2025-05-12 - A message for First Friends Meeting in Greensboro, NC

The text for the week (Although, I really drew on 10:1-18):

“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 NRSV)

Expanding Walls

In 2015, during the refugee crisis of the time, Pope Francis called on every Catholic parish to become a refuge for a refugee family.

My colleague at Guilford, Diya Abdo, an English Professor from Jordan, was inspired by Francis’ call.

In an interview with NPR she explained:

When the pope called on every parish in Europe to host a refugee family, I began thinking deeply about that call for cities to become a place of refuge. And then I remembered that the word for a university campus in Arabic is haram (ph) which means literally a sanctuary or a refuge, a sanctified place where people are safe. And so I thought well, a campus is very much like a city. We have facilities for housing. We have medical facilities. We have hundreds of human beings with various skills. We have cafeterias. So why not, why not take on the Pope's call and become a refuge?

And that is what started the Every Campus a Refuge program at Guilford College which has housed many refugee families over the last 10 years. Since then, ECAR has spread to over 20 other campuses.

I have always loved this vision and act of abundance that led to expanding the walls of our campus to gather and include families in need.

The Good Shepherd

The story of the Good Shepherd is one such story where I see this motion of abundance.

When our kids were growing up at Camas Friends, where I pastored for years, one of the favorite Godly Play stories was the story of the Good Shepherd. For all of us in the meeting, we knew that it was Alan's all-time favorite story (the name has been changed). Alan was a young person in our meeting who dealt with challenges growing up. If you would ask him what his favorite Bible story was in Godly Play he would instantly light up and say the story of the Good Shepherd.

If I had to guess why Alan, and maybe all of us, love this story so much, I think it is because of this clear image of Jesus - a shepherd who cares for and protects his sheep, no matter the cost. The Good Shepherd expands the walls and fences to create refuge where the sheep are safe. I think our youth felt this in meeting, and especially in the Godly Play classroom.

The Good Shepherd is a powerful image that stands in stark contrast to a world that often acts more like the thieves and bandits in the text this morning.

The Thieves, Wolves, and Hired Hands.

It’s rare that in preaching a sermon you get to talk about sheep alongside thieves, bandits, strangers, wolves, and hired hands, and no, I’m not about to describe one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons I loved growing up. These are all the characters that show up in the text this morning.

Obviously, the thieves, bandits, and wolves are pretty dangerous to sheep. You don't have to watch a lot of Looney Tunes to know this much.

Whereas it may be the case that the strangers and hired hands are not necessarily dangerous, but they are unfamiliar to and with the sheep. We might say that the stranger lacks the ongoing trust and familiarity needed for the sheep to trust them. Whereas the hired hand cannot be counted on when things get dangerous.

They are the ones, after all, seen in the story running away at the first sign of danger.

I think part of what is going on here is about a critique of those in leadership who are dangerous, who are in it only for themselves, who do damage, are ineffective, and untrustworthy.

It's hard to create a refuge when you run away at the first sign of danger.

It exposes the patterns that the thieves and bandits exhibit, just as much as it tells us something about what the Good Shepherd does.

Jesus exposes the patterns of the thieves, bandits, wolves, and hired hands with action words. He says they:

• steal
• scatter
• kill
• destroy
• run away
• do not care

These patterns describe empire and scarcity in our world today: stealing, scattering, destroying, running away from those who are in need, instead of expanding walls, closing them down more and more, and refusing to care for the least of these.

Good Shepherding

Empire and those in power have constantly sought to steal from the poor to give to the rich, scatter and break community, kill those who oppose it, enslave and destroy not only human lives but animals, forests, water, farmland, and more.

The hired hands in this story do not care about the longer term outlook in relationships, communities, land, and the health of the human and more-than-human world. They are in it for short-term gain.

Jesus draws a contrast between the scarcity of empire and the abundance of the Good Shepherd. For those in power, there is never enough to go around. There is never enough money, never enough housing, never enough love and goodness, never enough trust, you name it.

Empire is about lack.

The voice of scarcity is the voice of the thief. And it is fitting that Jesus uses this image because a thief never thinks there is not enough for them, they will steal, kill, and destroy so that they always have what they want, there just won’t be any left for the rest of us.

On the other hand, the Good Shepherd is about abundance and creating spaces where life can flourish.

Interestingly, the word used for “Good” as in the Good Shepherd here shows up in one other place in the Gospel of John and that is in John 2 where there is an abundance of “Good Wine.”

One biblical scholar concludes that “Good” here implies “messianic bounty.” The abundance that comes from an alternative mindset about who and whose we are, what we have, and what it means for us to live into that abundance (WHB, 239).

That’s why throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus is often heard saying things like “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Other translations render this “life overflowing.”

I don’t want to live in a world that harms, scatters, but one that gathers, heals, and expands boundaries of care.

What are the kinds of actions and patterns that the the Good Shepherd does:

• offers abundant life
• sacrificial love
• deep familiarity - I know my own, and my own know me
• gathering - I must bring them all
• unifying - There will be one flock

What I see in this is an intimacy, a closeness between the Good Shepherd and his sheep, God and God’s people. I see including, unifying and gathering. I see expanding walls, building trust. This is an expansive vision motivated by love.

In this way these actions describe a motion or movement in one direction or the other. Is what is happening a scattering or a gathering. A destroying or a healing? A leaving or a coming together? These are two very different types of motions we see and can participate in as Friends Today.

The forest church

As I started with one story of building sanctuary and want to end with another story about a church building and expanding out of a sense of abundance and desire to be “good shepherds.”

I sent a video in our newsletter this week made by a friend of ours, Jeremy Seifert. It is of an Ethiopian Orthodox Church surrounded by a forest oasis in a desert landscape that was once continuous forest.

As the church says, "the forest was being eaten up" by agriculture, business, and desire for short-term gain. That’s when the church decided to try and save some of their shrinking forest by moving the wall that surrounded their church property outward, expanding it so that it would include some of the forest: “to make the forest a part of the church itself.”

This is another image of abundance. Expanding the boundary to include the forest. To protect it. To heal the land there. To create a safe space where life can flourish now and on into the future.

As they expalain:

"The church forest is a blueprint. You can understand what kind of biodiversity we had before. So if you really care we have to learn to respect the forest and learn how to live with it...We can bring back the landscape"

This church is very much a Good Shepherd to the place they live, not only creating a flourishing refuge now, but nurturing a blueprint for the future.

The priest of the forest church asks:

“What is the role of the church if it is not to partner with all of life.”

Friends, we are called to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd who calls us into very different actions than the thieves, bandits, and hired hands. Those voices of scarcity will always say there is not enough, contract the boundaries, serve only yourselves. But the voice of the Good Shepherd calls promises abundant life.

May we recognize and respond to the Shepherd's voice, moving our walls to include rather than exclude, and partnering with all of life in creating God's beloved community.

Query for Reflection

What are the places where we have as a meeting lived into this abundance or places where we may be called to expand our walls?