by Bishop Bill Gohl
For many years before he retired as Pastor of St. Mark's (Baltimore), the Rev. Dale Dusman, would always make a special production of having a gospel procession to the Tiffany Good Shepherd window on Good Shepherd Sunday. Below a twice life-size image of Jesus the Good Shepherd jeweled with color and brought to life with light, Pastor Dusman would read those incredible words from John: "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." For those who know St. Mark's, one of our synod's most liturgically evangelical catholic congregations with one of the most equally expansive senses of welcome and hospitality, it was an impressive, almost breath-taking moment of worshipping God in the beauty of holiness.
That same Pastor Dusman, however, once preached a sermon for that Sunday that has stuck in my soul ever since. Reminding us that St. Mark's was our synod's congregation most decimated by the AIDS crisis of the 80s and 90s, he suggested that we learn the ways of the Good Shepherd, to hold Jesus close, but also to hold Jesus lightly; just as God holds us. It wasn't overly sentimental nor was it trite, in fact it was liberating and freed me to think about both death and life with a new sense of gratitude and a genuine sense of hopefulness.
I had the privilege recently of sitting with a friend who was receiving inpatient hospice care, she said something akin to, "no matter how much our head and heart knows that we do not have all the time in world, we so often live as though we do." Such a statement that becomes a bit more profound when certain moments of our humanity cause it to feel close to home.
As someone who has borne, with a certain pride, the "bruises, stains and scents" of those in my care as a pastor of the church - and who has the workaholic works righteousness t-shirt that goes with such a pride; Pastor Dusman said something that Good Shepherd Sunday that cut me to the quick: "...but rather than demand our attentiveness or frantic response before it's 'too late,' the Good Shepherd narrative reminds us that it's both 'already too late' and 'never too late.'"
Henry Williams Baker, the prolific 19th century hymn-writer said it well in these well-loved words from his paraphrase of Psalm 23 and, according to his friend John Ellerton, the last words he breathed at the end of a faithful life's journey:
Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.
In a world where death and life hang closely together all around us, in faith we live and serve, we're comforted and challenged by our Good Shepherd who knows his own, and whose own know him; the one who passionately brings us also to God, bruises, stains, scents and all.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away—and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 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. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father. - John 10:11-18