APRIL 16,17,2005 GOOD SHEPHERD SUNDAY
The Rev. Barbara Schlachter

You probably heard about it at the time but may have not thought about it for awhile. It was called the Church of Nine-Twelve. Referring of course, to the day after Nine-Eleven. It was better known before and since as St. Paul ’s Church, part of Trinity Parish in lower Manhattan. It stood defiant, to quote the mayor, the little church that stood after the Towers around it had fallen. The fact that it went unscathed in the aftermath would have been something to contemplate, but what happened there became even more awesome.

It became the epicenter for a make-shift community of love and outreach to rescue workers and families, to those who found themselves in the vicinity for whatever reason. The clergy and young parishioners opened it to the world, and people who felt called to give came from every direction of the world to contribute what they could:  food, massage, hugs, words of encouragement and consolation. The stations of the cross became the stations of compassion, with gourmet meals, clothing, grief counselors. Everything was donated in a spirit of love and everything was given to anyone in need with  that same spirit. It didn’t matter who you might have been in the world before Nine-Eleven. Hierarchy went down, roles were reversed, seemingly unsurmountable barriers were transcended. Food was given out like communion. Jews from a near-by synagogue helped celebrate the Eucharist. A rabbi preached about the cross as “one of the most beautiful symbols… because it points straight to heaven and across to each other.”

My favorite testimony comes from the assistant to the dean of near-by General Seminary. In astonishment she noted that she saw “a bishop cleaning toilets…while a sanitation worker was teaching!”

A journalist who went to cover the story interviewed one of the firemen on break sitting, slumped over by the church door. He asked her if she knew what he did every day in the Pit. “No,” she replied. “Well, I spend most of every day on my hands and knees, digging with my bare hands for body parts.”  He stood up, pointed around the church and said, “Lady, I come in that door dirty, covered with blood, angry, pissed off, and they hug me. They welcome me like I’m a real person. They treat me like a human being. And then after they hug me, they feed me, they massage me, they counsel me, and I sit here and listen to incredible music.” 

He went on to say that he came every day, not just for all of that, but because “This is where God is. And these are my people. This is my new family. It’s the greatest sense of God’s presence I have ever known.”

It makes me think of the description of the early church you heard read a few minutes ago. It was a community where love transcended difference, where love transformed selfishness into community, where gratitude and praise of God prevailed, and where people sold what they had to help out those who were in need.

It also made me think of Christ’s words in the Gospel:  “Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep…. I am the gate.”  The fireman and all others who passed through the door into St. Paul ’s found the salvation that Christ promised. In the midst of the death and destruction all around them, they found what is the most important truth Christ ever said for us:  “I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly.

Most of us have been spared such trial, and perhaps we have also never experienced the kind of community of the Church of Nine-Twelve or the early church. Yet, we do have opportunities and possibilities, glimpses and experiences in more ordinary, accessible ways. Thank God we do not have to have a disaster to know that people can reach out in love, that we can reach out, that we have reached out.

Christ who is the Good Shepherd who knows us by name, who calls out to us, is always available to us. He is always inviting us to enter through the gate into the safety of the fold, into the community of love, not just for one another, but for all people.

I think of last year’s American Cancer Relay for Life. Those of us who participated  experienced something of the sense of community and joy like the people who volunteered at St. Paul ’s. We were all there because of another kind of toppling tower—the disease of cancer, which probably every single one of us had encountered either personally or with a dearly loved friend or member of our family. We were there because we were saying Yes to Life, to the promise of the abundant life.  

Not only did we raise an incredible amount of money for a good cause but we participated in a community with people from Christ Church and others from the county who were there for the same reason as we. It was a blessing to be there, to be either part of the survivors lap or applaud those who were. We shared food, music, laughter, hope. The word HOPE was lit by luminaries on the stadium benches. We sought out the luminaries with our names if we were survivors or those of our loved ones, who were not. The light burning as the night grew darker made us realize that we were all in a kind of Good Shepherd sheepfold. The world out there might be dark, frightening, and full of the unpredictable, but we were together in the spirit of love and we were experiencing the abundant life.

When we left, we took that sense of love, gratitude, peace, joy and commitment to love and serve others with us. It didn’t stop when we went out through the gate; it came out and kept illumining the world. Do you remember the incredible joy we brought to church with us the next day?

And that is the secret of living the abundant life that Christ promised to his followers. Abundance doesn’t mean rich in things. It means rich in love, rich in crossing barriers that could so easily divide us, rich in gratitude and generosity, knowing that whatever we give, we receive even more back, as joy, as a sense of belonging and making a difference.

This year’s Relay for Life is June 17 and 18, a Friday night and Saturday. This is our Kick-off weekend. We have established a goal of $7500 for our parish. If that seems like a lot of money, and of course it is, last year we raised over $6000. We are looking for sixty walkers or groups of walkers who will keep at least four people on the track for Christ Church from 7 p.m. on Friday until l0:00 a.m. on Saturday. Each of those walkers or teams will be challenged to find sponsors outside the parish; and we are challenging every person in the parish to give generously to our common fund.

We hope that the whole parish will turn out to be part of this in some way—bringing food, enjoying the ambiance of our Beach Party theme in our tent of welcome, watching the walkers, hugging the walkers, if you cannot walk yourself. And of course, either making or providing for a luminaria for survivors you love or loved ones you have lost.

I would like to say a further word about our Gospel before I end. Jesus warns about the thieves and bandits who the sheep will not listen to because they do not know the voice of the stranger. They will respond only to the voice of the Good Shepherd who calls them each by name.

This story has obvious application for our life in the world. Those who would make us afraid are thieves and bandits. There are only two primary emotions after all: love and fear. Jesus invites us by name to a life of abundance through love. There are other people and forces, however, who play upon our insecurities and invite us to live lives of fear. Whenever we feel afraid, whose voice are we listening to?

And finally, we all have these thieves and bandits even closer to home, within our own minds. The Good Shepherd is the guide for our soul, for our life force, for the path we are each to walk. The thieves and bandits are those voices of negativity and fear we hear inside our heads that tell us messages like; we are not really loved; we are not really very good. When you hear these messages, tell the thieves and bandits who would take away your birth right as a child of the beloved, to go away. Head for the gate where the Good Shepherd is calling you, reminding that you are loved, you are gifted, you are valuable and you are needed.

Live your life out of Christ’s abundance, and not out of the world’s fear.   
The choice is ours, every day, minute by minute. Amen.

I wish to acknowledge March Ian Barsach's Field Notes on the Compassionate Life for my description of the Church of Nine-Twelve.