Wednesday, April 09, 2008

2nd Sunday after Easter 6.4.08 Sermon

2nd Sunday after Easter 6.4.08 To be loved or feared?

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. The image of Him gathering up a stray lamb and carrying it home is a familiar one and very comforting. That stray lamb is you or I.

Just when we become comfortable with that image, however, we remember that there are other passages where Our Lord is presented as Judge and will scatter evildoers in all directions. So now we are disturbed.

Are we wounded lambs waiting to be comforted, or are we wolves waiting to be destroyed?

We are all sinners, certainly, all in need of attention. Whether the attention we receive from Our Lord is comforting or disturbing all depends on the attitude we take.

If we are humbly contrite for our sins we make ourselves lambs before Him and He will be gentle with us.

But if we are proud and defiant and say we have no sin, or no need of Him for any help then we are distancing ourselves from Him and we are turning into wolves.

Even the wolves He loves, but He has to be severe with them to bring them to repentance.

If there is no repentance then only judgment and condemnation can follow.

The different approach that people take explains the apparently contradictory images of Our Lord. One minute He is gentle; the next minute He is fierce. Which is true?

Both are true, but the gentleness is His primary attribute. God is Love, St John teaches. He does not say, God is Judgment! Judgment is what happens when the Love is refused.

If we refuse to receive God’s love for us, and refuse to love Him in return, then we are putting ourselves into a state of alienation from Him, so that when He judges us He is merely ratifying what we have already put in place.

It is not as though He arbitrarily takes a dislike to certain people and throws them out of His presence. An unjust judge might do that, but never this Judge.

He is so good that to be without Him is so bad: there is no neutral inbetween position,
With Him is everything; without Him is not nothing but minus-everything, painful, horrible. (eg inside the boat or outside – inside, security, peace; outside, chaos, suffering.)

So we must do everything we can to receive Him, to be in union with Him.

Ultimately it is not so hard to be saved, or not so unappealing. It is like a beggar on the street being told: Excuse me, sir, the king desires your company at his table, and he wishes to give you everything you could wish for. Do you want that, or would you rather remain on the street?

Our Lord, it has been said, came to comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable.

If we have any doubts about our salvation it is a good sign because at least it means we do not suffer from complacency or presumption. We are in a position to acknowledge our sins and throw ourselves at the mercy of the Shepherd. That is all we have to do to release the torrents of His compassion. (cf Woman caught in adultery, publican, prodigal son...)

It is only the proud and hard-hearted who need to fear His judgment. (Pharisee, the would-be stoners). If we are the least bit that way we can change. So the comfortable must be disturbed, for the purpose of then being comforted in the right way.

The disturbed meanwhile, those who seek union with God, will certainly find it.

May the Good Shepherd gather us all into His arms and hold us there.