Acts 4: 5-12;
Psalm 23
1 John 3:16-24;
John 10:11-18

It’s good to be home again. A couple weeks ago you and I were together, celebrating the second Sunday of Easter. The sanctuary looked a little empty after the crowd of 220 we’d celebrated Easter Sunday with. But, we were together again, just like those early disciples in that upper room, telling the good news and reminding each other whose we are. And, here we are again.

So much has happened since I was with you last. I went to pastors’ classes out in Phoenix for four days and I listened to great speakers, met a couple old acquaintances and (in my time-off) visited with extended family I hadn’t seen in 40 years, or hadn’t even met before. Then, my daughter Kathryn graduated from college last weekend, and we briefly celebrated that accomplishment before putting on the work clothes and moving her and her roommate, Heather, out of their dorm room and hauling all their stuff back home to Connecticut. My husband, Karl and I took a couple days, on our way home, to tour around Virginia, seeing Monticello and Mt.Vernon and driving the length of Shenandoah National Park. It was a busy couple of weeks.

But, in all that time, you were in my thoughts and prayers. See, that’s what Christians do. We hold each other in prayer. We hold in prayer people who need to be reminded that they are God’s children. We ask God to be their shepherd, their guide, their comfort and their peace.

The evening that I flew out to Phoenix one of our Lutheran congregations in Maine was in the news. You’ve heard the reports that 16 people at Gustaf Adolf Lutheran Church in New Sweden, Maine, were poisoned. One died and three remain in critical condition. Investigators are still not sure how the poisoning took place.

People in that town of fewer than 700 residents are watching to see how the whole thing comes out. There are rumors – there are ALWAYS rumors – that a nice man, a less-than-regular member of the congregation may have been to blame, either accidentally or intentionally. And, people in New Sweden and in the entire nation are watching to see how these people of God react to the realization that not one among us is perfect. We all have needs and sometimes we behave in destructive ways because of them.

They’re watching to see if these “good Christian people” will turn their backs on the man’s family. They’re watching to see if these followers of Christ will be able to be strong through terrible times. They’re watching to see if THEY know, as John wrote, that “God is greater than our hearts ... and by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit he has given us.” (1 John 3:20, 24)

What would you do? I know I’ve asked myself what *I* would do if such a tragedy touched my life. I’d like to think that I’d call on God to give me strength. I’d ask God to come into my heart and transform my grief into comfort. I’d ask God to give me hope for the future and a renewed trust in my neighbors’ good intentions.

It’d be very easy to look for someone to blame in a situation like the one in Maine. That’s what the FBI and “Homeland Security” are doing there. That’s NOT what Bishop Margaret Payne and her staff are doing there. The bishop of the New England Synod has been there to be a shepherd among those hurting children of God. She took communion to the hospitalized members and to the family of the man who’s thought to be responsible for their poisoning. She told the congregation that the risen Lord of Easter does not abandon those he calls his own. She reassured the suspected poisoner’s family that he, too, is one of God’s own children, and that they would not be alone in their grief.

That’s important to know. I mean, it’s important to really KNOW that God doesn’t turn away, that God comes close and reaches out to us. One of the young women I met in Phoenix said it really clearly for me. The church where I was attending the meetings a couple weeks ago is what we call a Mega-Church. Community Church of Joy in Glendale, Arizona counts 12,000 baptized souls in their membership reports. It’s hard for us to think of more than our nearly 300 members coming and going and worshiping and serving and praying together.

But, in this small city of Christ’s own, one young woman told me she had really, truly learned of God’s love. She told me she had been raised in a family that went to church every Sunday. She called her former self a fully-churched non-believer. “I knew when to sit and when to stand and when to kneel. I could recite the Lord’s Prayer and the Creeds and the 10 Commandments. But, I didn’t know Jesus loved me, really loved me.”

A fully-churched non-believer. That’s how she described herself. She said she first came to Community Church of Joy because she thought this sandstone colored complex of buildings with a fountain out front and big auditorium-like center might be a shopping mall. She walked in the always-open front doors and realized she was in a place where nothing was offered for sale but lots was given away.

There were brochures advertising bible studies and divorce support groups, grief counseling and youth meetings, financial planning seminars, infant care, pre-school and a school for kindergarten through 8th grade. There was a janitor walking through the building who welcomed her and asked if he could help.

Part of what he did was to invite her to look around. And, then he told her how he came to worship there at Community of Joy. He said how he’d been empty inside and Jesus had filled his emptiness. He was supposed to be retired, but he was busier than ever these days, excited to see all the young families, the single adults, and the old people coming alive in this place where Christ had claimed him as his own. He invited her to come back that evening when a whole bunch of people would be celebrating God’s love together.

And, she did.

She first came out of curiosity, she said, and she was among others who were first-timers, too. She liked the music, lively and rhythmic or soft and comforting – and not an organ in sight! – but she especially felt loved, included, cared for and needed. She said it wasn’t long before she was looking for a way she could be a part of this community. Now, each Wednesday evening, while their parents talk around tables about scripture and every day life, this young woman supervises 4-year olds in one of the church’s classrooms. She worships with her own young family on Sundays, at one of three services, and her teen-aged younger brother plays in the band at the youth gathering where he regularly tells others how much Jesus means to him.

Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. ... I know my own and my own know me.” Jesus knows the people in New Sweden, Maine. He knows their pain and their fear and their hope and their need for comfort in tragic times. Jesus knows the fully-churched non-believers and will make a way for them to realize whose they are. Jesus knows our kids, as they grow up in this church, not told to “be seen and not heard” but welcomed to grow up surrounded by love and encouraged to explore what God has in mind for them. Jesus knows us each by name, by the name given to us by our mothers, by the name spoken at the baptismal font, by the name we have come to be known through our words and deeds.

Jesus’ own name is powerful. His claim on each of us is powerful and loving and giving and reliable. In tragic times, in lonely times, in times of illness and pain, in times of joy and new beginnings, Jesus chooses to save us. Jesus saves us from ourselves, from our rivalries and rumors, from our mistrust and fear. Jesus’ name is the only name by which we can be saved, saved from ourselves, saved from evil in the world, and saved throughout eternity for life in God’s never-ending embrace of love.

You are welcome, today, to come to this table where Jesus’ love is poured out for you. You will be forgiven, fed and nourished, and strengthened by the Good Shepherd himself, so that you can go out into that world believing you are God’s own child through the love of Jesus our Lord.

I invite you, not to just go through the motions, routinely repeating meaningless words, but to really truly know within your heart that you are God’s own child. You have been claimed through your baptism, strengthened through the Word of God, nourished at his table, and prepared to live in such a way that others will know you are the Lord’s.

Come to the table. Be fed. Know that you are His own. Then, take that love into the world with you each day, serving others in Jesus’ powerful name, so that they, too, might one day know the peace of God that passes all understanding. God goes with you. Amen

Scripture references:

• There is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved. Acts 4:12b.
• The Lord is my shepherd... Ps 23:1a
• Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. (1 John 3:18) ... God is greater than our hearts (20)... And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.(24)
• Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd...” (John 10:11a)