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<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica;font-size:10pt;color:black">-----Original Message-----<br>
From: Judy <judy_boli@ecunet.org><br>
To: propertalk.topic <propertalk.topic@ecunet.org><br>
Sent: Fri, May 9, 2014 11:34 pm<br>
Subject: [propertalk.topic] Sermon for Easter 4A<br>
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<div style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">Dear Friends,</font></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><font face="Times New Roman"><font color="#000000">This Sunday’s sermon is entitled “The Good Shepherd” and deals with the
gospel (John 10: 1-10).</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Here it is:</font></font></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><font face="Times New Roman"><font color="#000000">As you probably noticed in the bulletin, every fourth Sunday of Easter
is “Good Shepherd Sunday,” so this morning almost all of the Bible lessons
refer in one way or another to Jesus as our Good Shepherd.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Now we don’t know anything about sheep and
shepherds, but the people in Jesus’ time did- they were either farm people or
knew farm people.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">The image of Jesus as
their Good Shepherd really spoke to them.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000">
</font></span><font color="#000000">Let me try to open Bible times and culture to you so it will speak to us
as well.</font></font></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><font face="Times New Roman"><font color="#000000">First of all, did you notice in today’s Gospel (John 10:1-10) that
Jesus said he was the “Gate for the sheep” (verse 7)?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">What in the world was he talking about?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">If we lived in Bible times, we would
understand right away.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Almost every town
had a sheepfold or sheep-pen, which was simply a small fenced-in area, often
made of stone.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">This sheepfold or
sheep-pen had an opening, but usually no gate.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000">
</font></span><font color="#000000">If a shepherd wasn’t by a town, he made his own sheep-pen with bushes
and briars- again with an opening, but no gate.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000">
</font></span><font color="#000000">When evening came, he would gather all his sheep into the pen.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Problem: with an opening but no gate, how was
the shepherd going to keep the sheep in and the wolves and thieves out?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Easily!</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000">
</font></span><font color="#000000">He slept in the opening himself so anything or anybody attempting to go
in or out would have to go over him.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000">
</font></span><font color="#000000">Sort of like when my children were early teen-agers many years ago.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">The youth group invited friends for a
sleep-over downstairs, with the boys sleeping in the common room and the girls
sleeping in the classroom-lounge. </font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">I stupidly
agreed to be one of the chaperones.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">When
all the chaperones decided we couldn’t stand it any longer, we declared it was
time for bed.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Our problem: all the boys
were in love with all the girls and vise-versa- how to keep them apart!</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">We chaperones knew they were just waiting for
us to go to sleep so they could get together unsupervised!</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">What did we do?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Easy- I put my sleeping bag in front of the
door between the two rooms so no one could get through, and we all had a good
night’s sleep.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Same idea.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Jesus is your Good Shepherd and he is the
Gate for your life.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Nothing can get into
your life that he can’t protect you from or support you through.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Remind you of a song we sing?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">“Be Not Afraid, for God Is in Charge!”</font></font></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><font face="Times New Roman"><font color="#000000">Now, if we are going to look at Jesus as the Good Shepherd, we’d also
better look at us as the sheep.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">What do
you know about sheep?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Three words, all
starting with “s” will answer that question: “stupid, stubborn, and
stinky.”</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Trying to keep a bunch of sheep
together would be sort of like trying to take a bunch of toddlers to the
zoo.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Haven’t you noticed preschool
teachers hoping to keep their class together by having a rope with each child
holding on?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">I don’t know if it works for
preschoolers, but sheep don’t hold ropes and where they want to go, they
go.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">What they want to eat, they eat- poisonous
or not.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">I remember taking one of my
children to Bill Knapps Restaurant (remember the good old days when it was
still open?) and noticing that my precious, spotless, sanitized toddler was
chewing something.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">When I asked, I was
told “Oh, mama- gum from under the table!”</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000">
</font></span><font color="#000000">I almost threw up!</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Sheep are like
that.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Unless the shepherd clears the
grazing field of poisonous weeds, they’ll eat them.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">As their wool gets longer, it smells like a
kid’s sneakers or well-used socks.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Being
compared to sheep is not really a compliment, but it’s probably a valid
comparison.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">As with sheep and children,
the hardest thing the Shepherd has to protect us from is ourselves and our own
foolishness.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">How does Jesus do
that?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Did you notice verses 2-4 tell us
that the Shepherd knows the sheep by name, they know his voice, and they follow
him.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Remember on the first Easter when
Mary Magdalene was outside the empty tomb weeping and she mistook the risen
Christ for the gardener?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">How did he get
through to her?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Sure- he called her
name- “Mary, Mary.”</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">That’s what he does
for us.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span></font></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><font face="Times New Roman"><font color="#000000">But what if our lives are too busy to hear him?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Or, worse yet, what if we don’t want to hear
him?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">You know the feeling when your conscience
says, “Don’t do this or go with him or take that or use this or participate in
that or say what you’re about to say or do what you’re about to do.”</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">You hear your conscience, but you sin anyway-
go for those forbidden fruits or let it all hang out or do the selfish
thing.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">What then?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">This is when our Good Shepherd becomes the
Passover Lamb.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Remember how- just before
we receive Holy Communion- the priest breaks the Holy Bread and says, “Christ,
our Passover, is sacrificed for us.”</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000">
</font></span><font color="#000000">Jesus has become the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the
world.”</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">There’s a parallel for this also
in the world of the shepherd.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Have you
ever heard of Jeff Smith (1939- 2004), also known as the Frugal Gourmet?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Many say he was TV's original celebrity chef.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Anyway, in his book called “The Frugal
Gourmet Keeps the Feast,” he tells about a conversation he had with a shepherd
from the Middle East.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">He learned that
very often during lambing season, the shepherd would awaken to find a dead
mother sheep with a live baby lamb and another live mother sheep with a dead
baby lamb.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">The mother sheep whose lamb
has died has milk ready to feed a hungry lamb, but no babies.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">The lamb whose mother sheep has died is
starving for lack of milk.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Easily
solved, you think.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Just let the orphan
lamb suckle from the childless mother sheep.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000">
</font></span><font color="#000000">Great idea, but it won’t work; because the mother sheep knows the orphan
lamb doesn’t smell like her baby.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Do you
know how the shepherd solves the problem?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000">
</font></span><font color="#000000">He drains the blood from the body of the dead lamb and washes the live
orphan lamb with that blood.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Now the
orphan lamb smells like one of her own, and the mother sheep will adopt the
orphan and feed it.</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">That’s what God did
with us- washed us in the Blood of his Lamb- Jesus, the Christ, so we could be
adopted as sons and daughters of God and freed from our sins.</font></font></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><font face="Times New Roman"><font color="#000000">So, where are you in all of this?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000">
</font></span><font color="#000000">Have you accepted Jesus as your Good Shepherd?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">If not, just invite him into your life right
now and then seal it at the altar as you come up for Communion?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Are you allowing Jesus to be the Gatekeeper
of your life, or do you keep running after things that will destroy you?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Do you spend enough quiet time with our Lord
so you recognize his voice, or do you keep busy, busy, busy with the radio
blaring, the TV on, the video games popping, the music blasting, or you’re on
your cell phone talking or texting?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000">
</font></span><font color="#000000">Finally, is Jesus not only your Good Shepherd, but your MODEL
Shepherd?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">Do you just happily accept
God’s blessings, keeping them to yourself; or do you reach out and touch?</font><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><font color="#000000"> </font></span><font color="#000000">May God bless us as we follow our Good
Shepherd</font></font></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: normal; tab-stops: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">For anyone who is interested, this sermon and updated
African-American wisdom statements are posted on our parish’s NEW WEB SITE
under “Sermons & Stuff”. The address is: </font><a target="_blank" href="http://www.stpaulsepisag.org/"><u><font color="#0000ff" face="Times New Roman">http://www.stpaulsepisag.org</font></u></a><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman"> .</font></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">Blessed preaching,</font></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">Judy Boli</font></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">St. Paul's Episcopal Church</font></span></div>
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<div style="margin: 1em 0px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;"><font color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">Saginaw, Michigan</font></span></div>
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