BEaster4 Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18 May 3, 2009 Several years ago, I went to a concert and heard a trio of singers called Sweet Honey and the Rock. I remember one song in particular. A female vocalist sang a song about her childhood… about a little girl who grew up in a poor home that had no mirrors. The only mirror she had was her grandmother’s eyes. When she looked into her grandmother’s eyes, she always saw that she was beautiful. When she got old enough to go to school, she got to see herself in real mirrors and she also got to see herself through other people’s eyes. They told her something very different. Her eyes were too small, her lips too big, her teeth too crooked, her hair… her height…her feet…her clothes… all seemed to look different when she was out in the world. But every day she would go home and crawl up into her grandmother’s lap and be reassured that in her grandmother’s eyes, she was still the beautiful girl she had always been. The song goes on through the years… to when she is all grown up and her grandmother is no longer with her. Still, when the world tells her that she doesn’t measure up, she can go back and look into her grandmother’s eyes and find her true self, beautiful and beloved. Perhaps it’s not so surprising that the author of the book entitled The Shack portrays God the Father as an older African-American woman always in the kitchen fixing food and welcoming the rest of the characters as they come to check in with her. Jim Wallis, an evangelical Christian known for his work in justice issues writes: At times I think the truest image of God today is a black inner-city grandmother in the United States or a mother of the disappeared in Argentina or the women who wake up early to make tortillas in refugee camps. They all weep for their children, and in their compassionate tears arises the political action that changes the world. We call today Good Shepherd Sunday, which always occurs on the 4^th Sunday of Easter. And, without going into all the interesting details of shepherds in light of middle-eastern culture and scriptural metaphor, what the Good Shepherd boils down to is this: The Good Shepherd knows the sheep like a grandmother knows her children. And the Good Shepherd knows who he is to his sheep And what they come to him for and he will not fall short of being who they need him to be. Even risking his life; laying down his life for his sheep. For, when you really know who you are, shepherd, grandmother, parent, you would rather lose your life than not fully live it and fully give it to those you are meant to love. [Psalm 23 – pastoral utopia Do not need anything; always protected Spend their days lying in green pastures Wander on easy paths beside placid, still lakes, A pleasant table awaits them when they’re hungry. Until we notice that it also talks about walking fearlessly through valleys darkened with death Table spread with abundant food also happens to be surrounded by enemies] The Good Shepherd is willing to lay down his life for his sheep. A retelling of a Hans Christian Anderson story goes like this: Satan always takes delight in creating delusion and confusion. he once had a special kind of mirror made. This mirror shrank the reflections of all the good and beautiful things in the world, and it enlarged all the bad and ugly things. Satan took great pleasure in going around the earth, holding this mirror in front of people’s eyes, until there was not a single land, or a single person, who had not seen how he wanted them to see. One day, Satan was laughing so much over the trouble this mirror had already caused that it slipped out of his hand and shattered into thousands and millions of tiny fragments. [Satan got angry like we all do when we break something we treasure]. And his anger took the form of a great storm that blew up and carried these fragments to every corner of the world so they could still do their work. Some of the fragments were so small, smaller even than grains of sand. They lodged in people’s eyes, and from then on, these poor people could only see the bad things in the world. The good things and the things that move the heart shrank until they were almost invisible from their sight. God was very sad when he saw how damaged the people’s vision had become, and how so many of them could only see the bad things around them, Mere distortions of all that God had pronounced good and beautiful and all that moved the human heart. He had an idea for putting everything right again. “I know what I will do,” he thought to himself. “I will send my true reflection, a mirror of my self. I will send him into the world. He will reflect my goodness and my justice, and show the world how I long for it to be.” So Jesus became a mirror of God on earth. Into the hearts of the sick and despairing he reflected courage and hope. To those in grief, he reflected comfort. To those whose hearts were crippled by fear, he reflected trust. Upon those the world saw as inferior and disposable, he reflected beauty and worth. Many people somehow recognized God’s mirror, and followed Jesus. They loved to see themselves and the world reflected in him. But others were jealous, and felt their own power threatened by the love of God. In the end, they could tolerate him no longer. They plotted against Jesus and killed him. They shattered God’s mirror. And then God’s love caused a powerful storm. It blew thousands and millions of fragments of God’s mirror to every corner of the world, and it continues to do so today. Perhaps the storm is what we know as the Holy Spirit of God. These tiny fragments are taken into the eyes of those who would see God’s world again. The beauty and goodness of God’s creation and God’s people, and those places and people who move God’s heart. And like the grandmother’s eyes in the song, There are those in our life, whose eyes are a mirror of God’s love. They see the world as God sees it And they pronounce it good. They see what moves God’s heart. And their hearts are moved – even enough to lay down their life. You know them when you see yourself in their eyes. Jesus said, “I lay down my life in order to take it up again.” His life is taken up again by all who will allow the storm to blow tiny fragments of his presence into their eyes. And so we might ask ourselves If you are a person who claims his resurrected presence in this world, When people look into your eyes, what do they see?