Collect
Almighty God, whose Son Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life: raise us, who trust in him, from the death of sin to the life of righteousness, that we may seek those things which are above, where he reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
or
Risen Christ, faithful shepherd of your Father’s sheep: teach us to hear your voice and to follow your command, that all your people may be gathered into one flock, to the glory of God the Father.
Post Communion
Merciful Father, you gave your Son Jesus Christ to be the good shepherd, and in his love for us to lay down his life and rise again: keep us always under his protection, and give us grace to follow in his steps; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Readings
Acts – 4.5–12
The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, ‘By what power or by what name did you do this?’ Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, ‘Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. This Jesus is
“the stone that was rejected by you, the builders;
it has become the cornerstone.”
There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.’
Psalm 23
1 The Lord is my shepherd; ♦
therefore can I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures ♦
and leads me beside still waters.
3 He shall refresh my soul ♦
and guide me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
4 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; ♦
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
5 You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; ♦
you have anointed my head with oil and my cup shall be full.
6 Surely goodness and loving mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, ♦
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Psalm
Epistle – 1 John 3.16–24
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.
And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.
Gospel – John 10.11–18
‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care 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 the sheep. 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. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.’
Sermon on Easter iv
I think we all have questions to answer. I think we, like Peter, should be “questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick.” Can we be “asked how this man has been healed” because of something we have done? Have we been good shepherds for all the people around us? – Have we done good deeds and performed acts to heal our neighbours? Or are we like those hired labourers who do not care for those who are entrusted to them – that we can leave our charges and abandon our responsibilities for those who have been promised our protection?
The authorities question us about our good deeds, our healing care, and our dedication to that love which we proclaim to have for our neighbours and God. They echo the questions our conscience pose in the quiet hours of the night, when all is black and there is no light available to distinguish between white and black, right and wrong, good and evil. I have to say that it is rare when conscience and the crowd ask the same questions about our behaviour, but sometimes it does happen.
The circumstances are very odd, when they come together. The crowd too often expects nothing of love in our lives, while our conscience demands too much. The conjunction of these two polar opposites meet in the interrogation of our behaviour. The crowd asks us to conform to their cynically high expectations, while our conscience demands purity and nobility of intention – nothing but the best is acceptable, when we question ourselves in moments of self-examination whether we have really opened ourselves up to and for the other. Our conscience is in a way asking the same question the crowd is – but we don’t ask it in as cynical a manner as the crowd does, that crowd which consists of the authorities, like journalists or lawyers, or even our political leaders. Their enquiries are not to be what they seem to be.
Often the crowd jeers at us as we try to do our best, condemning our failure to achieve an unambiguous solution to moral dilemmas or ethical choices. The crowd is two-faced – one persona is apparently solicitous, eager to know the truth and help uncover it, while the other mask reveals a cynical doubt of anything anyone has to say. The crowd never seems to fulfill their intentions at all, does it? Their care stops short, then they deride our efforts to be upstanding in spite of our failure. Or perhaps the crowd despises us because our efforts have fallen short, because it is so easy to catalogue our sins.
Our conscience winkles out our wickedness also. It can mimic the crowd, questioning our care for all – our loved ones and strangers, which is to say, all our neighbours, whom Jesus commanded us to love. However, our conscience does not start in cynicism and end in the sarcasm of the crowd, does it? Our conscience just asks those hard questions about our intentions and the effort we put into our everyday life. The crowd does accurately tell us about ourselves, but it is up to us to make those judgements authentic.
What does the phrase, “Life goes on,” signify? I think we should mean that it is still possible to experience life in all its fullness, to do good deeds, to love our neighbours. – We may have just failed to help a friend in need, but we can make amends by helping the next person who asks for help, or the sick, the cold, the thirsty even the prisoner, all of whom Jesus made us aware in his saying. Our conscience and the crowd condemn us, but our love cannot fail just because the crowd jeers, and our conscience is disappointed in, our efforts for the other person.
Here we are at our nadir considering our own lack of worth. “Life goes on.” And so must we. Our spirits can’t get any lower – in other words, everyone in the crowd scoffs at our efforts and we ourselves doubt our own endeavour. No wonder we are anxious and despondent! And yet we still must go care.
We ask ourselves why we do anything we do. We should answer something when the crowd asks us, ‘By what power or by what name did you do this?’ We should let our conscience answer. We are thrown into life and we are given the opportunity to engage in all its fullness. Somehow we are here now and we have the power to affect the world. The crowd feels the helplessness of being thrown into the situation, but takes no responsibility, just the opposite of our conscience which takes all responsibility – even for those things for which we cannot be held responsible. In our conscience we know that we have to make the best of a world in which we find ourselves, just the opposite of the crowd. Our conscience makes us act in a way contrary to ordinary expectations. And why not?
Like the good shepherd, we are willing to put ourselves into dangerous positions to save just one of the flock, where ridicule could tear our lives apart because our intention is so at odds with what is normally expected. The hireling does only what is expected. When the wolves appear, they disappear – that is above and beyond. We know that nothing will keep them in harm’s way. The hired hand has no great love for his work – after all, he doesn’t own the sheep, does he? The good shepherd, whether the hired hand or not, does have that care for his charge. In our conscientious way, in our authentic selves, we want to stay with the flock to keep them safe – we want to do whatever what is right for our neighbour because of our being followers of Christ. We always want to act on our love – that willing spirit we have often heard about in spite of our weakness.
That is the intention of care – of love. The ancients called it caritas – they also said it can never be turned off. Even the crowd knows this, even if “they” are happy to ignore its dictates. But the crowd is very happy to throw it back in an accusation of failure when, in our lives, we fail to care.
The good shepherd is the personification of this care, the love which Jesus preached for the sake of the kingdom. It is the attitude of the citizen of the Kingdom which Jesus announced as just about here, right now. That glorious city of God is about to be realised in the next moment of our lives.
The good shepherd knows about the short time the crowd has to maintain its false standards – its perversion of the concerns of conscience for its cynical entertainment. The good shepherd may just lay down his life for the crowd so that “they” will be set free from the world, the flesh and the devil as the prayer book has it. Don’t we all want to do that in our best moments?
We all aspire to be the good shepherd. We all want to share life in all its fullness. That is why the christian aspires to keep to the one rule Jesus laid down for everyone, that we love God thereby loving each other as we love ourselves. That is life in all its fullness.
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