11 May Sermon – Sunday, May 11, 2025
This is one of those Sundays where it’s fun to try and figure out why these particular readings go together. What does the first have to do with the second, or the psalm with the gospel? How does the theme of a good shepherd connect to Tabitha/Dorcas being raised from the dead? Let’s begin by working backward.
Jesus names what’s at the core of every misunderstanding and miscommunication. He tells those who ask questions, but are not satisfied with the answers, what the problem is.
The problem is either they don’t listen or else they don’t believe. The answer they hear is not what they want to hear. What they’re told doesn’t agree with them. It sounds displeasing at best and downright threatening at worst.
This kind of misunderstanding or miscommunication even happens between family members and friends, but most often it happens in relationships where trust has yet to be established or has been broken. One explanation for the misunderstanding or miscommunication may be that one party doesn’t do a good job of saying exactly what they mean.
But when it comes to Jesus speaking to the Jews, the Greeks and Romans, or for that matter, his followers, Jesus tends to say exactly what he means. He leaves little doubt or room for open interpretation. There’s almost no way to twist his words to mean what we might prefer to hear instead of what he actually says.
They say, “Tell us plainly,” as if he hadn’t told them already. He explains, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.” To put it another way, “If you don’t want to believe what I’ve said, look at what I’ve done. My actions testify to my words.”
Then he says, “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” Now the responsibility transfers to the ones asking, the ones who are supposedly listening. Watch out now. Had the woman named Tabitha/Dorcas not been listening when Peter called her by name and told her, “Get up,” she’d have found herself not only dead, but buried.
It sounds as though her good works and acts of charity spoke of who she was, a devoted disciple. No one can explain to our satisfaction why in this case, but not others, that expressions of grief combined with evidence of how important she was to those that knew her was enough to restore her to life.
We only know that when she was shown to be alive after witnesses saw her become ill and die, that many believed in the Lord. Peter prayed alone on his knees beside her in the same way many of us have prayed. Peter called her by name and told her to get up, and she did.
I heard myself whisper the exact same words forty-two years ago. I said, “Mom, get up,” right before the funeral director was about to close the lid to her coffin, after removing wedding rings from her finger and tearing her skin without meaning to.
For those who grieve there are no words, spoken prayers or show of emotions that work like a formula to completely undo the pain and suffering of death. There is only the surety of knowing who God is, of trusting him to shepherd us in the same way as he guided our loved ones toward the entrance door of heaven.
Life is a limited opportunity, a chance to witness the plans of God as they unfold all around us and before us. It is a chance for us to practice having trust that these plans are perfect and complete for each and every individual, and that those plans cannot be altered or go against God’s will.
The Book of Psalms testifies to the fact that life is a spectrum of events that includes brutality and blessings, circumstances being terrible and then becoming better, suffering, then relief. We quote the 23rd psalm to remind ourselves that we are under the care of a good shepherd. We shall not want. We will be made to lie down in green pastures, led beside still waters.
We must claim restoration for our souls, surety that we will be guided along right pathways for the namesake of our Lord. We must claim to fear no evil and find comfort in Jesus’ presence while his rod and staff serve to gently prod or fiercely defend us.
The writer of the psalm and those who repeat it know what it’s like to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, to be in a cold dark place where the sun doesn’t shine, to feel no warmth, be overwhelmed and lose hope. We are not left there. We walk through it toward a table prepared for us before we actually get to that table.
We claim that goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our lives and with surety know that our dwelling is in the house of the Lord forever. Here’s where the reading from Revelation fits in.
All tribes from every nation, a great multitude of people and languages that no one can count, stand before a throne upon which a Lamb robed in white is seated. They wave palm branches and declare, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
“All the angels stand around the throne; the elders and the four living creatures fall on their faces before the throne and worship God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
Can we believe what we are told by John? Does it jibe with Jesus saying, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep.”
Listen. “ My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” [They believe me.] I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. [None shall be lost.] All tribes from every nation, a great multitude of people and languages that no one can count, stand before a throne upon which a Lamb robed in white is seated. They wave palm branches and declare, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Jesus says, “ I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”
Then John writes, “One of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
“ For this reason they are before the throne of God,and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
We hear all of these things in the readings today for a reason, so we may believe what we are told and live accordingly. So we may live and trust knowing that the experience of hunger and thirst won’t last, that any form of physical or mental anguish, disappointment or deprivation suffered by our hearts and souls on earth will end and that eternity holds nothing that will strike, scorch or harm us.
“The Lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd, guiding us to springs of the water of life and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.” We have received permission to take our hurtful memories and painful life experiences to the very throne of God now. We don’t have to wait until arriving in heaven for God to heal us.
We have been told in advance that God wants to make everything better for us. God wants to help make us whole and complete in the present, to feel okay, to no longer carry pain, suffer silently or grieve in brokenness. If we are truly his sheep, will we hear the words and believe them? Can we; will we?
Will you have misgivings about joining the multitude and saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving, honor, power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen?” If so, let’s pray about them together.
By grace, give us faith to believe every word, to know that you are one with the Father and His will for us. We need to hear you and feel your prodding. As best we can, we receive your guidance and acknowledge your acts of loving care. We ask for comfort and joy along with a continual, daily, lived experience of your shepherding, a sense of your nearness, your divine eternal presence among us. In your holy name we pray, Amen.