Jesus
clearly had a plan for his ministry. Every minute was precious. He didn't wander
aimlessly. Yet, Jesus was unconcerned with most interruptions. Jesus willingly
took detours. Jesus controlled his time schedule; his time schedule didn't control
him. Peter, in today's lesson, clearly follows in Jesus' footsteps. Peter postpones
or rearranges his agenda and comes to see Tabitha. Yet in this detour, Peter is
able to reveal God's love in a way, no teaching series or speaking engagement
in a synagogue ever would. That is why the people remembered what had happened
at Joppa, far longer than any sermon Peter had preached there.
All
of which is to say, a church which emphasizes hope and healing and acts of kindness
will learn not to be annoyed or upset at the interruptions and detours to their
own agenda or progress, but to understand interruptions and detours as holding
possibilities for the disclosure of God's grace. In my opinion, continually reiterating
and amplifying the world’s threats rarely help the church’s mission.
People of faith are not people with the answers and sometimes we have none of
the answers, but we are people who have been given hope and who are able to share
that hope with others. Hope is the best instrument of healing and best food for
change. Threats are so insidious because sooner or later they close in the horizons
so tightly that it appears that all hope is crowded out..
Hence
most of the real work of ministry is done on foot, person-to-person, day-by-day,
learning not to get annoyed at the detour signs, and taking the timetables maps,
and busy agendas the world would like to impose on us, with a large grain of salt.
This
Sunday is also known as Good Shepherd Sunday, and we say the best-known passage
in the Bible, the twenty-third psalm. It is an image of a God who won't write
off any of the sheep. God pursues us with goodness and mercy. No matter how far
we stray, God does not become discouraged and turn back. There are no time or
mileage limitations to God’s grace. Even as humanity seems to go deeper
and deeper down a tunnel of violence and degradation, God never gives up on the
pursuit.
Most
of us will never be actual shepherds or own a flock of sheep. Yet the good shepherd
image has the power to expand our responsibility to all those in this community
who need goodness and mercy in their lives even when they do everything imaginable
to avoid it. It reminds us that God will not be satisfied until every member of
humanity is able to lie down and rest in safety with enough to eat. As long as
there is terror among peoples in far off lands or here in Ithaca, we cannot pretend
that all is well or truly right, until the peace of God covers them, too.
We can
give thanks today for the lesser known story of Tabitha and the well known image
of God as the good shepherd because both serve as springboards to stimulate and
enlarge our hearts and minds as we serve as resurrection emissaries of the living
Christ.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
