Sheep, Goats & the Shepherd

A sermon by George Pasley

Ezekiel 34:11-16, 20-24; Matthew 25:31-46

Greg Mortensen is a mountaineering buff. More than that, he is a former Army medic and no stranger to extreme physical demands. But on September 2, 1993 he found himself in a dangerous situation- so dangerous he would have perished, except for someone who found him and led him to safety.

It occurred in Pakistan, on the frozen slopes of K2, one of the world’s tallest and harshest mountains. Climbing with a group, Greg somehow got separated. He wandered, broken lost and exhausted, down icy trails on the mountain.

Dusk found him no better off, and for safety eh stopped right where he was. All he had for shelter during the night was a thin blanket. All, he had for food was one protein bar. All he had for water was what little bit of snow he could melt against his chest.

He awoke before daybreak because his face was covered with ice, smothering him. He got up and looked for a way down, but could not find it, so he started back up the mountain, hoping to find his way. A mile away he could see a man, but could not find his way too the man.

But the man found him, took him to a cave, fed him, cooked him a pot of tea, and then led him to an impoverished Pakistani village. His life was spared.

I think in one way or another, in some degree, we have all been like Greg Mortensen, are like him, or will be like him. None of us can go through life alone. Sooner or later, we find ourselves needing something that we don’t have and cannot find on our own. We are not all mountaineers, but we are all looking for something, and the something either eludes us, or we go down the wrong path looking for it.

Just like lost sheep. No sheep is safe by itself, and no flock of sheep is safe without a shepherd. From their earliest days the people of Israel knew that. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were all shepherds; the name Hebrew is derived from an Egyptian word meaning shepherd and through good times and bad sheep were essential to the Judean economy. So when God spoke through the prophet Ezekiel, saying,” I myself will search for my sheep and look after them,” they understood completely.

More than that, they understood what it meant to be lost, lonely, and afraid, because their nation had been destroyed and they were living in exile, under the rule of a strange culture that worshipped foreign gods. More than anything, they wanted to be found, nurtured, and put back into good pasture.

In summer of the year 1575 Queen Elizabeth the First of England made a pilgrimage from London to a region known as Midlands, to the township of Warwick. The climax of that long summer visit was a 19-day stay at Kenilworth, a Castle belonging to the Earl of Leicester. Her visit is recorded as both “thrilling and terrifying” to those in the township.

Whenever Elizabeth traveled she was accompanied by enormous retinues. She wore so many jewels that she literally dazzled. She received expensive gifts as tribute. And, she lived at the expense of her hosts, an expense so enormous that they were virtually bankrupt by the time she left.

Her arrival in town was marked by a grand arrival parade, a plethora of speeches, a specially commissioned poem (in Latin), fireworks, a dialogue, bear-baiting, more fireworks, a display of acrobatics, and an elaborate water pageant.

No expense was spared. After all, this was the Queen, and too spare expense was to invite wrath. So during the nineteen days of her stay, the Earl sponsored innumerable theatrical performances, most of them open to anyone who chose to come. Thousands did, possibly including one eleven-year-old boy named William Shakespeare, who lived only eleven short miles distant.

Such is the way of heads of states, from ancient times to the present. The parable told by Jesus portrays such an incident, but it also describes quite a different sort of tribute: not extravagance but compassion; not theatre but charity; not opulence but neighborliness; not wealth but sharing.

But it is no wonder, for this King is Jesus and he is no ordinary King.

This is a king who identifies not with Earls and Dukes, but with the cold and hungry.

This is a king who identifies not with Lords and Ladies, but with the sick and dying.

This is a king who identifies not with the members of parliament or Senate, but with those in prison.

This is a king who was born in a stable, attended by shepherds, followed by fishermen, and who came as a shepherd to the lost. So it is not tribute he expects wherever he goes. Instead, it is imitation and discipleship.

This parable is not difficult to understand.

It is clear, it is to the point, and it is essential.

Those who would honor the one we call Lord and Savior will look and see with whom they may share.

Now I know a young man in this town who loves God very much, but he is very angry at the church. Even though I think I may have earned his respect, it will be a long time before I ever look for him in church. But I know this: two days a month, on his days off, he cooks a meal for the Salvation Army.

I also know a small group of people from this church who love the Lord and who love the church, and on this afternoon they are cooking meal at the Lord’s Table.

In the past few weeks, 250,000 citizens of the Congo have fled their homes and their communities, and are now living as refugees.

Sometime this year in America 3.5 million people will experience homelessness. For many of them, it is not an experience but a way of life.

The number of homeless we have in Ketchikan is relatively small, but their suffering is not. For two years now a group of real citizens has been meeting, trying to find some way to take care of them and offer them something other than a “Get out of here” and something better than a warm greeting and something more tangible than a prayer. They have a lot of work to do, but they are earnest and they are willing and they are determined.

It’s evident to me that each of those people understands what it is that Jesus is asking of us: not tribute and opulence and bankruptcy, but love and generosity with a human touch.

When Greg Mortensen was rescued by the Pakistani villager, he wanted desperately to do something in return for that village- but he wasn’t sure what he could do. Not until he saw the village school…78 boys and four girls were kneeling on the frozen ground in the open air, reciting a lesson without benefit of a teacher, because the town cold not afford the one dollar a day the teacher would cost. Out of gratitude, and out of sense of necessity, Mortensen decided to build them a school and hire a teacher.

Now, Greg Mortensen is a nurse. He owns no property except for an old Buick. So don’t ask me how he did it, but since 1993 he has raised the money to build 55 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and staff them with teachers. All of the schools are in the very poorest villages, and most of them cater to girls.

He wasn’t thinking about how to get into heaven. No, he was thinking about how to pass on the salvation he had already received.

In a few days every one of us will sit down to a feast and thank the Lord for all that we have. But let us temper our thanksgiving in the way the Episcopalians do when they pray these words:

We beseech thee,

Give us that due sense of all thy mercies,

That our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful;

And that we show forth thy praise,

Not only with our lips, but in our lives,

By giving ourselves to thy service.

After all, that’s what our Lord, our Savior, and our Shepherd Did for us.

So let’s pass it on.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.