Harold D. Baker

These have been radiant July days for the Church of the Messiah. I think we all had pretty much the same thoughts when we heard how our dear parish home was being recognized. The Archbishop of Canterbury? Seriously? The big guy? The one with the eyebrows? Visiting one church in the United States? Messiah? To see Hands Together?

That's like your wife telling you she's pregnant, when you are REALLY not expecting it. It's like, first, "WHAT????", then, "Hey!"

You beautiful people have to take a bow. For so long this parish has flown under the radar, despite all the work and sacrifices that have been made by so many, and the incredible things that have been accomplished. I remember when Messiah was raising funds to start Hands Together. There was a month or so to produce the seed money of $250,000. As a member of the Vestry at that time, I saw the list of donors. Ordinary families, with children and mortgages, making gifts beyond prudence, almost beyond reason. Many of you, here today, are those people. I am proud to be part of you. You are the real heroes of what happened here a week ago Wednesday.

But the next day, that afternoon even, it was back to work as usual. There are sheep to feed, and the ministries of this parish do not rest. From the lessons, you know that this is Shepherd Sunday. It is not Good Shepherd Sunday, which comes shortly after Easter, but the presence of the Good Shepherd is strong in these readings, especially Psalm 23. The images of this Psalm are familiar: a table set in the midst of trouble, oil for my head, a cup running over. As so often in the Psalms, the focus is on me, myself, and I. One minute I am being attacked by vicious dogs and ravaging bulls, my bones are like water, and so forth, but now I am pampered, all my fears allayed, all my needs provided for. No wonder people like this Psalm!

The same ethos appears in the teaching of the Good Shepherd, though from a different angle. If a sheep is lost, the good shepherd leaves the flock to find and rescue it. The sheep is precious, unique; there is no balancing of common good against individual need. The imperative to redeem lost or hurt individuals is everywhere in the Gospels. Jesus claims that his mission is for the "lost sheep" of the house of Israel; elsewhere it is for sinners, the morally lost. The good Samaritan drops everything to help a stranger in trouble. The father offends his loyal older son to splurge for the return of the prodigal, the son who was lost. The hemorrhaging woman invisible in the crowd, the woman of bad reputation whom the disciples wish to banish, the thief dying on the cross--the list goes on and on.

The image of the shepherd has two strands of meaning. We want that individual loving care, the inexhaustible personal bond, we want to know that the shepherd will find us whereever we stray, but then we incur the responsibility or calling of the shepherd for others around us.

In today's Gospel reading, Jesus's movements are assailed by distraction and diversion, as people come to him with their needs. He wants to take his disciples someplace quiet to rest, but he cannot ignore the crowds who have rushed in chaotically to find him, "for they were like sheep without a shepherd." Thus, he gathers them around in a large open space for teaching. Even the physical scene and imagery suggest shepherding; the teaching of Jesus is like a pasturing or feeding of the people, which then actually occurs in the miracle of the loaves and fishes. The lesson skips over this story, however, and we fast-forward to its continuation. Again, Jesus and the disciples get out of their boat and are mobbed. This is typical. Jesus is always being stopped and buttonholed, sollicited and harrassed; his path is a series of zigzags from one need to another. It's a miracle he ever gets anywhere. But no plea is lost or fails of its relief. Each sickness is healed, each pain or disability taken away, each hunger appeased; even the dead are returned to life.

How can we even begin to emulate Jesus? What about those miracles? We can't do that! Jesus and his disciples move in a narrow envelope of time and space that models the promised Kingdom. When this Kingdom is described in Revelations, our guiding metaphor is collapsed, and the sheep becomes shepherd: "[...] 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" (Revelations 7:17). We're not there yet.

A Greek word sometimes used to describe Christian practice is kenosis, or emptying. This is akin to "poverty of spirit," and involves emptying oneself to let new thoughts and impulses enter in. We see this root in a famous passage from Philippians: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But [emptied himself, ekenosen] and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:5-7).

Have you noticed that people who commit great deeds of service often do so without any deliberate plan or intention? Something comes to them in a low moment, a moment of distraction or discouragement. At the moment of emptiness, we can be vulnerable, we can let go of who we think we are, and strange things may happen.

Thanks to Steven Spielberg, we all know the story of Oskar Schindler, who rescued over a thousand Jews during WWII. Far from being a saint, Schindler was a playboy with expensive tastes, a weak and generally unsuccessful businessman, but with a businessman's keen eye for the lucrative opportunity. He set out to make money by exploiting forced Jewish labor in his factory, but somewhere he was derailed. The persons he employed came to life for him, each a unique personal responsibility, to be preserved from destruction at any cost.

Schindler's accountant, Itzhak Stern, who is steeped in Jewish tradition, recognizes the list as a manifestation of the mystical Book of Life (Sefer ha-Chaim), containing the names of those destined for life. As they work through the final stages of typing 1200 names, it dawns on Stern that Schindler has been paying his own money for each name on the list. Stern's words ring out as prophecy:

The list is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf. (Schindler's List, film, Steven Spielberg, 1993)

Schindler, deep in work, hardly seems to hear, but the list has illuminated his spirit, and he can never be "himself" again.

The story of Schindler takes place under extreme historical conditions, where heroic virtue appears more plausible than in our own lives. Yet danger and need can come to us at any moment. Last winter, our family went on a 6-day vacation to Mazatlán, Mexico. Due to ticketing problems by the airline, the three of us ended up traveling the same day on different flights. Marianna would arrive first; I would take Anna to LAX and put her on the flight, and Marianna would meet her on arrival in Mazatlán. I was the last to fly, on a red-eye that night. Anna was almost 17 and had flown many times by herself, including overseas, so it seemed reasonable. That night, as I was waiting at home for my flight, I got a call from Anna. She was in Mexico, but no one was there to meet her. Anna does not know Spanish. She put me on the cell phone with the Aeromexico ticketing agent, who told me that they were in Los Mochis, a town some five hours drive north of Mazatlán. It was getting late, and there were no more flights to Mazatlán until the next evening. Anna was alone in a strange city with night coming on, obviously foreign, 16 years old and female, without friends, contacts, information, or the ability to communicate, far from her parents' reach.

How did she end up in Los Mochis? We don't know for sure, but it seems this was a local stop on the Mazatlán flight, not shown on her ticket or itinerary. Anna didn't understand the Spanish announcement and got off early.

For many people, even believing Christians, the image of the Good Shepherd is off the deep end of banality, somewhere between Hallmark greeting cards and the velvet clown pictures they sell in gift stores. When it is your lamb who is separated from the flock, however, then you know. Things become very simplified. You know that there is nothing else at all, just your lamb and the Shepherd.

The story continues. We were in mental and physical shock. Marianna was also calling from Mazatlán and enlisted the hotel's resourceful concierge. Over the next hour I had a series of conversations with the ticket agents. I could not think of putting her in a cab. With a strange driver, five hours at night through the Mexican outback? Please. It turned out that there were buses leaving for Mazatlán from a downtown terminal. The Aeromexico agents, whose names, Janeth Gutierrez Marquez and Erma Villareal, are written in the Book of Life, drove her to the bus station, helped her buy the ticket, and got her to the gate. Meanwhile, the concierge in Mazatlán had contacted the Los Mochis police, who drove by the station and checked that she was waiting undisturbed. Oh, yes, Anna's cell phone had no service outside the airport. One text message slipped out hours later as she passed through an urban area: "I'm on the bus." This was all I knew when I got onto my flight in LAX sometime after midnight. When I arrived in Mazatlán and called from the airport, she was in the room asleep. The concierge had gotten up at 3:00 AM to drive her to the hotel. His name is also written in the Book.

How many unconnected people, who could have been indifferent and uninvolved, emerged from darkness to be part of this story! I met only one of them, I know one other as a voice on the phone; for others I have no image, like the elderly couple who were friendly to Anna on the bus. Even now, they are lights in the darkness, these ones who acted in freedom, who made something out of nothing. But places can be switched at any moment. We who have received mercy, how do we respond when faced with another's need? Our lives move in an irregular pattern between need and opportunity, as the Spirit pursues its mysterious course.

Each of us, in his or her own way, has seen the face of Christ in our neighbor. This is the moment of choice. You leave Messiah late one night. The great old steeple is looming over your shoulder. A thin, nervous woman accosts you in front of the Burger King. She has a long story. She is hungry. Your car waits nearby, ready to float you home. This woman is someone's daughter. You remember the words:

Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world, give us your peace.

Amen.