In the Shadow of His Protection

Acts 4:5-12; I John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18

About five years ago I decided to take a year off from parish ministry to work towards my doctorate in pastoral counseling. One class that was strongly suggested that I take was a year's training in hospital chaplaincy. So I applied at a hospital in Western Michigan and was accepted into a year-long residency program. The first day in class I was appointed to my units. I was given the two intensive care units and the large cancer-terminal care floor.

It wasn't too long after I was assigned that, while on break, two of us residents decided to walk down to the emergency entrance to see what was going on, and to step outside to see some sunshine and smell some fresh air. As we approached Emergency we heard a man yelling, and saw nurses, doctors, and security running towards the yelling man. We approached carefully, where upon we could see that the man (a black man) was kicking, biting, swearing, and throwing things at the staff. Finally, enough people were able to get on top of him in order to tie him down to a bed and sedate him. I looked at my fellow student and said, "I'm glad he's not on my units." She said, "Me too!"

About a month went by, and you can guess it, the man was put onto my unit. But, not only was he placed on my unit of the terminally ill, but he was placed in one of the double door rooms which meant he was very ill, and contagious, a person who we had to be careful with in order to protect ourselves. I looked up the room number on the floor chart and found his name was Henry. I went to the door where the man's chart was kept. A nurse went by and said, "He's crazy and very contagious! Be careful!" I opened his chart and read it. It said that he was HIV positive. The man had AIDS!

The head nurse approached me and said, "We need you to visit him each day to try and level his head. But you will have to gown up, scrub, and mask each time you go in. The whole gear, Linda! And, you can't go in during blood exchanges."

To make the story short, I visited Henry every day, for a half hour to an hour. We talked and talked. He shared his life with me, which included stories of his being raised in Alabama and Mississippi, and (at a very young age) running bootleg and moonshine. Then he moved to Michigan with his family, so his uncle could get a factory job. Henry had little formal education. He grew up in Detroit, became a pimp and a seller of drugs. He was a user of drugs and a sleep-around. He stole a car, sold drugs, got caught, and ended up going to a maximum security prison for 10 years. He was now 55. He looked mean and unkempt. His fingernails were brown from smoking so much and so long that they curved around his finger tips. His hair was in corn rolls. He was very thin and scaly. He had contracted AIDS by sharing needles, not from sleeping around, he said.

I share Henry with you because if ever there was a lost sheep, it was Henry.

Our gospel lesson for today tells about Jesus being the good shepherd of the sheep. If one sheep gets lost or runs astray, the good shepherd, Jesus, goes after it.

Defining Jesus as a shepherd echoes a well-established Old Testament tradition. With many of the people of Jesus' day being herders, the pastoral history of Israel was well-established in the hearts of Jesus' listeners. They could really understand what Jesus was talking about. To call a person a shepherd was to liken that person to the religious leaders of the past, patriarchs such as Moses and David. Rulers were often imaged by the common people as being like evil shepherds or good shepherds. If the ruler was an evil person or evil shepherd, God promised to save the abused flock. And the people could understand scriptures that talked about how God would save them from such evil shepherds by giving them a good shepherd. But in his teachings, Jesus added a new dimension to the good shepherd motif. He said that the good shepherd goes even further than the average shepherd. Jesus said that the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Furthermore, the good shepherd has a face to face encounter with the sheep and they, in turn, know each other. And this knowing is not just a kind of intellectual knowledge but an intimate experience-based knowledge that establishes a vital link between the shepherd and the sheep.

By being the good shepherd, Jesus made it very clear that he was the only Savior of humanity.

Now, we need to know and remember what sheep are like. Sheep need a keeper because, after centuries of domesticated herd life they are a bit slow in defending themselves. They have lost their instincts for defense. If a wolf or a coyote pack, or a dog pack got into the flock, the sheep would die because sheep so not know or remember how to defend themselves.

As Jesus said, he is the good shepherd. That makes us the sheep. We need the guidance and protection of Jesus, the good shepherd, to give us a certain sense of direction and help us to be guided away from things that might hurt us -- the evil things, the false things of life.

The wolves and coyotes, the thieves of our day are very subtle and tricky. We can think of murders that might take place in a physical sense. But, what about murders that can take place in the spiritual sense? The world is full of egocentric people who are willing and anxious to be false guides to us and rob us, not only of our worldly possessions, but sometimes of our very souls, as well. We think of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin as wolves. These types of people are usually very blunt and open and evil, and easy for most of us to spot. But what about the subtle wolves in our midst, today -- the gurus, or some of the psychotherapists or clergy (some of them very popular) who lead people astray? What about some of the hosts of talk shows, or actors and actresses, or some of the news media people on TV, or authors of books, or some of the magazine writers and editors, or some of the professors in our colleges?

They gain power over us because we stray from the Good Shepherd and away from the fold. Their egocentricity plugs into ours. We allow those persons to carry us along so we don't have to think for ourselves or feel or be burdened with our own conscious development. These subtle wolves and thieves become our idols. They are false voices, tempting us to deny the truth and our own responsibility for ourselves and pull us away from hearing the voice of the good shepherd, Jesus.

Our gospel lesson says that Jesus is also the gate. He is our gate into heaven to be with God, our creator and father. But, also as a gatekeeper, he bars the way to those who are not fit to be on their way to heaven. Jesus is our savior, he willingly laid down his life for us. In these passages we even encounter a veiled reference to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.

Because Jesus is the Good Shepherd, he exposes the false shepherds, the wolves before us. He exposes them because they are not motivated by love, but Jesus is.

When I spent those hours with Henry I saw a lost sheep. His corn rows reminded me of sheep's wool. After many hours with Henry, I began to wonder of there was enough time left for Henry to return to the fold with Christ. He told me he believed in Jesus when he was a kid. Now, well, he was uncertain. Then, one day in March, about two and a half months before I was to leave the hospital, I went into see Henry. He sat up quickly, his hair combed, eye glasses on, nails cut clean, and he smiled. He said, "I've been under the shadow of his protection, Linda. We's all been under his protection and care. I strayed, but now I'm back. I know I'm going to die with AIDS, but I'm protected. You're protected. Be sure to get down in your preachin' to tell people about the protection. We can be lost sheep. Be sure to get down with your preachin'."

"To get down with my preachin'" meant to share with you that Jesus is truly the good shepherd and that he did lay down his life for us and he continues to do that each day.

In our New Testament lessons we are encouraged to believe in Jesus Christ as the only Savior of humanity. The writer of Acts, St. Luke, said that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, is this one standing before you. And there is salvation in no one else. There is no name under heaven given among us by which we may be saved. The writer of First John wrote: "And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us."

Henry died after I left the hospital. I'm sure that even though he lived a life among the wolves, the Good Shepherd, Jesus, brought him back into the fold. I know Jesus willingly laid his life down for Henry -- and for us.

Remember: Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. We are in the shadow of his protection! Thanks be to God, for he loves us that much.

Amen.