Confidence

 22 years ago I had this confidence

Between

In a very real sense the meaning of life for life is in evaluating.  This is not something unique to humans.  Life has been playing with the odds for a very long time.  From our point of view nothing seems very likely, but placing value on the roles we each play is what is difficult.  We do this worse than anything else we do.   People ask why God allows evil all the time, but seldom wonder where the good came from.  Well that is just God, huh.

The people we think are the most important are often the least important.  I am not just going to attack Hollywood and sports here as people often find them an easy target.  There is a great deal of honesty in each endeavor.  Not every person has opportunity, but among those who do man do they.  When I hear the phrase, "I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills."  I am transported to a time and place separate from everything else connected to that phrase.  Between with me and my younger sister, we watched that movie many times together.  Home box office quite the novelty then. 

I was indignant when the wizard's streak came to an end for no good reason, when Quarterback Bernie Kosar said Newsome showed a 'lot of class' by not insisting he come in to keep his streak alive.  'He just showed what a great team player he is,' Kosar said.

Early in the final period, the 78,765 fans -- realizing Newsome had been held without a catch -- began chanting 'Ozzie, Ozzie,' but to no avail.

'It was very humbling,' Newsome said of the chanting. 'The only remorse I have about it (not going back into the lineup) is that the fans were disappointed.'

Kosar would become my favorite player, he always played the odds.  If there was press coverage outside and no safety to one side you never had to wonder what he would do with the ball.  What he lived for. 

Ozzie would continue to disappoint us fans directing Baltimore to a super bowl.  I'm a big fan of objective evaluation and the creative endeavors have these and flaws like anything else, religion included.  Good test takers love tests.

Well today we are gonna go a little deeper; what is good.  We will read John 10:11-18 from the Amplified Bible and break it into two at the I am statements.  The fourth of the I am statements in John.

Our scripture begins:

11 I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His [own] life for the sheep. 12 But the hired man [who merely serves for wages], who is neither the shepherd nor the owner of the sheep, when he sees the wolf coming, deserts the flock and runs away; and the wolf snatches the sheep and scatters them. 13 The man runs because he is a hired hand [who serves only for wages] and is not concerned about the [safety of the] sheep.  

My first thought here was to how we would define a good shepherd.  Would someone who was in charge of a flock and lost his life defending his flock be good?  We may well build a statue to his bravery and loyalty, but would his friends in that small village think of him as a good shepherd?  The owner of the flock happy to have his possessions protected needs a new shepherd.  The next one hired who lived to retire and raise and sell more animals than others they would remember as the good shepherd.  We wouldn't talk about his bravery or his loyalty.  We are strange creatures.

One thing to remember here is Jesus doesn't say that the good shepherd is willing to lay his life down, "lays down his life."  The funny thing to me is that being a hired man is dangerous even if you have not concern about the sheep.  Agricultural work in general is in the top ten most dangerous jobs even today in our own country.  Divided into several categories more than one makes the top ten.  Agricultural managers in which I would include shepherds is more dangerous than being a policeman.

Do you think Jesus knew this when he told this parable? 

Yuval Noah Harari in his book, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humanity, put it this way: “This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: the ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions."

Everything to everyone

Something to someone

Between no one seems to wander

We organize most things in these two ways.  Innovative programs always innovate so much they sometimes don't really do anything.  It is not easy to sell an idea and sell yourself.  We try to be everything to everybody.  Other programs get stuck and never grow, but they do real things for real people.  

I worked for a youth program that liked to quantify the impact they had on their clients.  They took grades before the children joined the group and grades after they had been in the group.  They found what they thought was significant improvement and liked to highlight these "facts" to their donors.  Not every kid made it through the program for one so the data from the go was kind of silly, but they made it real out in the world.

Now I don't argue that they did not do good, but what made them successful was their ability to market themselves.  I find it hard there in between.  Doing good should be enough and we like to know we are doing good.  Our church garden sponsor and summer lunch sponsor have innovated nothing over the last decade, but have done real work for real people.

Here is the revolution of the ministry of Jesus in a few notions.  What has value is what remains because it has value.  It isn't a hard bargain to make.  Trading nothing for everything.

 

We continue in verse 14:

14 I am the Good Shepherd, and I know [without any doubt those who are] My own and My own know Me [and have a deep, personal relationship with Me]— 15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father—and I lay down My [very own] life [sacrificing it] for the benefit of the sheep. 16 I have other sheep [beside these] that are not of this fold. I must bring those also, and they will listen to My voice and pay attention to My call, and they will become one flock with one Shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My [own] life so that I may take it back. 18 No one takes it away from Me, but I lay it down voluntarily. I am authorized and have power to lay it down and to give it up, and I am authorized and have power to take it back. This command I have received from My Father.”

There are many good things here to talk about but first we find our grounding for our lesson today.  Jesus said, "No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down voluntarily."  We love to blame the wolves.  No one takes it from him, huh?  

We love, or I know I love the concepts Jesus describes in this scripture.  Reminds me as a parent that hesitation and concern I had before I was a parent.  How would I recognize them as they would change so much.  Would I know their voice.  As a father knows a child, a child knows a father.  One thing about babies they pay attention.  There is something parental and symbiotic here Jesus is talking about.

Jesus separates himself and intricates himself into everything.  It can often seem impossible to stand up to the example Jesus has given us, but here again is Jesus telling us in a real way that it is the easy way.  Giving up our lives for the sheep seems an idea so foreign to us.  We imagine a Good Shepherd is prepared to lay his life down.  The Shepherd determined to lay his life down we might offer a few mental health days.

Here is what we often miss: We are not giving up anything of value.  We can give up our life for God and find transcendent good all around.  When we give up our life for God we give up more than we realize.  We leave baggage behind we didn't know we were carrying.  We find new strength where we only had weakness.  It's a good deal, the deal of several millennial.  

In the simplest form of Christian thought evil isn't created by God, but a by product of the creative process.  Many great minds have debated these details.  They have not come to much of a conclusion.  I find myself returning to this question of good and how Jesus explodes all our notions of everything.  We like to talk often about the context of the scriptures and how what Jesus said was always better understood by those he was speaking directly to.  The nice thing in this scripture Jesus is talking directly to us. 

John 10:16 again from the Modern English Version

16 I have other sheep who are not of this fold. I must also bring them, and they will hear My voice. There will be one flock and one shepherd. 

We often think of those people lucky enough to be in the presence of Jesus.  It is something here that Jesus was talking to them about us.  I laugh as people debate exactly who Jesus was talking about, who was he not, huh!  We hear his voice.  What is more we find it easy to tell what isn't of Jesus.  The only grey area people find are the ones they want to find.  Again here Jesus talks about giving up our life for God.  

There is an intricate ministry telling people that their life is so valuable that it cannot be given up, this people call devil.  We remember the context in this chapter as Jesus had just spoke the third I am statement.

John 10 Amplified Bible

9 I am the Door; anyone who enters through Me will be saved [and will live forever], and will go in and out [freely], and find pasture (spiritual security). 10 The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows].

We are called by Jesus to lay done something voluntarily that has no value for something that is abundant and eternal.  The best those great minds can figure is that people are too lost in sin to see this simple reality.  Should not be such a struggle.  There really is no reason.

As we avoid between do we think of this?  We find so many reasons.

In 1 John 3:16-24 in Amplified Bible we read of a way forward, a way to evaluate:

16 By this we know [and have come to understand the depth and essence of His precious] love: that He [willingly] laid down His life for us [because He loved us]. And we ought to lay down our lives for the believers. 17 But whoever has the world’s goods (adequate resources), and sees his brother in need, but has no compassion for him, how does the love of God live in him? 18 Little children (believers, dear ones), let us not love [merely in theory] with word or with tongue [giving lip service to compassion], but in action and in truth [in practice and in sincerity, because practical acts of love are more than words]. 19 By this we will know [without any doubt] that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart and quiet our conscience before Him 20 whenever our heart convicts us [in guilt]; for God is greater than our heart and He knows all things [nothing is hidden from Him because we are in His hands]. 21 Beloved, if our heart does not convict us [of guilt], we have confidence [complete assurance and boldness] before God; 22 and we receive from Him whatever we ask because we [carefully and consistently] keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight [habitually seeking to follow His plan for us].

23 This is His commandment, that we believe [with personal faith and confident trust] in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and [that we unselfishly] love and seek the best for one another, just as He commanded us. 24 The one who habitually keeps His commandments [obeying His word and following His precepts, abides and] remains in Him, and He in him. By this we know and have the proof that He [really] abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us [as a gift].

We give up our lives we lead for ourselves.  We have all lead to varying degrees and we still lead them some days, but we have learned something of great value that we can tell everyone.  Down by the river of the water of life we will not regret what we gave up.  

Let Us Pray,

Almighty and most merciful father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed to much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done. We have valued what has no value.  But thou, O lord, have mercy upon us. Spare those who are penitent, according to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And Grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous and abundant life, to the glory of thy holy name. Amen.

Benediction

He calls to Us today "Do you love me?" if our answer is "yes Lord you know I do." than he says to us "feed my sheep".

Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel---heal the sick---feed the hungry---comfort the comfortless, educate the uneducated, do all these things and more then you will be feeding my sheep. Amen

4/25/2021 Nottingham UMC 

Between

Everything to everyone

Something to someone

Between no one seems to wander

There are good reasons to not work with young adults at the end of the war

No one did

Almost no one did

There are reasons people do not go places

They are hard

We are soft

Old

Experience can take you many ways.  I knew the dangers because I had hurt myself before in the creek bed.  I rolled the biggest rock I have moved from the bank,  I stood and surveyed atop.  A step to fast off.  I was higher than I was remembering I was.  My knee hyper extended luckily and I didn't face plant the bed rock.  I knew the dangers gingerly crossing the stream.  Would have been bloody and probably unconscious but for one thing.

I love to ski spent ten years every summer out on the lakes.  Took to the mountains and recognized the water.  When I hit that speed of the boat I recognized it I went right down the hill.  I didn't know how to stop.  On the water I pushed the limits and would crash or here and there jump off the ski to the beach.  Didn't know where the brakes were.  Watching I found them.  First time down the hill I just dropped the rope and fell in a large pile at the ski lift.

I never skied the frozen water as much.  I found myself once in moguls.  I was actually doing ok just surprised to be there.  Not a place I was looking for.  I was young and even as I saw I was ok I wanted to exit.  I was young and did not evaluate risk well, If you do when your young you are doing it wrong.  I turned my body to the right to clear snow powder.  My left knee continued left.  What I remember I saw my knee separate.  With layers of clothing I did not see this.  This is what I remember.  The oddest sensation of parts of my body going different ways then they were designed.

For ten years I called it my bad knee until I cut dairy from my diet.  Ten years now I feel the same strength in them.  I have very good muscle memory.  It is what allowed me to become a vegan.  I remember in my muscles the forty years of food I ate,  I don't miss anything.  Oysters still my favorite food if I have not eaten them in twelve years.  No two oysters ever tasted the same to me.  I preferred them raw.  With fine resolution of my muscle memory they still stand out. Yum each one, never got that bad one they warn of I guess luckily considering how many I ate.

My knee knew how to hyperextend cause I am old and in this case it saved me today.  Don't think it will always or does always.  I know now that sometimes it does.  My old bad knee hurts a bit, but at almost 50 I should have been bloodied on the creek bed.  I thank God I lead with my bad knee that had been there before.  I know the dangers had I lead with the right I would not be writing this.  We see how old I get.  I'm good at evaluating risk