but so
that we will not judge at all—not others and not ourselves. It is easy to see why so few are
able to follow this teaching. Not nailing down where we or others stand leads to uncertainty
and insecurity that we do not enjoy feeling. Jesus would say, good, because he wants to heal
our fallen human nature and return us to having only one source of security, only one thing
that we are certain about, and that is the realm of God’s love that he leads us to through his
shepherding and his gate. But we are forever trying to take control ourselves, and to look to
our own realm and our judgments for security and certainty.
One of the reasons why fundamentalism is so popular is that it gives people both a
feeling of being within God’s fold and a feeling of control over their security and certainty. I
do not know how Christian fundamentalists interpret Jesus saying, “Do not judge,” or “I have
other sheep,” because the religious security and certainty they possess is based on their rigid
and harsh judgments of who is in and who is out, and on denying the validity of any other
sheepfold.
A fundamentalist classmate of mine in divinity school used to infuriate or amuse the
Presbyterians, Methodist, Lutherans and others around him by referring to his own church as
Christian, and making it clear that in his judgment, their churches were not. The United
Church of Christ was especially not!
This desire to be the ones who decide who is in and who is out also shows up in
people’s resistance to being open to and affirming of people of all sexual orientations. The
other day I had a conversation with a faithful Christian who said, “OK, I have come a long
way from my homophobia. I am open to and affirming of gays and lesbians, I am even in
favor of their freedom to marry. But I draw the line at bisexual and transgender people. I
don’t see why they deserve the same respect as gays and lesbians.”
We talked a while about the accuracy of some of his assumptions that made him
disrespect bisexual and transgender people. It was interesting that they were the same kinds
of assumptions that he formerly made about gays and lesbians, things like promiscuity and
life style choice. The real issue to me though, was not the basis of his judgments, but the act
of judging itself. If Jesus has other sheep of other folds whom he must bring into the flock,
people who will listen to his voice, why are we wasting our time judging the worthiness or
qualifications of others who may be part of the flock without our knowing?
Even if a judgment is correct, even if we are looking at a confessed violent criminal, or
looking at our own faults, Jesus does not say that his flock is made up of those who have
been goaded into obedience by the judging voices of religious or righteous hate. Jesus does
not call us to listen to the voices of judgment all around us or the ones we have internalized
from our parents or past preachers or social indoctrination. The one voice we need to listen
to is his, which is the voice of the merciful and loving God speaking through him, and the
voice of the Holy Spirit speaking through our listening heart.
That is the voice that leads us to the sheepfold gate. That is the voice that opens the
gate to us so that we may enter into the flock of God’s realm. That is the voice the criminal
needs to hear, and that is the voice we need to hear, not the voice of the religious hate in our
head or the voice of judgment or condemnation that we could raise to others.
The person who came to me struggling with his judgment of bisexual and transgender
people was acting as if people have to qualify to come into the fold of God’s mercy and love.
Most people may think this way, but they make a common mistake about what qualification
Christ requires. We do not need to become flawless to pass through Christ’s gate. First we
pass through the gate, and then by dwelling in his fold our flaws are gradually redeemed and
transformed. The only qualification needed is hearing his voice say, “Come, follow me.” So
while I do not believe there is any flaw whatsoever inherent in a person being bisexual or
transgender, and this other person does see them as flawed, neither of us is right to judge.
That is not our calling.
Our calling and our task is to listen to the shepherd’s voice ourselves, and to follow
where it leads. We can count on it leading to the same sort of activities that Jesus did in his
life. We may begin as sheep following him, but he will turn us into good shepherds ourselves
along the way. As good shepherds, if we see others who are suffering under the judgment of
religious hate or any other injustice from their own inner voices or from the prejudice of
those around them, our job is like Christ’s: to do everything in our power to lead them out of
that oppression. The good shepherd lays down her or his life for the flock, for the cause of
bringing others into freedom and justice, mercy and love.
What this amounts to is a world of joy. There is joy because whenever we are caught
up in the voices of self-judging in our own heads, all we have to do is turn toward the voice
of Christ and follow it and trust it to lead us to green pastures and still waters. There is joy
because whenever we see a group being excluded from all the blessings of the flock, we have
a role to play in their liberation, in bringing them into the blessed, beloved community.
There is great joy today because in the eleven years we have been Open and
Affirming, we have helped several other churches open their gates wider, and we have played
a role helping Vermont first pass the civil unions law and now pass the marriage equality act.
I hope you all will join in the celebration of this joy in the Newcomb Room after the service
over a piece of Susan Kowalsky’s famous rainbow flag cake.
Joy is not just about celebration, though, it is also about motivation. In the last hours
of Narnia, the Christ-like Aslan stands at a gate that has magically become almost as wide as
the world. All the people and creatures of that world come streaming up to the gate. Some
look at Aslan and fill with horror and veer off into eternal darkness. But the others, though
they may feel fear and awe, look into his face and fill with deep love and joy, and they pass
through the gate into God’s realm.
It is our deep love and joy at hearing the voice of the good shepherd that move us
through the gate. It is the deep, quiet joy of the comfort we feel when we read the 23rd Psalm
that makes us want to put ourselves in the care of that shepherd. Let us pray together now,
practicing turning with love and joy to the voice that speaks through the silence. Let us pray
a silent, listening prayer…
Sermon 05/03/2009