Rector's Reflection: Flock Without End. Amen., May 10, 2025

This Week’s Readings: Acts 9:36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17; John 10:22-30

Beloved Members of St. Martin’s,

Welcome again to Shepherd Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Easter! The image of God and Jesus as not just “shepherd,” but as the “Good Shepherd” is so powerful, so suggestive and inspiring, that we celebrate “Shepherd Sunday” every year in this part of the Church calendar. In each year’s reading, we are reminded that we are all part of God’s flock, and nothing can separate us from God but our own choices—and even then, God never gives up on us.

Here in the fourth Sunday of Easter we are continuing a thread from the 2 Sunday of Easter about belief, faith, doubt, and certainty. Two weeks ago, Thomas would not believe that Jesus was risen until he saw and touched Jesus and his wounds himself. This week starts with Jesus in a dispute with those who claim to want—but really don’t want-- Jesus to flatly proclaim himself the Messiah. Jesus responds to these challenges that he has both told them and showed them through his works, and yet that is not enough. They don’t want anything but certainty. They want undeniable proof. And yet we know that is an impossible standard to meet, since there have already been dozens of signs and wonders done by Jesus. Even everything is not enough for some people.

As John alludes several times, action by God in choosing those who will belong to the flock is done by God’s initiative. The early Calvinists who settled our country believe this choosing was extremely limited, and called this “election.” They believed that God’s offer is limited to nearly perfect people, kind of a Calvinist Mary Poppins, who of course was “practically perfect in every way.” Many of us are uncomfortable with this theory of limited “election,” since it presupposes that there is predestination, which undercuts the concept of free will. This concept also logically means that some will be excluded from the kingdom. Thus the conclusion is that the vast majority of people are predestined to go to Hell, and some very few people are predestined to go to Heaven. This then leads to a problem with the questions of grace and mercy.

The answer actually exists earlier in this same chapter. Jesus, especially when he speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd in John’s gospel, makes clear that he and “the Father” are one. This gospel portion insists that Jesus’s sheep cannot be snatched out of his hand, just as no one can snatch what the Father has given him out of the Father’s hand. Jesus’s works in the name of his Father testify also about Jesus himself. But Jesus also states flatly in the verses just before these, at John 10:14-16:

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.

The acknowledgement of “other sheep” unknown to “this fold” is a good reminder to us that God is God, and we are not, in the words of that great sage and poet seer, Steve Earle. Think God has drawn a tiny circle of those who are in, and shunned the multitudes? This is to deny the principal qualities of God, which are mercy, loving kindness, and grace beyond our own miserly preferences.

We humans want certainty, yes, even after learning over and over again that the world provides precious little of that, ever. And this is a gift, not a curse, beloveds. Certainty sucks all the color and beauty and wonder from the world. Certainty, not doubt, is the sworn enemy of not just faith, but of the imagination—and it is through the imagination, through the sparkling chance of possibility, that this glorious creation we are called to revel in comes to life.

When we humbly realize how much grace we ourselves we receive, may our response ever be to throw the gate to that sheepfold wide open at Jesus’s invitation, and marvel at the limitless love God extends to us all. Accepting thatcertainty with a generous welcome to all, no exceptions, is what makes Jesus the true “Good Shepherd.”

Have you ever welcomed your doubts and uncertainties as gifts? What would it be like if you did, if it meant you would see yourself as part of the most joyful, beloved flock of all?

In Christ,

Mother Leslie+

St. Martin’s Investment Committee

The St. Martin's Investment Committee oversees our parish investment funds. If you have an interest in learning more, please contact Steve Brunkhorst or Lincoln Drake. We meet 4 times per year and have stimulating discussions while we do this important work.

Music Notes from Denise, May 3, 2025

Next Sunday, May 11 will be our children’s mini musical:

The Lost Sheep

All Children are welcome to participate, please come to our 10:30 service!

This Sunday, our Processional hymn is another triumphant Easter hymn, Good Christians all, rejoice and sing!  It was written by Cyril Alington, while Headmaster of Eton College for Melchior Vulpius’s tune Gelobt sei Gott. Alington was ordained a priest in the Church of England in 1901 and had a vast teaching career. Many of his hymns appeared in 20 century editions of the British hymnal, Hymns Ancient and Modern. A strong text for Easter, Good Christians All rings in the victory of Christ’s resurrection so that “all the world” will know the news. Each stanza encourages us to tell the good news and praise the “Lord of life,” and ends with an exciting 3-fold Alleluia. (Psalter Hymnal Handbook, 1988)

Our Sequence hymn will be a song by Natalie Sleeth, Joy in the Morning. It takes the text from this week’s Psalm 30. Written first as an anthem in 1977, “Joy in the Morning” was first adapted as a hymn for the Covenant Hymnal (1996), the hymnal for the Evangelical Covenant Church. Though she did not realize it when she composed the anthem, the title was from Psalm 30:5, “For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night but rejoicing comes in the morning” (NIV*). It describes the coming day and the new heaven and new earth we can expect, “daylight will dawn when the darkness is gone” (stanza 1), with “peace and contentment evermore” (stanza 2), and “love and forgiveness everywhere” (stanza 3). Sleeth recalls: “As I worked with the idea and with developing the text into a full statement it began to generate more excitement for me, particularly when it “allied itself” to a strong, minor melody with a sequential section in the middle. I remember working on it all weekend—until very late at night and beginning again early in  the morning—and enjoying the challenge of working with four parts rather than just the two I often stop with.” (Adventures for the Soul by Natalie Sleeth 1987 Hope Publishing Co.; Shawn Gingrich, umcdiscipleship.org)

Our guest musician this Sunday will be Chance McCline, who is a senior at Parkway Central High School. Chance plans to attend Mizzou this fall and study musical theatre. Chance has held many featured roles in the Parkway Central theater program as well as receiving Gold ratings on his vocal solos. He has a close relationship with God, and feels that sharing his musical talents is a way to strengthen that bond. Today he will sing an awesome arrangement of the spiritual, Deep River, by Moses Hogan.

We will end our worship with the Tanzanian hymn Mfurahini, haleluya. According to Jeff Held in his book, Listening to the Sacred Seasons, the song was written in 1966 by Bernard Kyamanywa, a young theologian in Makumira, Tanzania at the behest of his mentor, German missionary Gerhard Jasper. It was joined to a tune in the Tanzanian musical tradition called kwaya which is an “Africanized European” musical style that involved harmonic singing. It has become famous throughout the world. Held states, “Howard Olson, one of the most significant progenitors of African hymnody, translated the hymn in 1970 and set the common English translation used today in his publication , Set Free: A Collection of African Hymns in 1993, titled “Christ Has Arisen, Alleluia!” In the great African tradition, this hymn is often accompanied by drumming and provides a most joyful musical context that is evocative of the Paschal greeting—“Christ is risen!” “He is risen indeed, Alleluia!” (Listening to the Sacred Seasons Copyright 2024 by Jeff Held, Tustin, California)