Mid-Week Lenten Service. The Good Shepherd

He shall feed His flock, like a shepherd.
He shall carry the lambs in His arms,
and gently lead those with young.

Mid-Week Lenten Vespers, April 9, 2014

Pastor Gregory L. Jackson

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bethany-lutheran-worship

Bethany Lutheran Worship, 7 PM Central Daylight Time 

The Hymn #245   God Love the World                                      4:6
The Order of Vespers                                             p. 41

The Psalmody                                                      p. 128
The Lection                            The Passion History

The Sermon Hymn #525            As Pants the Hart                             4:36 

The Sermon –     I AM the Good Shepherd

 
The Prayers

The Lord’s Prayer

The Collect for Grace                                            p. 45

The Hymn #657            Beautiful Savior                                            4:24

His last painting.

John 10

King James Version (KJV)

10 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.

2 But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

3 To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.

4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.

5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.

6 This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.

7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.

8 All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.

9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

12 But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.

13 The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.

14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.

15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.

16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.

18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

I AM the Good Shepherd

No one should ignore that one of the most comforting passages of the Bible begins with a warning - about those who pretend to be shepherds but are thieves and robbers.

This beautiful image reflects the reality of shepherding during the time of Jesus. The flocks were kept together in a pen and watched over by someone sleeping across the entry-way (the door of the sheepfold).

Thieves and robbers would not enter by the gate, but climb over the side, to scatter, steal, and destroy.

The primary characteristic of the false shepherd is his lack of faith. He sees a good thing, in terms of comfort and security. He realizes that believers are trusting and generous. So he preys upon them instead of praying for them.

Just as in Luther's day, there are those who buy one of these positions. In various ways these false shepherds are placed where they can gain the most advantage for themselves while doing the least amount of work.

That is quite different from the faithful shepherd. Here Christ portrays Himself not just as the faithful shepherd but as the Ultimate Shepherd, the unique Shepherd. There is no good way to translate the original meaning of The Good Shepherd, except to write - The Shepherd above all shepherds.

He is different because He leads the sheep but also lays down His life for the sheep.

Leading them is an interesting image too. The shepherd goes to the sheepfold and calls his own sheep by name. They know his voice and their names (as in baptismal name). They hear His voice and follow Him to green pastures and still waters.

Sheep know their own shepherds and follow them. They run away from strangers.

This reminds us that believing the Gospel also means to avoid the false teachers who pretend to be shepherds while fleecing and barbecuing the sheep. 

I asked my English students to prepare a research essay where the only experts are Biblical verses. "Scripture interprets Scriptures." Since the Bible is God's Word, the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible itself, not a man-made commentary.

There is far too much of comparing one opinion with another. Then an essay (or sermon or book) becomes a game of piling up opinions, which becomes very much like the Jewish Talmud, where opinions about opinions about opinions are lined up, almost excluding the original text.

This passage unites all the great passages about the Shepherd and explains the meaning of that term, even more important, what it means for Jesus to be the Good Shepherd.

Only one Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. Jesus did this by command from the Father, but He also did it on His own. He willingly gave up His life to give eternal life to believers.

This is important, because the crucifixion was not Rome and the Jewish leaders taking away His life by force - although they used force and twisted the law. Jesus gave up His life, sacrificed Himself, the Lamb of God for the sheep who so often go astray.

All the references to sheep teach how we are weak and willful, often getting ourselves into trouble. And yet the chief characteristic of God is to be merciful, to seek and save the lost, to forgive and to bless us with peace.

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Virtue Online Publishes What Lies Ahead for Lutherdom - WELS and LCMS Included

Liz a les?
Ask her subordinates.

Archbishop Welby links Gay marriage with Christian African killings by Muslim Extremists
Liberal Episcopalians condemn Welby and spin his remarks

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
April 8, 2014

The Archbishop of Canterbury said that Christians are being killed in Africa as a consequence of liberal attitudes towards homosexuality in the United States and Britain.

That’s bad enough. Then the Guardian reported that Welby had had private discussions with his predecessor, Dr. Rowan Williams, who “anguished” about it. Really.

Then why didn’t he speak up when he was ABC? Why did he go off endlessly about homophobia in England and Africa, but never publicly opined about the mass killings of African Christians, some of them undoubtedly Anglicans? Because sodomites like Jeffrey John and Gene Robinson whined about their need for acceptance of a behavior so dangerous that it has killed hundreds of thousands of homosexuals in the USA, UK and other nations with AIDS. Was he too busy pushing The Body’s Grace, a paean to homosexual acceptance, to see the damage he was doing?

Speaking on an LBC phone in, Justin Welby said he had stood by a mass grave in Nigeria of 330 Christians who had been massacred by neighbors who had justified the atrocity by saying: "If we leave a Christian community here, we will all be made to become homosexual and so we will kill all the Christians."

"I have stood by gravesides in Africa of a group of Christians who had been attacked because of something that had happened in America. We have to listen to that. We have to be aware of the fact," Welby said. If the Church of England celebrated gay marriages, he added, "The impact of that on Christians far from here, in South Sudan, Pakistan, Nigeria and other places would be absolutely catastrophic. Everything we say here goes round the world."

And you wonder why Archbishops like Nicholas Okoh, (Nigeria) Eliud Wabukala (Kenya) and Rwaje Onesphore (Rwanda), to name but a few, are no shows at primatial gatherings.

This is the first time that Archbishop Welby has publicly voiced his fears for Christians overseas as a key factor in the Bishops' opposition to same-sex marriage and the blessing of gay couples in church. "The problem we face is that everything we say here goes round the world, for reasons of history and media and all that. And so we don't make policy on the hoof," he said.

Asked why he could not simply cede to requests by some clergy to be permitted to bless same-sex relationships, he replied, "The impact of that on Christians in countries far from here, like South Sudan, like Pakistan, Nigeria, and other places would be absolutely catastrophic, and we have to love them as much as we love the people who are here."

The LBC presenter, James O'Brien, suggested that gay Christians might interpret the Archbishop's words as a prohibition on them getting married "because of the conniptions it would give to some, dare we say, less enlightened people in Africa".

"I don't think we dare say less enlightened, actually," replied the Archbishop. "I think that is a neo- colonial approach and it's one I really object to. It's not about them having conniptions or sort of getting aerated. That's nothing to do with it. . .

"I was in the South Sudan a few weeks ago and the church leaders there were saying: 'Please do not change what you are doing because then we could not accept your help. And we need your help desperately.' And we have to listen to that."

Clarifying his comments on the mass grave, he explained, "What was said was that 'If we leave a Christian community in this area' - I am quoting them - 'we will all be made to become homosexual, so we are going to kill the Christians.' The mass grave had 369 bodies in it, and I was standing with the relatives. That burns itself into your soul - as does the suffering of gay people in this country."

The Archbishop reiterated a traditional position on same-sex relationships: "My position is the historic position of the Church which is in our canons which says that sexual relations should be within marriage and marriage is between a man and a woman."

Asked whether he could imagine a day when two people of the same sex would be married in the Church of England, he responded: "I look at the scriptures, I look at the teaching of the Church, I listen to Christians round the world, and I have real hesitations about that."

He added, however: "I am incredibly uncomfortable about saying that. I really don't want to say no to people who love each other, but you have to have a sense of following what the teaching of the Church is. We can't just make sudden changes."

Oh, for God’s sake, just stand up and say you stand for something. Be definitive. Say what you really believe. Stop sitting on the fence. The question is, is LGBT behavior a sin or is it not? Answer that. Don’t prevaricate. Don’t keep telling us you are against gay marriage, but approve civil partnerships because the culture is changing. Sin is sin. Will you publicly declare that sodomy is a sin in the eyes of God and declare that marriage between a man and a woman is inviolable and the only option open to the Church of England and to the whole Anglican Communion and that Scripture cannot be reversed? Be declarative, unlike your predecessor. We all want a definitive word, Archbishop Welby. Does Scripture trump culture or does it not?

It was, he said, "something I wrestle with every day and often in the middle of the night. I am incredibly conscious of the position of gay people in this country, how badly they've been treated over the years."

He also reiterated his view that this was not something the Church of England could decide alone. "What we say here is heard round the world, and people really worry about what we say here because, for historic reasons, we are linked, not just the Anglican Communion, but particularly that we are linked to Churches all round the world. And so, before we make a major change in how we understand what we should do, we have to listen to people and go through a process of consultation, and talking to people, and listening very carefully, and praying without predetermined outcomes. . .

"We have to look at the tradition of the Church, and the teaching of the Church, and the teaching of scripture, which is definitive in the end, before we come to a conclusion. We are not in a position just to suddenly say 'OK, our position in this country has changed': we are one of the great international groups that there is in this world."

EPISCOPAL LEADERS RESPOND

California Episcopal Bishop Marc Andrus immediately went on the offensive against Welby’s remarks calling his statements “lamentable naiveté and at worst…both homophobia and colonial thinking.”

Andrus opined, “Here, I think the archbishop fell back on a solution that was already unjust, but familiar to him: retrench around marriage as only between a woman and a man. Don’t inflame violent people further.”

And what exactly is wrong with that, Bishop? Marriage has, always and forever, been between a man and a woman despite the fact that the West is trying to change the ontology and cosmology of human sexuality. The word "marriage" was created to identify a union of a man and a woman - just as the word cat was created to identify a cat. You cannot use the word "cat" to identify a dog, just as you cannot use the word "marriage" to identify the union of two men or two women.

Andrus said that Welby’s argument is parallel to saying that the segregation laws in the United States up until the mid-60s and the disenfranchisement of women in the United States until the 20th Century would have both been continued if someone had claimed that blacks and women in other countries would be endangered by moves towards greater justice here.

This is not an exact parallel. A man’s color is his birthright. The disenfranchisement of women is in fact changing and will continue to do so because it is a social justice issue. Sodomy is neither; it is a moral choice with possibly deadly consequences. 

Andrus argues that Welby’s position only privileges the colonial power position Great Britain once held.

Not true. By saying the things he has, Welby acknowledges that Britain’s colonial days are in fact over and that by recognizing Africa’s Anglicans, who are growing at a fast clip, they will in time replace the Church of England as the center of spiritual gravity. Already Abuja and Nairobi have become Anglican centers.

“If I am right,” Says Andrus, “and empire thinking underlies the archbishop’s remarks, his proposed way forward – continue to oppress LGBT people in the UK – will fail to keep African’s safe for this reason: if Africa is watching the UK as closely as the Archbishop would have us all believe then they will not miss that the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion is on the side of continued second-class citizenship for LGBT people.”

This is total nonsense. First and second class citizenship is totally made up and a fabrication. Homophobia only exists in the minds of homosexuals; it is not a reality. The word rightly refers to fear of sameness, not to fear of homosexuality at all, as is often assumed.

What people now see is the fascistic triumph of sodomy over reason and the forced belief that everyone must acquiesce to a behavior that offers nothing for them or their children. “From here on, hate refers to any attitude, thought or word that differs with the gay agenda, while gays are virtually exempt from the charge of hate speech—no matter how vile and incendiary the rhetoric—since they are always the (perceived) victims and never the victimizers”, says columnist Michael Brown.

“Archbishop Welby asserts that marriage should be only between a man and a woman, and says that scripture supports his position. I would hope for a better reader of scripture in the spiritual head of our Church. Let me point to this coming Sunday’s Gospel, the Raising of Lazarus from the Dead, in the Gospel of John as a good place to look for guidance on the issue of the safety of Christians, both straight and LGBT in Africa and elsewhere,” says Andrus.

Better reading of Scripture! The raising of Lazarus is guidance for the safety of Christians, both straight and LGBT! What hermeneutical principles of biblical interpretation could possibly lead to that conclusion? It’s a stretch that makes Mormonism’s heresies look good.

Andrus, like so many Episcopal bishops and priests, twists Scripture to make it mean what they want it to mean without any recourse to the historical grammatical meaning of the text.

Not to be outdone or outclassed for biblical interpretive stupidity, lesbian priest Susan Russell of All Saints, California weighed in with this line. “The Archbishop of Canterbury chooses pathetic over prophetic.” Really.

Russell said she was sad but not surprised. “The sad part is, how can our hearts not break when members of our human family fall victim to the scourge of sectarian violence? And yet, how can we remain blind to the reality that being blackmailed into bigotry against some members of the human family only serves to feed the pathology of demonization of 'the other' throughout the human family?”

Blackmailed into bigotry! Demonization of the other! Who in truth is doing the demonizing today if it is not the LGBT community! Again I quote Michael Brown, “The Walt Disney Corporation gave the Boy Scouts of America an ultimatum that they had to accept openly homosexual Scout leaders or lose Disney’s financial support; the Girl Scouts announced that boys who identify and present themselves as girls can join their Scouting clubs; pastor Louie Giglio was disinvited from praying at President Obama’s second inauguration because he preached a biblical message on homosexuality more than 15 years ago; the Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act and the military overturned "don’t ask, don’t tell"; the passing of ridiculous bills like California’s SB 777 (mandating the celebration of LGBT American history for all classes, K-12) and AB 1266 (allowing students to choose the bathroom of their personal gender identification as well as play on the sports team of their choice, using that locker room as well, resulting already in a 17-year-old boy playing on the girls’ softball team); Facebook created the customized gender option with 50 gender choices; different states banned professional counseling requested by minors with unwanted same-sex attractions; companies like Sweet Cakes by Melissa were put out of business because they would not participate in same-sex “weddings”; and Attorney General Eric Holder told state attorneys general that they were not required to uphold and defend laws against same-sex “marriage” if they didn’t want to—just to mention a few.”

Russell opines about what she calls “the slow death of internalized homophobia not only condoned by but contributed to by the church?" Really! Name one person, and show absolute proof that someone has died because of “internalized homophobia”. This is a complete crock.

Suicide still remains a choice. All kinds of persons have been bullied over the years and they don’t go around killing themselves. Gays are not the only persons who are bullied. Big kids bully small kids, boys bully girls, and the list goes on and on. Victimization has become the hobgoblin of homosexual activists.

Russell concluded her rant by saying, “Once again making LGBT people the sacrificial lambs on the altar of sectarian politics.” No, the “sacrificial lambs” are lying in shallow graves in the Sudan and Nigeria, bodies that Welby saw and witnessed and, for one brief shining moment, he told the truth.