Sermon for 2nd Sunday after Easter, 2021
Homily for the 2nd Sunday after Easter
Fr. Tony Melton
4/18/21 @ Christ the King Anglican
One of the great transitions between childhood and adulthood is the realization that life is not fair. This is not usually a pretty process. It wasn’t for me. Children generally learn this when they finally confront real evil, either in the world or in themselves, or real tragedy. This knowledge of Good and Evil is a real loss of innocence. The child who has come to this the realization no longer expects justice. It is an important step, but a terrible one. For me, I was badly bullied early in life. A California kid in small-town Missouri. From grades 4-6, I learned quickly that there is evil in the world, evil in school children. And this was soon coupled with the scarier realization that I, too, had evil inside of me, and that they deserved punishment, and so did I. I had my first taste of the paradox of “Life is unfair. And thank God, for my sake, that it is so.”
Many never come to either realization, certainly the non-religious, but even the religious. The acceptance of personal injustice and suffering is the central question in every religion and philosophy. The Stoics offer no answer except, “Grin and bear it.” The Hindus and Buddhists, in different ways, say that suffering is an illusion. Judaism, like Stoicism, stops at moral platitudes. Only the Gospel of the Cross and the Tomb has an answer.
Our topic today is Personal Injustice. The unfairness and suffering of life. And our task is to explore what this has to do with the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is such an important topic for our time. As a society, many of our actions, both political and otherwise, are motivated by an acute awareness of injustice committed against the individual, both real and imaginary. We have a culture of Victimhood, and this is lightyears away from the culture of the Gospel and the message of our Epistle this morning from 1 Peter 2.
First, I will walk us through 1 Peter 2:19-25, which exhorts the Christian to suffer indignity with patience, looking at the example of Christ. Then, we will look at how the Resurrected Christ beckons us through the gate of personal injustice along the path of faith.
Please turn to page 9 in your liturgy booklet. Our Epistle reading this morning is from 1 Peter 2. There is a typo. My apologies. The Epistle is from 1 Peter, not 2 Peter. “THIS is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.” Don’t miss the shockingness of this initial statement. If a man suffers wrongfully, he ought to give thanks for that. With a conscience toward God, meaning mindful of the providence of God over His life, he can “consider it joy” when bad things happen to him or people mistreat him for no good reason.
Peter continues, “For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently?” There are three ways of relating to our sufferings. There is the way of the perpetual Victim. This one, when he is punished for his own faults, does not take it patiently, but turns and accuses the one giving the punishment. The second way is Normal Man of Virtue. This one, when he is buffeted for his faults, takes it patiently. Peter asks, “What glory is in that?” Perhaps if St. Peter was to see the throngs of modern people who, armed with a victimhood mentality, constantly transfer blame onto whatever and whomever they can, then he would comment that there is, at least, something commendable in a man or woman who can accepts with patience being punished for his or her faults.
Yet, Peter chooses to contrast this Normal Man of Virtue, not with the Perpetual Victim, but with a Christian Saint. “….but if, when ye do. well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.” This is a return to the opening sentence. Christians have a different way of relating to unfairness in life. How a Christian looks at personal suffering is vastly different from how a Normal Virtuous Man sees suffering. For while both are able to accept just suffering, the Christian is able to accept unjust suffering, unfair pain, unfounded embarrassment, unmerited scorn. And because Life is unfair, and it is, we have a completely different way of relating to Life.
Where does this Way of Accepting Unjust Suffering come from? Peter continues, “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not: but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ opened up the Way of Accepting Unjust Suffering. We can accept personal injustice not only because we see Jesus doing it, but because we know, by the testimony of His resurrection, that all personal injustices will be made whole and then some, when we, too, are raised to everlasting life! This means that we are free to live lives of no expectation. I don’t have to “get mine” through trickery or deceit. Children, when a bully makes fun of you, you don’t fight back, either with your fists or your words. Did Jesus fight back when they were calling Him names on the Cross? And how did things end? "And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures: And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of the Father.” The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ opens up the Way of Accepting Unjust Suffering.
Then Peter closes this portion of the Epistle with an interesting statement. “For ye were as sheep going astray: but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.”
Close your eyes for a moment. Imagine a round green pasture about 200 yards in diameter, surrounded by trees. In this pasture are many sheep. It’s a bit crowded. Not enough grass to go around. This is the Pasture of this World. Directly across from you, at the edge of this pasture, in the middle of the hedge of trees, is a thicket, very dark, ominous, full of thorns. All the sheep are scared of it. If fact, they are so afraid of it that they stand back, further crowding the pasture. One day, the Shepherd comes and starts cutting through the thicket. The thorns tear open his skins. The sheep look upon their Shepherd covered in blood, going where they would never dare. Finally, he cuts through the thicket and walks through the trees. All the sheep lower their heads and can see, just barely, what looks like rich, lush grass that goes on for miles. The Shepherd calls them, but even though a path has been cleared, most of the sheep are too afraid to walk through it. A few do, however, and some of the thorns surrounding the thicket cut into their skin, also. The sheep in the Pasture of this World see the blood and hear the screams of the Sheep who trusted their Shepherd, and this confirms for them that they will never go through the thicket. Yet, what they don’t see is that those who followed the Shepherd through the gate of Unjust Suffering come out on the other side into a field of infinite consolation. “For ye were as sheep going astray: but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.”
If we can follow Jesus through the scary gate of Unfairness into the pasture of His Grace and Reward, then what can possibly steal our joy in this life? All the sheep in the pasture of this world are fighting over this or that blade of grass. “It’s my promotion, my recognition, my acquittal. I deserve this. Or, I didn’t do anything wrong, I worked harder, I’m righteous! I don’t deserve this. And also, “They did this, they said that. They deserve this. They don’t deserve that!” If they only knew that the pasture of the Resurrected Life supplies so much consolation, vindication, glory, and righteousness, that the little unfairnesses of life will barely be seen or remembered! All that is required to enter into that life if for a sheep to trust the Shepherd enough to walk through the thorny thicket of Personal Injustice.
Today, the 2nd Sunday after Easter, is called Good Shepherd Sunday. Jesus as Shepherd is in every Scripture passage. Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd.” Isaiah 40, “Behold, the Lord God will come with strong hand…He shall feed his flock like a shepherd.” 1 Peter 2, “For ye were as sheep going astray: but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” And the Gospel from John 10, “I am the good shepherd.” Our Collect begins, “ALMIGHTY God, who hast given thine only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensample of godly life.” A sacrifice and an example. In the same act, His crucifixion, He clears the path that none of us could ever have cleared. He is the sacrifice. He is our Life. And He also shows us the Way. An example. “I am the Way. Follow me. This is the path. Don’t be afraid.” Jesus is the Good Shepherd.
Following the assertion, “I am the Good Shepherd,” Jesus spends the rest of this pericope contrasting good shepherds with “hirelings”, men who do not actually care for the sheep, and who flee at the first sign of danger, leaving the sheep to the wolves. There is the Good Shepherd, there are good shepherds, and there are hirelings. On this Good Shepherd Sunday, our focus is primarily on THE Good Shepherd, but it is also appropriate to think briefly on the shepherds that God provides his flock.
You may have wondered by bishops carry a staff with them. Every bishop carries what is called a crozier, a hooked staff carried in the past by shepherds. These tall sturdy sticks had two purposes. First, they could beat the snot out of any predator that attacked the sheep. Second, the hook could be used to gently pull a sheep back into the fold. A bishop is to be a faithful under-shepherd. So much of the mess of Protestantism can be attributed because they’ve lacked the shepherds, the bishops, that Jesus gives His flock. For many of us here, we are not used to having a bishop. We will likely have both Bishop Sutton and Bishop White here on June 20th. We must learn to follow and trust them, as they follow Jesus the Good Shepherd.
Then there is shepherd language assigned to simple clergymen like myself, and Fr. Josh, and Dcn. Kyle, and Dcn. Bill. We are “pastors” to you. Pastor is related to the word “pasture”. A “pastor” is the one who is tasked to lead a flock to green pastures. I can assure you that your pastors always feel inadequate for this task. In a very real sense, we are sheep, too. We trust that by the sacramental grace poured out in the sacrament of Ordination, we have been supernaturally and ontologically empowered to do what we in our natural sheepishness would never do, which is to press through the thicket and to take a group of sheep with us.
I don’t know what this life will hold for us, for me and for you. Perhaps there are tough times ahead. Perhaps Jesus will call us through the thorny thicket of personal injustice again and again. Maybe there is difficulty in store. But there are a few things that I know. I know that we will suffer them together. I know that I, for one, feel an awesome privilege and weight to walk with you through field and thicket. And I know that the Good Shepherd went through the thicket, and He still bears the scars in His body, and that we, too, will bear the marks of suffering, both just and unjust. But I also know that Jesus will feed you in a green pasture, and lead you forth beside the waters of comfort. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; * for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff comfort me. Thou shalt prepare a table before me in the presence of them that trouble me; thou hast anointed my head with oil, and my cup shall be full.”
It is an Easter truth that from the other side of the grave comes our vindication. We walk through this life knowing that the economy of this life is not all there is. The Resurrection of our Good Shepherd proves that there is life beyond Death and the thorns of personal injustice. So, now, let us eat from the table that He has prepare in the presence of them that trouble us, that in honor, or dishonor, life or death, justice or injustice, our cup shall always be full. Amen.