Year B
Acts 4:5-12
Psalm 23
1 John 3:16-24
John 10:11-18

May the words of my mouth… O God… speak your Truth…

Literary philosopher René Girard described the scapegoat mechanism…  as a ritual to transfer onto an animal…  everything likely to poison relations between members of the community…  and its effectiveness was based in the idea that the community’s sins were expelled with the animal…  so the community was rid of them…  the sacrifice attempted to restore order and reinvest administrators of the law with control over an unruly population…  but a scapegoat has come to mean any animal…  or any individual..  or any group…  which innocently bears the blame of others…  which can make the law lawless…  and rulers unruly…  

And in today’s reading from Acts…  all of those who gathered…  the scribes…  Annas the high priest…  Caiaphas…  and all who were of the high-priestly family…  they gathered…  because at the beginning of chapter three… Peter and John healed a man lame from birth…  who others would carry and lay at a gate of the Temple called the Beautiful Gate…  so that he could ask for alms from those entering the Temple…  and so Peter and John were arrested because they were healing…  and teaching the people…  and proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead…  and so in today’s reading…  they are brought before this group…  and after being questioned by what power…  or by what name they did this…  Peter confronts the leaders of his people with a truth about themselves and their society…  that they killed Jesus…  who was the cornerstone…  whom they…  the builders…  the authorities…  rejected…  these builders of society…  turned Jesus into a scapegoat in their attempt to maintain power…

And in today’s Gospel…  Jesus warns about wolves who snatch and scatter the sheep…  perhaps these wolves are those who also attempt to maintain power and authority…  while keeping it from others…  perhaps they are systems which keep people scattered…  divided…  which contribute to there being many flocks…  instead of the one flock which Jesus sought…  and many shepherds instead of the one shepherd Jesus…  and Jesus warns about hired hands…  who don’t own the sheep…  who don’t really care about the sheep… who may inherently support the wolves’ agendas by not confronting them…  and who run away at the first sign of trouble…

But in the Gospel…  Jesus affirms that he is the Good Shepherd…  and so what does it mean to be a Good Shepherd…  when we read that Jesus lays down his life…  our minds immediately go to the cross…  but God had already laid down God’s life in the incarnation…  and Jesus will give up his life at his arrest in John 18…  before the cross…  and when Jesus says he is the Good Shepherd…  he is making that claim in line with the Jewish understanding of “shepherd”…  which is a royal term…  a messianic claim…  because in Ezekiel and Jeremiah…  God fires the shepherds of Israel…  and says…  I myself will shepherd my people…  God’s very self will be our shepherd king…

And the wider context of today’s good shepherd story…  is the story in John 9:  about the healing of the man born blind…  you know…  where on the Sabbath…  after the disciples asked whether this man or his parents sinned that he was born blind…  and Jesus says it was that God’s works might be revealed in him… and Jesus made mud with his spit…  and put it on the man’s eyes…  and told him to wash in the Pool of Siloam…  and his blindness was cured…  and the man was interrogated by the Pharisees…  who ended up disliking his explanation…  and so they cast him out of the Temple…  and when Jesus heard this…  he found him…  the Good Shepherd found him…  and brought him back into the fold…

The story on the front cover of our bulletin…  is that Jesus sides with all those…  like the blind man…  who have been cast out…  we know this because Jesus said…  I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold…  I must bring them also…  so by extension…  any time anyone demonizes those who are unlike them…  any time they build a wall between themselves and those who are unlike them…  Jesus is on the side of the wall with the rejects…  any time anyone insists that their denomination is better than any other…  Jesus is standing in solidarity with the discounted…  or when someone insists that God loves their religion and despises all the others…  Jesus is buying cookies at the others’ bake sales…

We can think of sheep as indistinguishable from each other…  and think of them as just…  well…  sheep…  but God knows each one as unique and beloved…  and so I wonder…  are the sheep those who are scattered…  and divided by the individual and systemic wolves among us…  the wolves of the domination systems…  who don’t see us as unique and beloved…  because that serves them protecting their power and authority…

According to reports…  Alexei Navalny just ended his hunger strike…  Alexei is an anti-corruption activist…  and an opposition leader…  who has worked to expose corruption at the highest levels of the Russian government…  Russian wolves poisoned him with a nerve agent last August…  and he almost died…  but even after recovering…  he returned to Russia…  only to be arrested and jailed…  he has seemingly been willing to sacrifice himself for righteousness and truth…  and is being scapegoated…  so that those in power…  can protect their power…  according the The Wall Street Journal…  Putin avoids saying his name…  and we at least have to wonder to what degree George Floyd was murdered by the wolf of white supremacy… 

The crucified Jesus is the resurrected Christ…  and Jesus’ ministry is resurrected too… as the Good Shepherd…  he calls by name those who don’t come out on top…  those who haven’t got the power reserves to face the wolf…  but as the body of Christ…  it’s the church’s vocation and responsibility to name the wolf…  to face it…  to call it out in whatever form it may take… 

Our reading from Acts reminds me of the late John Lewis’ suggestion for us to get into good and holy trouble…  Alexi Navalny’s been getting into good trouble…  Darnella Frazier…  who recorded George Floyd’s murder got into good trouble…  those who stand against the rash of new voter suppression laws are getting into good trouble…  those who speak truth to power get into holy trouble…  those who deny any of God’s children…  our sisters and brothers…  a place at the table because they’re not part of the domination system…  and we can do that because God never runs away or leaves us to be snatched by wolves…

But then we also have to look at our own wolves…  the dark spots…  the malingering sins like thorns in our side…  those things that continue to necessitate a life of discipleship…  and we must listen for Jesus’ voice…  calling us by our names…  calling us to truth and action…  we can lay down those dark parts of our lives…  and take them up again when they have been given new light…  but there are too many wolves in our lives…  for us to do it all on our own…  we need each other and we need Jesus to come after each and every one of us…  to make sure we are safe…  and we need to continue to lay down our lives for each other… almost certainly not in the way that Jesus did…  but by loving our neighbors as ourselves…

Because until our hearts are one…  we’ll never be able to reflect the cosmic Christ…  it’s by dying and rising…  over and over…  by baptism into his death and by rising to new life in his resurrection…  and at this Table…  when we celebrate Eucharist…  when we remember Jesus’ promises…  and when we worship God…  we do so not from a place of being perfect or being really ready for this Mystery…  but because God as the Good Shepherd continues to love us…  and sees us just as we are…  in all our imperfection and brokenness…