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| Corey Jones (left) the newest (for now) presbyter in the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama. |
“The hired
hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I
know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the
Father” (John 10:13-14, New Revised
Standard Version).
Apophatic
Theology has been around for a long time. Whether its roots stem back to the
Cistercians of the 11th Century, to the Neo-Platonists of the 3rd Century, or
to the origins of philosophy itself is widely contested. Of course, you know
this Corey. You graduated from the School of Theology at the University
of the South. What scholars do not debate is the usefulness of this way of taking
about God. See, apophatic theology stands out as the practice of speaking not
in positive statements about God—like God is good—but instead saying only those
things we are certain do not pertain to the perfectness of God. Our own Presiding
Bishop Michael Curry has championed an apophatic slogan lately: “If it ain’t about
love, it ain’t about God.”[1]
Well,
Corey on this day when God’s one holy catholic and apostolic Church will ordain
you as presbyter—a shepherd of the flock—it feels oddly appropriate to start in
an apophatic way. Much of our friendship finds its basis in apophatic humor—finding
reverence in the irreverent, the sacred in the profane—so, why not begin not
with the paragon of priestly perfection, but with the inverse? Why not commence
not with the Good Shepherd, but with the bad shepherd?
To
this end and drawing upon the great modern day prophet David Letterman,
formerly of the Late Show, here are the Top 10 Ways to be a Bad Shepherd:
10. Starting
every vestry meeting with 30 minutes of silent meditation.
9. Saying
to a grieving family at a funeral planning meeting, “I’m sorry, but I can’t do
the funeral at that time because my fantasy football team is playing then.”
8. Teaching
an Augustine of Hippo Christian Education class entitled, “My Confessions: The
True Life Tales of Corey Jones Before He Met Jesus”
7. Forgetting
your microphone is on when you find your way to the facility and say to
yourself out loud that your church musicians should “not quit their day jobs.”
6. Instead
of using the BCP, siding with a bridezilla‘s desire to write her own vows,
which include a line about how her husband will spend every Monday night
watching ABC’s the Bachelor with her.
5. Wearing
a purple clerical shirt around your home and making your family refer to you as
the bishop of Narnia.
4. Doing
anything to upset the Episcopal mafia a.k.a. your altar guild. Remember: they
run the Church. (Forget about it!)
3. Waking
up at 3 o’clock in the morning to wage theological warfare with your
parishioners using the 140 characters of Twitter.
2.
Starting and ending your sermons with the catch all prayer, “Roll Tide!”
1.
The number one way to become a bad shepherd is… well, hold on a minute!
As
funny as some of these are, there is a sad kernel of truth that runs through
each of them. Hidden in the background of the 10th Chapter of John’s Gospel account
about the Good Shepherd are some words from the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel and
Jesus were concerned not only with describing God as the Good Shepherd, but
also with the apophatic practice of pointing out the bad shepherds too. As
Ezekiel put it, shepherds who had “not strengthened the weak...healed the sick...bound
up the injured...brought back the strayed...sought the lost, but with force and
harshness [had] ruled them” (34:4). Bad shepherds—sadly enough—are not
characters confined to ancient history. Painfully, we know examples that are
not humorous, but heart-wrenching. We can think of church leaders who have been
bad shepherds—teachers who have caused us pain, priests who have violated our trust,
and pastors who have scattered the flock. We may wonder why this happens.
The
Quaker thinker and author Parker Palmer, in his great little book Let Your Life Speak, borrows a line from
the Sufi mystic Rumi that surgically cuts to a deep and painful truth—a truth
that gets at answering this question of why. “If you are here unfaithfully with
us, you’re causing terrible damage.” Palmer adds on, “If we are unfaithful to
[our] true self we will extract a price from others. We will make promises we
cannot keep, build houses from flimsy stuff, conjure dreams that devolve into
nightmares, and other people will suffer—if we are unfaithful to our true
self.”[2] This is the apophatic
description of the Good Shepherd.
Here’s
how we might say it along more positive: The Good Shepherd gives to others. The
Good Shepherd keeps promises. The Good Shepherd builds houses that last. The
Good Shepherd conjures dreams that grow. The Good Shepherd takes away
suffering. The Good Shepherd is faithful. Corey, what you are called to do
among this congregation, in this diocese, and in the Church is to be not the
bad shepherd, not the hireling, but it’s also not up to you to be the Good
Shepherd. We are getting closer to the number one way to be a bad shepherd.
Because
I do not get to preach in front of this fine congregation including my fellow
priests and the bishop too often I did more sermon prep than I usually do—and that
is never a good thing—but I found something odd. The Greek word that we so
casually throw around as good, doesn’t mean good—at least not how we commonly
use it. Good has as its opposite bad. The original word here (kalos) though means model or example.[3] The model, the example
shepherd. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, as in the model shepherd, the one we are
to follow.
Corey,
Jesus has called you to follow him in a very particular way. It’s rather like
being a shepherd—not that I have actually herded any sheep myself, only cats.[4] Jesus has called you to get
to know your people, to provide nourishment for them, and even to lay down your
life for them, like the model shepherd does for his sheep. This last bit is
scary though, especially with a family. Laying down one’s life is not something
that commonly appears in a job description from a church. And while the
Ordination Rites are right next to the Burial Rites in our Book of Common
Prayer—a rather peculiar placement if you ask me—the type of martyrdom you are
called into is a living one that requires you to choose the life of a priest
and dying to self on a daily basis.
In
just a moment, our Bishop will illuminate the particular tasks of this life as
a priest. You are to…
·
Shape
your life around the Good News of Christ Jesus
·
Love
and serve those with whom you work regardless of age or wealth or race or
anything else
·
Preach
God’s Good News
·
Declare
God’s Forgiveness to penitent sinners
·
Pronounce
God’s blessing
·
Share
in the Sacraments of Holy Baptism and the Mysteries of Christ’s Body and Blood
·
And
that beautiful catch all: perform the other ministries entrusted to you
(Book of Common Prayer, 531).
Corey,
I believe whole-heartedly that you have every gift you need to do each and
every one of these things, but there’s one more bit to this whole priesthood
thing that needs to be mentioned.
The
number one thing that makes a good priest into a bad shepherd is thinking that
you are the Good Shepherd. You aren’t
the Good Shepherd. You aren’t called
to be the Good Shepherd. None of us are. But, to help clarify this whole Good
Shepherd thing let us consult the classic film Home Alone.
Now,
you may recall that Kevin McAllister—played by the exquisite Macaulay
Culkin—gets left at home alone by his family. Kevin survives pretty well for a
couple of days, but soon wants nothing more than to be surrounded by his family
again. So on Christmas Eve, Kevin finds a mall Santa who is smoking a cigarette
with his fake beard halfway off his face, and he says, “I know you’re not the
real Santa…but I also know you work for him.” Likewise Corey, you aren’t the Good Shepherd, but
we know that you work for the guy. And good news, so does everyone else here.
Lionel
Mitchell—the Liturgical Theologian not to be confused with Lionel Messi the
soccer Phenom—makes clear that this occasion is not the coronation of a new
presbyter in the Church, instead this Ordination is the celebration of our ministry
together as the Body of Christ.[5] Our Prayer Book states, “[ordination]
is a gift from God for the nurture of [God’s] people and the proclamation of
[Good News] everywhere.” (BCP 510). Not only do we witness a person making some
huge promises and the bishop and some priests laying their hands on him or her, but we
also experience this action of the Body of Christ, so that the good news of
God’s love may be shared with the world—a world that desperately needs good
news right now! Your family, your sending congregation, the commission on
ministry, the Standing Committee, the Bishop, your seminary, and the entire
Church share in this moment. All orders of ministry—the priesthood of all
believers and deacons and priests and a bishop—rejoice and point to the
ministry of a new shepherd AND the ministry of the Good Shepherd, our model
shepherd.
Corey,
you will never do ministry in a vacuum—that is Worth’s job because he’s in
Hoover. Sorry. I couldn’t help it. I actually have a whole lot of vacuum jokes,
but the rest of them suck. Okay, I needed to make sure y'all were still with me, but I digress. None of us actually do ministry in a
vacuum.
We
are all part of the ministry of the Good Shepherd, which means all of us are
called to follow the example of the model shepherd Jesus. All of us are called
to strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bind up the injured, bring back the
strayed, and seek the lost. All of us are called to give to others, keep promises
we make, build houses that last, conjure dreams that grow, take away suffering,
and remain faithful. All of us are called to follow our model shepherd.
Beloveds,
this means that though we be people with unclean lips we say to God, “here am
I, send me!” This means that we seek whatever is true, honorable, just, pure,
pleasing, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise. This
means that we protect the vulnerable lambs, feed the hungry sheep, and go in
search of any lost member of the flock. In a world that is so filled with bad
news Jesus calls us to participate in this Good News with every one that we
meet.
Of
course, sometimes advanced theology doesn’t make sense to me, so maybe a final
analogy will be helpful. Corey, we’ve worked in camp settings together on
occasion. I think you know the game “Sharks and Minnows.” A single shark starts
as the person who is “it,” but once a minnow is tagged she turns into a shark
that tries to tag the rest of the minnows. Well, for the purposes of today let’s
change it to Shepherds and Sheep. All of us wander like lost sheep without the
Good Shepherd, but once the love of the Good Shepherd hits us we are called not
to hoard it away—no we are called to share it by going in search with the Good
Shepherd for other sheep who will become shepherds too. Corey, you have been so
loved by God. Now, you are called to share that love with all whom you meet
through the specific ministries of being a shepherd in God’s Church.
Corey,
will you please stand? I charge you to remember that you are not the Good Shepherd,
but that you work for the guy. I charge you to trust that God loves you, has
called you, and has given you every gift you need to succeed. And, I charge you
not to hide this love or your talents away, but to share them through the
ministry that we all share with the Model Shepherd.
Now,
as this thing is not just about you, will all followers of Jesus please stand?
I charge all of you to remember that you are not the Good Shepherd either, but
that you too are called to take part in God’s ministry. I charge you all to
support this newest presbyter in God’s Church. And, I charge you to receive
God’s love and then to share it with all whom you meet. For if it ain’t about
love, it ain’t about God.
Amen.
[1] Sidebotham, Jay. Renewal Works. November 21, 2016. http://renewalworks.org/2016/11/monday-matters-november-21-2016/ (accessed November 30, 2017).
[2] Palmer, Parker J. Let Your Life Speak. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000, 31.
[3]Henrich, Sarah S. "John 10:11-18: Exegetical
Perspective." In Feasting on the Word, by David L. Bartlett and
Barbara Brown Taylor, 449-453. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press,
2008.
[4] See:
Cranmer Meme: “I retained the title of priest for ordained Anglican ministers
because cat herder though more appropriate didn’t seem to have sufficient
dignity.”
[5]Mitchell, Lionel L. Praying Shapes Believing.
New York: Morehouse Publishing, 1985, 252-53.
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