Easter 4 by Fr Jack

Acts 2.42-emd
Psalm 23
1 St Peter 2.19-end
St John 10.1-10

The Easter image of Jesus the Good Shepherd is a lovely one.

Unlike shepherds in our part of the world, He abides with his little flock. He walks on leading them to safety and nourishment in a hostile landscape, day after day, and they follow is gentle call. ‘I am the gate’ Jesus says today. We are told that shepherds use hawthorn and suchlike to form a makeshift pen, the thorns protecting the sheep from nighttime predators. And the shepherd sleeps across the gap-doorway in the hawthorn to guard them. This crucifixion image of laying down life, literally, in faithfulness and sacrifice says it all.

The blessing used throughout Eastertide at the end of the Eucharist talks of Our Lord Jesus Christ ‘that great shepherd of the sheep’. St Peter today calls Jesus the ‘shepherd and guardian of our souls’. And of course Psalm 23 just cannot be beaten.

And - on a practical level - in the Acts of the Apostles today we hear of the revolutionary way of living that this little flock developed in the Early Church. We are called to truly live as Jesus’ flock following His voice in the way we live.

We spoke last Sunday about the vital importance of allowing the resurrection of Jesus to truly shape the way we live.

This Sunday, then, I want to take just one idea from this Good Shepherd Gospel and run with it. And it’s this: ‘they know his voice’. They trust his voice. (Unlike the voice of the thief or bandit).

It is about trust, relationship.

I want to explore what this trust means for us, coming at the theological idea of trust from a couple of different angles.

It is helpful to first acknowledge that we live in a time drought, in terms of trust.

Security and insurance are key. Every email or ‘phone-call could be a scam. Every photo or news story could be fake. Every time someone stops me in the street to ask the way - are their intentions sinister?

Sadly, we are learning not to trust, partly perhaps because we don’t recognise: ‘they know his voice’ as today’s Gospel says. I don’t know the people I pass in the street most of the time. So I don’t know who to trust.

It’s a bleak picture, and (of course) only partly true. Of course strangers are also angels very often, and people are generous and kind much of the time, but the ‘trust poverty’ is a thing.

We are told that we trust institutions and public figures less and less too.

So what are we to say about trust, in the company of Jesus the Good Shepherd? Two thoughts.

First, the Gospels are full of surprising encounters in which Jesus brings the best out of people by loving them. Not by pretending that they are perfect, not becoming a doormat for them, but by loving them, by establishing and building trust and relationship. Zacchaeus changes his life, the woman at the well begins a brave new chapter, St Mary Magdalene is freed from the grip of evil… all because Jesus entrusts His love to them in relationship, and they become trustworthy as a result.

Trust is entrusted, and when we are entrusted we have the opportunity to become trustworthy. We too, as followers of Jesus can seek to be trustworthy and also those who entrust: helping others to become trustworthy. This might be in relationships of forgiveness, or hope, or love, or generosity. It might be with people we know, at home, work, or with strangers. In every tiny way that trust is entrusted and multiplied, the Gospel is being lived out. Look again at the second lesson, this dynamic of trust, gift and freedom is the theological kernel of St Peter’s writing today. Because of who Jesus is, we live this way: trusting Jesus, others, being trusted.

But (going a little further) what does it mean to trust Jesus?

Well, it means real relationship.

It means growing in knowledge of Jesus our Good Shepherd. Speaking and listening to Him in prayer, receiving Holy Communion regularly and purposefully, reading the Gospels. ‘What a friend we have in Jesus’ as the old song goes. But, like all friendships it requires investment.

Which brings me on to my other angle on trust, that I almost don’t mention, because really it’s a whole other sermon. Sorry.

But it is so about trust and relationship in Jesus that I think it’s worth saying today ; so long as we acknowledge that this is not the last word on the matter. I am very happy to talk more about this anytime, and will recklessly skip over important dimensions because of time today.

Jesus our Good Shepherd. We’ve said it’s all about trust and relationship and how those things blossom and flow in every direction. God, me, us, them, everyone.

And it connects too with those last words in the Acts of the Apostles: people being ‘added to the number of believers’ and thus being ‘saved.’

‘Saved’? Well, from death and hell, for eternal life.

Saved, how? Well, by believing.

St John 3.16: ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’.

But here the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment have not helped us in one very specific regard. We have unwittingly slipped over the last few centuries in the West into a place where to ‘believe’ in God, in Christ, is to think certain things about God. Conscious consent to this or that idea ‘equals’ belief. But that is not what belief means in any real sense, certainly not to an ancient Middle Eastern Jew like Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Just one problem is that I can think or not certain things about God in Christ and live totally otherwise. And St James is swift to tell us in his New Testament epistle that ‘faith without works is dead’. So it’s not just about what I think about Jesus.

In St Matthew’s Gospel Jesus speaks of judgment - the sheep and the goats - and doesn’t mention thinking-belief at all. He says when I was hungry, you fed me. I was naked, in prison: you clothed me, you visited me etc. So, actions count.

But we know that we cannot earn our salvation. It is a free gift. We cannot win our way into heaven by good behaviour. Some religions hold to that, but not Christianity.

So what are we to make of this?

Well, it’s not actually that difficult. Christians have argued for centuries about faith ‘vs’ works. But St James, St Paul and Jesus didn’t seem to find it so tricky. Ancient, orthodox Christianity doesn’t either: it is both/and.

Because, and now we’re getting somewhere, it is all about trust and relationship with Jesus our Good Shepherd.

Jesus is not telling us to be as nasty as we like, so long as we believe in Him, up here in our heads. Nor is He saying ‘don’t worry about me, just be nice to each other’.

Instead, Jesus our Good Shepherd is inviting us into real relationship with Him. To find our daily lives entrusted to Him.

And if we do that, we will discover that our lives blossom with new perspectives, with the desire to do good works for love’s sake, to serve because it’s true, not because it’s advantageous.

And that trust and relationship will become, more and more, our way of being in this life, such that when this life ends, that relationship with God will carry us on without much difficulty, really, into the arms of Him in whom we have already been entrusted.

That is salvation. Not things I’ve done or things I’ve thought in my head, but trust and relationship. That is what that word poorly translated in English as ‘belief’ really means.

At Easter Christ conquers death and empties hell, so it’s in Him that death and hell fall away, and we find life ‘in all its fullness’ now and forever. So, salvation is trust in God, relationship with God.

Now, a final footnote: what about those who haven’t believed? That is to say those who haven’t trusted and sought real relationship with God?

Well, at Easter Christ conquered death and harrowed hell. Nothing can undo that. This doesn’t in any way mitigate the urgency of His life-changing invitation to trust and relationship. Nothing could matter more. But, it’s also true that death is no barrier for the Risen Jesus. The invitation of the Eternal King of Love has no ‘sell-by’ date. So when and how (in this life or the next) they hear His voice and go with Him, I’m confident that they (like all creation) are in the Good Shepherd’s hands, and there is nowhere better to be.

I’ve said far too much. But basically, you see, it’s all about trust and relationship. Day to day they blossom in us and define us now, and if we hear his call they will be our forever.