EASTER II

April 18, 2010

St. Augustine Anglican Church

“And the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.”

The Rev. Gerald Parks +

          The events of the past few weeks, wherein we celebrated the great mysteries of Holy Week – our Lord’s Passion, death and Resurrection – followed last week by Bishop Strawn’s visit and the Confirmation and First Communion of Lauren Buchanan, may have left us a little breathless and anxious for a return to more placid times.  But in spite of the uprooting of our peaceful routines at such times, we are reminded by them that we are a family in Christ Jesus, and it is in His Name that we gather together in this place.  He is the Good Shepherd of today’s Gospel (John 10:11-16) whose Holy Name we bear, and we are His flock.

          Certainly, if the attendance of the past three Sundays – the highest in memory – is any indicator, we are a growing family.  I am not so foolish as to believe that such numbers as we have seen recently will continue unabated past the Easter Season, but I do feel that a trend has started and that we will continue to make gains as time goes on and people are exposed to the beauty of this “old time religion.”

          There was a time, before the mad rush to destruction began in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, that our former Church was one of the fastest growing Christian denominations in the United States, professing the same faith in the same way as we do today.  The 1928 Book of Common Prayer – now replaced and forgotten by them – is today as it was then, the great repository and unfailing statement of the Anglican faith.  It was also the reason for their success.  If we continue to be faithful and to trust that God will provide for our needs, it is my belief that we will grow as they did, utilizing that same timeless Prayer Book.  In spite of all that has happened people are beginning to understand that Anglicanism is no longer the faith of the Episcopal Church, but that the faith lives on here and in us.  A name is, after all, only a name, no matter how grand the edifice that bears it.  People want and are looking for a faith that will sustain them and give them hope, not a brand; the only name that does that is Jesus Christ our Lord.

          Our modest success may come as a surprise to some, considering the odds and obstacles that were so firmly stacked against us, at the beginning.  We worship in an archaic language, without the aid of blasting, raucous music, or dizzying light shows or any of the other devices designed to raise people to an emotional frenzy.  In fact, some would say that we are not very “cool” in our worship at all, depending as we do on such old-fashioned ideas as the faith of Jesus Christ preached simply, without apology and without alteration.  We are not gimmicky or trendy, nothing like what passes for religion in some quarters today; yet, the people come seeking those very things that we possess in abundance: a sincere faith rooted in the Gospels and expressed in a remarkable “beauty of holiness.”

          We might find it striking that so many so called “main line churches” have, in the past forty or fifty years, opted to replace or reinterpret their centuries old core beliefs in favor of new, more contemporary ones.  “The world has changed,” they say, “and we must change with it or become irrelevant.”  They were led to believe that changing the language of worship to a more up to date, inclusive one was the secret to growth and survival, and that changing or, in some cases, jettisoning their orders of worship, as well as their music for worship, would solve all their problems.  So, all this new “stuff” was introduced and gradually became their standards of worship, not always with the approval or even the tolerance of their members.  Unfortunately, somewhere along the way in all these changes to worship, the actual fact and practice of worship was forgotten.  It was a failure of leadership on the largest and most dangerous scale, and they are paying a huge price for it.  Such things do not build faith, they undermine it; and once your faith is gone, what do you have left?

          The Gospel of the Good Shepherd is essentially about this very issue of leadership, or more specifically, about the quality of that leadership, and those we allow to lead us.  Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd; and know my sheep, and am known of mine, even as the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father.” (John 10:14-15)  He is the One in whose name those of us who dare to try to lead the faithful must speak; His message must be the only one we dare to teach.  And yet, we know that is not always the case: sometimes the message gets garbled, and sometimes human ideas creep into it, altering it and changing it into something quite beyond what was intended.  And when that happens, the faithful become confused and suffer, and are prey to the very things from which the Good Shepherd protects them.  In the Gospel such leaders are compared to hirelings: “But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.” (John 10:12)   In fact, we may say there is only one Good Shepherd; the rest of us, no matter how sincere or well-intentioned we may think we are, are only “hirelings.”

          So there you have it: once our Lord’s message is changed or abandoned, as it has been in our time, by “hirelings” who should have known better but thought by putting a new and more human face on the perfect will of God, to improve it, the defenses are down and the way is open to “the world, the flesh and the devil.”  The wolf gets in, and the flock is scattered, not because the wolf has the power on his own to do that, but because the hireling abandons the sheep to their fate to pursue his own interests. 

          However, that is not the end of the story.  The Good Shepherd, whose sheep we are, has promised to be with His faithful people always.  And He is doing that now, using the remnant of His faithful people to start again the process of rebuilding His flock.  And He tells us, “And other sheep I have, which are not of this flock: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one flock, and one shepherd.” (John 10: 16)