Sunday, May 7, 2017 | 4:00 p.m.

Made, Loved, and Protected

Nanette Sawyer
Minister for Congregational Life

Psalm 23
John 10:1–10

My Uncle Allison had sheep on his land in the rolling hills of New York State. Once, when I was a child, he invited me out to the fenced-in area near the barn to see the new lambs. One lamb had lost its mother, and so we had to feed it with a bottle.

Uncle Allison said I could put my finger in the lamb’s mouth and let it suck my finger while the bottle was getting ready. Its tongue was really rough, and it tickled when the lamb sucked my finger.

When we finally had the bottle ready, I got to hold it while the lamb drank. It kept pulling the bottle so hard that it jerked my arm and I had to hold tight and be careful not to drop it.

That lamb was hungry and vulnerable but strong about trying to get what it needed to stay alive. Its need for food and care was very strong.

In that sense, we’re not that different from sheep. We’re a different kind of animal, but we need care. We need to be seen and known and fed and protected.

Last night I was out walking when my neighbors came home with their little daughter wearing a tutu around her waist and flowers on her head. She saw me as she climbed out of the car and her eyes lit up and she said, “Today’s my birthday!”

“How wonderful,” I told her. Her mom added, “Well, Monday is her birthday, but today is her party.” I nodded but went right back to congratulating her. Then her little friend came around the car, having gotten out on the other side, and said, “Look at my nightlight!”

“How beautiful!” I said. She said, “I get to spend the night tonight!”

“That sounds like a lot of fun,” I told her.

They both had so much joy in showing me themselves and their things and their experience and telling me their story. We humans are like that. We need to be seen and known and fed and protected.

Recently I was chatting with a gentleman after church one day, just trying to get to know him a bit. There was a moment when I expressed my interest in what he was saying. I said, “You inspired me to learn more about that!” And I saw his eyes light up a little bit. In that moment I saw in him what I saw in those two girls last night.

I saw him see me, seeing him. He felt seen by me. I love that we can give that gift to each other. We can see each other and learn to know each other and affirm each other and celebrate each other.

Jesus said that the good shepherd calls his sheep by name, and because they recognize his voice they follow him. He is able to provide for them and protect and guide them because of the mutual recognition they have together.

We act that out in worship every week when we share the peace of Christ. We see each other and allow ourselves to be seen. I know it’s sometimes difficult, because some of us feel a bit vulnerable or nervous about passing the peace. But we do it because we’re practicing here together.

Before I was a pastor at this church, I served at a small church on the North Side where we didn’t always pass the peace. But once in a while we did, and on one day when we shared the peace, just like we just did, after church there was a woman who often had a tendency to feel kind of alone and to feel like she didn’t really fit in the church. She came up to me after church and said, “Everyone was so friendly today!”

There was something about being greeted by so many people that made her feel truly welcome.

In passing the peace we exercise our kindness muscles. It’s not just saying “hi”; it’s trying to remember the deep peace and love that God offers us and then to offer that to each other too.

We stretch ourselves a little bit and go beyond our comfort zone in order to see each other more deeply, more intentionally. We act it out here, in worship, so we can get better at it out there, in the world.

The kindness muscle is a muscle we sometimes forget to use. I remember an incident some years ago when I was visiting a meditation center. It was my first time there, and after the program there was a kind of coffee hour, a snack time when people stood around chatting and saying hello.

I was new, and I felt incredibly awkward. I didn’t know anybody, and I just stood there watching everyone saying hi to each other but not to me. I started to feel, actually, a little bit mad and self-righteous.

Didn’t these people realize that I was new? Shouldn’t they be welcoming me? If I had dug a little deeper into my feelings, I might have admitted that I felt a little embarrassed and vulnerable and afraid that maybe people wouldn’t like me, that I wouldn’t “fit in.”

After a few minutes someone did come up to me and started talking to me. They brought me around and introduced me to other people in the room.

As I met people, I began to notice something about them that I hadn’t noticed before. They seemed to feel a little awkward and nervous, too! I realized they were as vulnerable as I was, and they didn’t know if I would like them either.

So in this whole story, first I felt embarrassed and afraid. Then I got mad and self-righteous, which feels a little bit stronger, but isn’t really. And then I got surprised and humbled when I saw that I had the power to be kind also. I had the choice to be kind or to be judgmental.

I realized that all the people I felt afraid of and mad at actually needed my kindness as much as I needed theirs.

This was one of the moments in my life that I can never forget. It was a moment that changed forever how I think of strangers. Strangers are people who need my kindness.

Now I’m human and limited, and I fail sometimes (maybe often), so I’m not always able to give strangers the kindness they need. But that moment changed me forever, and I see strangers in a different way.

That experience is why I sometimes say here at church, “If you’re new here today, please be sure to welcome someone before you leave. In this way you may realize how deeply welcome you yourself are. This is your place, and everyone needs your kindness.”

People especially love to be known by name. And so we’re going to do a little experiment today. After the sermon, during the musical reflection, Pastor Shannon and I are going to pass out some name tags to you. We’re going to invite you to use your pens and markers or the little pencils in the back of your pew and just wear your name tag for the rest of the service today. When you come forward for Communion, we want to serve you by name.

If you’re willing to do it, we encourage you to try to learn the names of one or two people that you didn’t know before you came here today. If you don’t want to, then just run like crazy at the end of the service. But if you can be brave, give someone your kindness. It really makes a difference.

The Good Shepherd calls his sheep by name because each one matters to God. Each one of us matters to God—our identity, our name, the particularities of who we are matters.

There’s a funny Far Side cartoon in which two tiny insects are sitting on top of a mushroom at night. One of them says to the other one, “Just look at those stars tonight. . . . Makes you feel sort of small and insignificant” (Gary Larson, 1980 Chronicle Features 2-15, Universal Press Syndicate).

It’s funny because we think we’re insignificant when we look up at the vastness of space and the multitude of stars, and we think we’re so much more significant than two tiny insects. Sometimes we think that tiny insects are insignificant.

The cartoon creates a freeze-frame moment when we can see how relative everything is. That’s the thing that makes us think and wonder. We have significance, yes, but it’s not all about us. We are not the center of the universe. There are other people, other animals, other creatures, even tiny insects who have value and importance in God’s creation.

An attitude adjustment like this about our relative importance could be good medicine for us.

When we go out into the beauty of the night and look at the stars and see the vastness of space, we could feel lost and insignificant or we could feel filled with the peace of it. We could feel at home in our own little sheepfold here, knowing that we are part of something bigger and greater than us.

We don’t have to be in charge of that whole big thing, but there is someone who is in charge. There is a shepherd calling us by name, watching out for thieves and bandits, calling us in through the gate when we need to come close for protection and leading us out to the pasture when it’s time to eat.

Each one of us is like a tiny blip on the timeline of the universe, and yet God created each one of us, knitting us together in our mother’s womb, counting all the hairs on our heads, like all the stars in the sky.

That’s significance, to be known like that by God. To God, the small is significant.

Julian of Norwich was an important mystic and theologian in the twelfth century. She wrote a book in about 1395 called Revelations of Divine Love. It’s actually the earliest surviving book written in English by a woman.

In it, she describes her mystical visions of Christ. At one point she says that God placed “a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, in the palm of my hand, and it was as round as a ball. I looked at it with my mind’s eye and I thought, ‘what can this be?’ And the answer came, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled that it could last, for I thought it might have crumbled to nothing, it was so small.

“And the answer came to my mind, ‘It lasts and ever shall because God loves it.’ And all things have being through the love of God. In this little thing I see three truths. The first is that God made it. The second is that God loves it. The third is that God looks after it. What is God indeed that is maker and lover and keeper? I cannot find words to tell” (A Revelation of Love, ed. Marian Glasscoe, chapter 5).

Julian of Norwich couldn’t find the words. So many times we can’t find the words either. We can’t find the words to express who God is or how God works in the world, and the explanatory words just don’t cut it sometimes.

So we move on to analogy and metaphor and story. Jesus is a shepherd. Jesus is a door. Jesus is the true vine; the light of the world; the bread of life; the resurrection and the life; the way, the truth, and the life.

We look into the metaphors; we meditate on them and pray about them. We look for signs of them in our own lives. But they can’t convey the fullness of who God is.

So we move on to prayer and open our hearts to God. Or we sing and surrender our bodies to the music. Or we serve others and try to walk in Jesus’ shoes for a while, to see how following him might change us.

Sometimes these things—story, song, prayer, service—these things help us to get outside ourselves and realize that our problems are not the biggest problems; we are not the center of the universe.

But we are highly significant. And we are not alone, because God is the maker and the lover and the keeper of all things, including us. Like the Good Shepherd who knows us and cares for us and calls us by name.

May we know and trust that Good Shepherd.

Blessed be God: Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen.