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SERMONS

The Fourth Sunday of Easter
May 6, 2001

By David Christian

A few years ago an issue of Newsweek magazine displayed a one-word title on its front page. The word: exhausted. Inside, in an article entitled "Breaking Point," the author wrote,

Fatigue is now among the top five reasons people call the doctor. People are frayed by the inescapable pressure of technology, frazzled by the lack of time for themselves, their families, their PTA's and church groups. They feel caged by their jobs, even as they put in more overtime. We are fast becoming a nation of the quick or the dead-tired. Says Leah Potts-Fisher, co-director of the Center for Work and Family in Berkeley, California, 'People are stretched financially, stretched in terms of time, and stretched emotionally ... so it doesn't take much for them to snap.'

Does that sound familiar? Our lives today are filled more and more. They are packed with demands on our time: demands of family, of work, of friends, of church.

We strive to gain some control over the competing demands and the shrinking time. But the harder we fight for time, the more elusive it becomes. Like Alice in Wonderland we find that "the faster we run, the behinder we get."

Is there a solution? Is there a way out? Or are we doomed to a life of frustration and exhaustion?

The answer lies, perhaps, in taking a moment to stop and remember; to remember who we are, and whose we are.

Probably the most widely known of all the psalms in Scripture is the 23rd psalm: The Lord is my Shepherd.

In that psalm we are reminded of a vision of life very different from the one we experience. The psalm speaks of lying in green pastures, of walking beside still waters. It speaks of being revived, being restored, being brought back to life.

How very different from life as we experience it day to day.

Throughout Scripture the people of God are referred to as sheep. Now sheep have one very important characteristic- they cannot take care of themselves. They require a shepherd. They need to be led. They are not "masters of their fates and captains of their souls." A sheep without a shepherd is in deep trouble.

In today's gospel Jesus speaks of himself as the shepherd. He declares that his sheep hear his voice and follow him. He promises that they will not perish; that no one will snatch them from his hand.

The only escape from the epidemic franticness of early twenty-first-century life lies in remembering our basic nature-in recalling our sheeplyness-and in remembering our need for a shepherd.

The only escape from our desperate sense of lives out of control is, paradoxically, to give up control. To give it up to the shepherd who stands ready to lead us to green pastures and to still waters.

To do that we must hear his voice. To be able to hear it we must listen. Listening requires silence and stillness and space and time.

Make space in your life this week, and every week, to listen for the shepherd's voice. The ways to do that will be different for each of us.

It may be as simple as turning off the radio in the car. Or fifteen minutes alone in the stillness of the early morning, or in the quietness of the fading day. It may be through prayerful reading of scripture. Or through conversation with a friend. Through formal daily prayer or a quiet afternoon stroll.

Listen- listen for the voice. The voice of the good shepherd. He is there. He is calling. He is faithful. Follow him. Those who follow him will not perish. Goodness and mercy will fill our lives. And we will dwell with him. In joy and peace and love forever.

David Christian
The Chapel of the Cross
Madison, Mississippi

Acts 13.15-16,26-39
Revelation 7.9-17
John 10.22-30