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April 13, 2008 sermon

Emerging Leadership
(Psalm 23; John 10 selected verses)

Reverend Minister Sally Harris

Good Shepherd, may the words of our story
and the meditation of our hearts
make a new world possible.
Grant us wisdom and courage and faith
that we may emerge as leaders in and for the world you love. Amen

We walk by faith and not by sight. Hard words, tough reality, difficult walk. There is no road, the way is made by walking. There is nothing easy about what we believe or what it means to gather in the name of the Risen Christ. It's not easy because as humans we yearn for a conclusion: a definitive statement, a user's guide to life; life that continually astonishes us with the unknown and unpredictable. It's not easy because we live in a culture of quick-fixes, neat and tidy columns of numbers, facts and figures. We live in a world of instant solutions where crises are dealt with satisfactorily in a half hour sitcom. We live surrounded by propaganda that says if you do it right, eat well, exercise, don't do this, do that, then life will be safe and secure. There's no denying it helps but we've experienced too many tragedies to know it's a sure thing yet we fight for control over the unpredictable elements of our humanity. We even worship in a similar context of religious belief that ascribes all kinds of things to God. It may not be heard in this church but it surrounds us. Neat answers to difficult questions. If you have enough faith, all will be well. If things don't work out then you must not be following God's plan or God is trying to teach you something or you just don't have enough faith. The connection between our ambiguous life, suffering and tragedies with what has been named "success religion" is the idea that if God is with you, you will be kept from all harm. Or that even if harm does come your way a trusting prayer will solve your most difficult problem. And it is tempting to believe the quick fixes, the easy answers, the possibility that if we do it right no harm will come to us for we yearn for conclusion.

Rabbi Harold Kushner, best known for his book When Bad Things Happen To Good People has also written a book entitled The Lord Is My Shepherd. He believes the twenty-third Psalm answers the question, "How do you live in a dangerous and unpredictable world?" In an interview Rabbi Kushner said: “I was inspired to write all of my books, starting with When Bad Things Happen To Good People, by the death of my son, who was 14 years old and was born with an incurable illness. I asked myself, how did my wife and I get through that? You would think that would shatter the faith of the average person. Where did we find the strength and the ability to raise him, to comfort him when he was sick and scared, and ultimately to lose him? And the only answer is, when we used up all of our own strength and love and faith, there really is a God, and God replenishes your love and your strength and your faith. But people who have been hurt by life often get stuck in "the valley of the shadow," and they don't know how to find their way out. And that's the role of God. The role of God is not to explain and not to justify but to comfort, to find people when they are living in darkness, take them by the hand, and show them how to find their way....”

Sometimes I wonder whether Jesus feared this for the disciples he was leaving behind. In the fourth gospel, this anxiety of Jesus is shown in his concern for their future suffering. Jesus knows that to follow him will lead to difficult terrain but his anxiety is not that they will suffer – that will happen and he never suggests a way of avoiding it. His anxiety is that they may get stuck, collapse inside, ‘stumble’ in their faith. Hence Jesus’ most frequent refrain is not ‘Escape’, but ‘Do not be afraid’. Trust in God. Let yourselves be guided, even carried by God. It sounds lovely. But it is letting one self be carried ‘by God’; and that can feel like the greatest effort. As in practice, learning to swim means letting go of the side of the pool, so trusting God may, in practice, be experienced as risking the loss of all else. We may have to live as if God sustains us, in order to discover that God does indeed sustain us. Trust in the face of disillusionment and failure; holding one’s integrity in the face of betrayal and deceit; these are ‘letting oneself be carried by God’. In a sense it means doing nothing other than remaining; believing, trusting, but like standing firm when the wind has reached gale force, it can feel like a great effort. Particularly in a world that denies such sustainability. To be carried by God does not mean doing nothing, the emphasis is not on ‘being carried’ it is being carried ‘by God’.

To be carried by God meant for the disciples to remain in the truth, and showing teeth when truth was challenged. A friend of Saint John of the Cross, recounts how John began to write letters of complaint. “I remember one of them especially. It was so strong that, when I read it, I tried to get him not to send it, because of the trouble it would stir up – but he would not agree. He said that as a council member he was obliged to send it; and it would please God.” As in his life, so in his ministry, Saint John of the Cross retained the same watchword – let it be God who carries you. To let oneself be carried ‘by God’ is not to run from conflict or from loneliness but to let it disclose a deeper basis for togetherness – present in faith, guaranteed in Jesus, released in prayer.

It seems that what gave the early Christians courage to preserve was not a secure future, but the certainty of a companionship more powerful than anything the future could bring. From the crucible of failures, betrayals, disillusionment and disappointment the character and calling of emerging leaders were forged. Emerging leaders, from the early church of John’s gospel to this present church growing in the heart of Kitsilano, are formed and transformed not by certainty and a well-worn path but by uncertainty and no path.

Faith in that which is not known gives us God. Faith gives us God. Faith gives us a way… God is my shepherd I shall not fear. A shepherd that cultivates abundance. In the psalmist’s world, if any sheep enjoyed green pastures then this ancient shepherd had carved it out of wilderness… God is my shepherd I shall not fear… carried by an ever present God; created by a God of abundance – a God that is so close that we cannot see God’s presence… we are merely and extravagantly carried.

Our leadership for this time and place emerges from trust, from faith, from our willingness to be carried by God, the shepherd who created a world when there was no world, who built a church, when there was no church; who leads us on a path where there is no path…. We do walk by faith… not in our knowledge of the way but in our believing that God is closer than the darkness.

The Shepherd has walked with me; I could ask nothing more.
The Shepherd has given me green pastures to laugh in,
clear streams to think beside,
untrodden paths to explore.
When I thought the world rested on my shoulders,
The Shepherd put things into perspective;
When I lashed out at an unfair world, the Shepherd calmed me down;
When I drifted into harmful ways, The Shepherd found me.
The Shepherd was with me all the way.
I do not know what lies ahead, but I am not afraid.
I know you will be with me. Even in death, I will not despair.
You will comfort me and support me.

From the shepherd in the psalmist’s world to the Christ of the early church – God’s people have always been nourished. The shepherd finds us, gives us life, empowers us to have it more abundantly. Even now as we are lead by turbulent waters a table is prepared for us. We eat and drink as one so that we may emerge as leaders in a broken world to carve out green pastures in the midst of wilderness terrain. Draw near, the table is ready...

[resource: Iain Matthew’s Impact of God]

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