Random Happens

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Sometimes there is a nexus of events that seem random or perhaps purposeful – usually hard to discern the difference. Many years ago when leading a Bible study on the Book of Revelation, one of the participants told me that every evening when driving home from the session (it was summer), he saw a black crow sitting on a fence. He asked if it was a sign. Could be…. or since it was farm country and the fence was bordering a corn field, it might have just been a crow. I have to admit there is a part of me that operates out of the old maxim: if you hear hoofbeats don’t assume zebra, it’s probably a horse. At least it’s a good maxim for the United States.

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Listening and Knowing

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This coming Sunday is the 4th Sunday of Easter for Year C of the Lectionary Cycle. The gospel is taken from John 10:27-30.  In yesterday’s post we focused on the idea that if Jesus is the Good Shepherd – then what/who constitutes the flock? Who are the sheep that follow the promised Messiah? And in the course, we spend some time nuancing some of the language used in the text.

27 My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can take them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one can take them out of the Father’s hand. 

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Privateering – the new side gig

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Given the state and possible future of a new global order in a world of trade wars, tariffs, and mercantile mischief, I thought it good to again post an article from last year. It might just be, for you, a viable side-gig.

Did you know that you have a constitutional right to become a government-sanctioned pirate? I present for your consideration Article I, Section 8: Clause 11, War Powers – To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water. This means that, with Congress’s permission, private citizens can weaponize all manner of watercraft, put  out to sea, capture enemy vessels, and keep the booty. Rather than fly the Jolly Roger, you’d proudly fly the Star-and-Stripes. And even more, rather than taking on the name “pirate”  although that has a certain cache to it, you might go by the title “privateer.” But I must admit that “Pirate Jack” sounds a fair bit more daunting than “Privateer Jack.”

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Tell us plainly

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This coming Sunday is the 4th Sunday of Easter for Year C of the Lectionary Cycle. The gospel is taken from John 10:27-30.  In yesterday’s post we explored the scriptural foundation of shepherd and flock – today we continue that trajectory and its implication: fulfillment of the promised Messiah described in Ezekiel 34

A key element of our Sunday gospel passage is an indication of who is part of the flock of believers. The people know Jesus and they, like folks in every age, want straight answers:

24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered them, “I told you and you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify to me. 26 But you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep.” (John 10:24-26)

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Everything else in the universe

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The law of unintended consequences, often cited but rarely defined, is that actions of people, and especially of governments, always have effects that are unanticipated or “unintended.” We live in a world that is a complex system with interconnections we do not know, can’t or have not yet imagined, or as the American naturalist John Muir offered: “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

A well-known example is when the British government in India offered financial rewards for people who killed and turned in cobras. People, reacting to incentives, began breeding the snakes. Once the reward program was scrapped, the population of cobras in India rose as people released the ones they had raised. This event gave birth to the term “the cobra effect” which describes an incentive that has an unintended and undesirable result that is contrary to the intentions of its designers. In other words, an unintended consequence.

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Kings and Shepherds

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This coming Sunday is the 4th Sunday of Easter for Year C of the Lectionary Cycle. The gospel is taken from John 10:27-30.  In yesterday’s post we provided some context for the gospel reading, discussing a little bit about the use of “shepherd” imagery in Scripture but also about some of the feasts that Jesus was celebrating as part of John 10. Today we explore the image of shepherds in more detail.

This week’s passage is succinct and calls to mind the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd (cf. John 10:11) – as it is meant to do.  The gospel establishes a certain cluster of associations around the word shepherd (poimen.) Each time the image reappears it evokes and develops the associations found elsewhere in the narrative. John 10:1-5 introduces the image of the shepherd by describing how a shepherd enters the sheepfold, calls the sheep by name, and leads them out to pasture. In 10:7-18 Jesus identifies himself as the good shepherd, who lays down his life for his sheep. In 10:22-30 he adds that no one will snatch the sheep out of his hand. At the conclusion of the Gospel, Jesus enjoins Peter to “feed my lambs…. Tend my sheep…. Feed my sheep” (21:15-17). The emphatic use of the shepherd imagery suggests that Peter’s task must be understood in light of what Jesus said earlier in the Gospel about what it means to be a shepherd. Jesus makes a prophetic statement that reinforces the connection by anticipating that Peter, like Jesus the good shepherd, would lay down his life (21:18-19).

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The Work of God

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So they said to him, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.” (John 6:28-29)

Accomplishing the works of God – now that seems like something that should be on the top of our list. When we look at beginning of the Gospel of Luke, we encounter Jesus in the synagogue

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19)

Perhaps these are the works of God? Or maybe St. Matthew outlines the important works:

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The Gospels of Good Shepherd Sunday

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This coming Sunday is the 4th Sunday of Easter for Year C of the Lectionary Cycle. The gospel is taken from John 10:27-30. The gospel invokes one of the most often used images of God: the shepherd. The Prophet Ezekiel couches the promise that after a long succession of bad shepherds (kings) who fed themselves off the flock, God himself will come as the Good Shepherd. That pastoral imagery is a central part of John 10 and is always used as the gospel for the 4th Sunday of Easter:

Year A – John 10:1-10 (sheepfold, gatekeeper, sheep recognizing the voice)

Year B – John 10:11-18 (“I am the good shepherd”)

Year C – John 10:27-30 

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What kind of leader do we want?

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Certainly a good question with the papal conclave scheduled to start in four days. I have lived during the pontificates of seven popes and in my lifetime we have certainly had a wide variety of types and styles of leaders. In our history, we have had 266 popes. We have had some spectacularly amazing leaders, saints in the making, and we have had some spectacularly horrific leaders, who would have been quite at home in Game of Thrones (so I hear, I actually haven’t seen it…).  All took up the Keys of Peter, with the same job description given Peter: feed my sheep; tend my lambs. The Pope is the most visible of leaders in the Church, but not the only ones with that same job description. The simple mandate, “feed my sheep; tend my lambs” applies to priests, pastors, parents, principals, police, and anyone who would lead – anyone who would answer the call to minister in the Holy Name of Jesus.

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Following Jesus

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This coming Sunday is the Third Sunday of Easter, Year C. The gospel is taken from John 21:1-19, a scene on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.  Fishing and breakfast are completed. Peter has been restored from the denials of Holy Week and now he is commissioned anew.

18 Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” 19 He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.”

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