Fourth
Sunday of Easter
May
11, 200
What is the scariest
question you have ever faced?
Questions
are damnable things, sometimes. Because they can haunt you… Today’s
gospel question is one of those damnable things for me. Because my answer to that
question is: “Who would lay down their life for me?” That’s
my scariest question. And in the melancholic moments of celibacy, the small, scared
voice in the background says: “No one would.” Sure, I know some people
that I could do that for. People whom I could muster the love and courage in a
moment of heroic sacrifice to lay down my life for. But the scarier question is
who would do that for me? Do I matter enough to someone else that they would do
that for me? And when you lie awake in the middle of the night and wonder if your
life makes any bit of difference to any other human being in the world –
the question sits there… that scariest of questions that I ever face: Who
would lay down their life for me? Do you know that moment? Do you know that question
in your own life?
I remember when I was at one of my deacon assignments. There was a young teenage
girl, whom I will name Lisa. Struggling, really struggling with the question of
whether her life made any difference at all. Long conversations. Long debates.
Lots of time on my knees. Lots of time praying for the right words to say at the
right time. I could talk to her till I was blue in the face but it never seemed
to penetrate the gloom. Never seemed to get through the doubt. Finally, there
came a moment of grace for her and me. I asked the question: “Is there anybody
in your life that you would be willing to give your life for?” (scary question
– what if the answer was no…) Yes. “My Father and my best friend.”
“Why? Why would you do that?” “Because I love them.” Why
do you love them? long pause. “Because I do. I don’t have an explanation.
I just know that I do.”
“Lisa, is it so hard to believe that God does the same FOR YOU?” Not
for others – but just for you? If you can do that for others – if
you can find it in your heart to do that for them – then why can’t
God do that for you?” A small tear appeared in the corner of her eye, and
I knew that God had her…
“I am the Good Shepherd. I lay down my life for my sheep. No one takes that
life from me. I lay it down on my own.” And poof, that scary question vanishes
into the same darkness that produced it. There is at least one who would lay down
his life for me. And not because he had to. Not because he was God’s Son,
and unwillingly, begrudgingly, he forced himself to do something that he knew
the Father would want, but that he hated. “I lay my life down on my own.
And I freely take it back up again.” Ahhh!!! There are the words that break
through my fears and allow me to come to know a love that has always been there.
The willing choice of a willing heart - to give from an abundance so that we might
know LIFE…
And if you struggle to believe it, you have only to look at how that love of the
shepherd has been made real in the lives of the people who have surrounded you
here. I am mindful of the 1,576,800 minutes that Amanda Harrod has worked here
at the Newman Center – laying down her life so that you will know the love
of the Good Shepherd in them. And Kevin’s 525,600 minutes this past year
– so you’ll know the same truth. I pray that you will know in my presence
that same love – as I too, pledge to lay down my life for you – that
you will know the love of God.
I pray that you have seen it in the person whom you call mom – biological,
adoptive or chosen – that you remember how you have been loved into life
in the daily laying down of life for you by those women we call mother…
Questions are damnable things, sometimes. But they are also salvific things. Who
would lay down their lives for you? I pray you may see the shepherd, in all his
various guises – as he freely lays down his life for you…