Jesus said, ‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12The 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. 13The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. 14I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I 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. 17For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18No 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
David
Grossman is a name most ordinary Canadians probably don’t know. Lieutenant
Colonel Grossman’s workshops are endemic in US law enforcement. From a 2017 Men’s
Journal article, quote: “His first book, On Killing, is part of the
curriculum at the FBI academy and on the Marine Corps Commandant’s Professional
Reading List. Its follow-up, On Combat, is probably best known for his
assertion that people can be divided into three groups — sheep, wolves, and
sheepdogs — and it’s the sheepdogs, “blessed with the gift of aggression,†who
are responsible for protecting the sheep from the wolves. The analogy has been
adopted by various military and gun-rights groups[.]â€
The
article also notes that Grossman emphasizes that sheep, a metaphor for the
public, often confuse sheepdogs (the police), with wolves (criminals). The
subtext is that the sheep are too stupid to know the difference. Police are
thereby encouraged to see themselves as martyrs to the facile and disrespectful
whims of an ignorant public. In a quote from Grossman himself, in the same Men’s
Journal article: ‘“Cops fight violence. What do they fight it with?
Superior violence. Righteous violence.â€â€™ A textbook from one of his workshops
includes a whole section on Biblical defenses for killing.
It’s
probably helpful to note here that Grossman has no active combat experience and
his research methods are deeply unscientific. His work is controversial, with
University of Nebraska criminal justice professor Samuel Walker characterizing it
as “okay for the Green Berets but unacceptable for domestic policing,†and
University of South Carolina criminal law professor Seth Stoughton referring to
it as “scaremongering.†After the 2016 murder of Philando Castile in
Minneapolis, several police departments dropped his courses, and last year Minnesota
actually enforced a statewide ban.
In
this context, let’s explore through the lens of today’s Gospel passage, what it
means to see the world through the eyes of someone who cares for sheep.
“He
stood up for people, he was there for people when they were down, he loved
people that were thrown away.â€
This
was what Courteney Ross said about her partner George Floyd in a TV interview
by their local news channel. Other friends of Floyd called agreed that he had a
heart for his community, particularly those living in the Third Ward
neighbourhood in Houston and the neighbouring Cuney Homes housing project where
his church, Resurrection House, focused a lot of their outreach. These friends
were honest about his struggles with addiction and his history in the carceral
system, and so indeed was Floyd himself. His knowledge of the hardships of life
fed his compassion for others.
Floyd
eventually came to Minneapolis through a Christian jobs placement program, and most
of us know that was murdered by a police officer there, which is why people
around the world know his name. That officer, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for
nearly ten minutes, ignoring his strangled cries that he couldn’t breathe, was
convicted as guilty on all counts on Tuesday afternoon of last week.
I’m
not telling you about George Floyd to imply that he is worthy of justice only
because he was a good person. I do think, though, on this Good Shepherd Sunday,
where many churches also observe Vocations Day where we explore what it means
to be called to any kind of ministry, lay or ordained, it’s important to
explore what leadership, what being a good shepherd who feeds, waters, guides,
and protects sheep, really looks like, as opposed to being a sheepdog who does
occasionally protect, but more often is there to keep sheep organized and in
line, according to the will of the farmer.
“He
stood up for people, he was there for people when they were down, he loved
people that were thrown away.â€
If
we’re using the metaphor of sheep, shepherds who care for them, and sheepdogs
who keep them in line, Floyd was a shepherd of sorts. While he was open on his
social media about his frustration with the systemic violence of his
neighbourhood, he used the respect he had gained in that community to lead
people, particularly young people, to the path of peace as he understood it through
his church.
The greatest difference between our Good Shepherd and Floyd is that Jesus says in today’s passage, “I lay down my life in order to take it up again. 18 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.â€
Floyd’s
death was not in service to anyone. While it sparked a
worldwide movement, that movement’s lament and rage at his loss is what gave
meaning to it. The loss itself was senseless, a precious life that was loved.
The movement crying out for justice for those murdered with impunity by police is
what has given meaning to those who loved him – not the death itself. To say
otherwise is to imply that justice only occurs at the death or other traumatic
expense of the marginalized. This is sadly often true, but we know it shouldn’t
be.
And indeed, perhaps this notion is what many of us find
challenging about Jesus’s death. For so many Christians, the focus on the saving
nature of Jesus’s death is what gives meaning to the entirety of the faith. But
for many of us, there are so many questions: Why would God allow this to
happen? Why did it have to be this way? Did Jesus really know what was
coming? What was the metaphysical process involved in this one death providing
salvation for the whole world?
And these questions then feed into other passages about how
we, those left behind in the echo of the Resurrection, are to live our lives. When
Jesus calls us to take up our crosses, does that mean we are called to not only
accept but embrace suffering, even death, at the hands of an oppressor? Are we
to see ourselves as righteous for putting up with a world that doesn’t
understand us, that hates us and marginalizes us? Are we to see the world as an
unrepentantly evil and lonely place where we always have to be on guard, armed
for wolves? Do we sort ourselves into these arbitrary groups when we are
actually all human, and flawed, and just as capable of choosing and cultivating
peace as violence in our daily lives?
The
sort of person who ascribes to Grossman’s worldview wakes up every day to a
universe of fear and resentment. Jesus, in his relatively short time on earth,
surely didn’t. If he had, he wouldn’t have made a habit of eating and drinking
with tax collectors and sex workers. Jesus, who knew plenty about violence,
betrayal, anger against injustice, and state repression, did not come as a
sheepdog to keep us nice and tidy in line and rid the world of wolves. He came
as a shepherd, feeding us then and continuing to feed us now; guiding us to
green pastures and still waters; leaving the ninety-nine to find the lost;
defending us knowing that he could do so empowered by God to take up the life
he sacrificed.
Knowing
this, what are we to do, on this Vocations Sunday?
We
do not have the power to take up our lives again, whether they’re lost to
violence or the normal course of mortality. As a priest I do not find the
metaphor of shepherd particularly helpful to frame my own ministry. It
encourages me to enter into that world where you, the people among whom I serve,
are othered and infantilized, breeding paternalism and resentment. It’s
likewise disingenuous to deny the privilege I have as an ordained person and
say that you’re the shepherd and I’m the sheep.
Perhaps
during this wild and rather amazing time of pandemic, uprising, and the shock
of resurrection, it’s better to focus on who we belong to.
Who
is our shepherd? How does he love us? And in his physical absence, how can we
love each other?
We can remember how he was with us, and what he said to us, through the stories of those who came before us. And we can make sure that, when we’re huddled together in times of cold or fear, none of us are missing, none of us are forgotten, none of us are lost.
Last year I wrote The Quarantine Hymns, a set of twelve songs (at least so far) written during social isolation. Although I will only be posting excerpts on Soundcloud, the full album will be available for purchase on Bandcamp. This one, though, is my favourite, so I decided to post it in full.
This song was written in the immediate aftermath of my first livestreamed Eucharist back at the beginning of lockdown in March of 2020. As I watched the Body of Christ being received and then taken away from me through the video window on my laptop, I had an unexpected and visceral reaction, bending over and wailing at my inability to reach out and take what I had taken so easily and sometimes without much thought so many times before.
I had at the time been taking part in a course on Rumi’s masterwork the Masnavi, which included some passages about the famous and doomed lovers Majnun and Layla. Sufis understand their story as an analogue for the ardent longing shared between the soul and God, the divine Beloved. This was in my mind as I wrote the song in an almost white hot fury of grief. The line about “gathering other love-mad rogues on this creaky bark” references a Zoom Eucharist I celebrated that night with two friends, before my Archbishop forbid them. It was my first and only time presiding over or attending a Zoom Eucharist, and while I neither condemn nor necessarily condone them, I needed to do it that night, and I will always defend my conviction that it was efficacious.
Because of the song’s connection to Sufism I have
included several lines from illahis, Sufi devotional songs, penned by
two great poets: the 13th century Turkish dervish Yunus Emre and the
14th century Azerbaijani poet Seyyid Nesimi.
At the beginning, the
whispered voice says, “Inside waters wide and deep, I wander thirsty
all around. For this problem of mine, no solutions can be found.”
In the bridge, you’ll hear one voice sing, “The one who doesn’t burn can’t know the fire of Love.” (tr. Seemi Ghazi).
And finally, one phrase in particular pops up over and over throughout the hymn: Aşıklar ölmez. “Lovers never die.”
It is the
day we privileged people come to a reckoning, a day when we are forced to
behold everything that has come about because of our cruelty, apathy, oppression,
and empire.
Today is the
day that our sin lurches into the light and demands to be seen, demands acknowledgement,
demands recompense – and in so doing, becomes a friend to us.
For only today will many of us even come close to recognizing how broken and in need of resurrection we are, and it may be, in the fear and anguish of that recognition, that we choose to turn aside and do something different.
Opening
Prayer
Holy God, like a loving and good parent you give us what we need to grow, and on this day your Son showed us how to walk the way of Love. But like little children, we forget, and like immature adults we avoid and deny our failings. Teach us to be open to your learning, and touch our hearts so that we may make different choices. Accept our prayers through your Son, who chose the way of suffering and death to be closest to those whom you love so dearly: the poor, the outcast, and the oppressed. Amen.
The First Station: Jesus is condemned to die
Jesus is
condemned to die for daring to question Rome, the power that enslaved his
people. He is condemned by a system that would tolerate only unquestioning
acceptance of the so-called rule of law, law that cares for perceived order
over human life, that ignores justice in favour of idolatry, that glorifies the
powerful and tramples the poor underfoot, that imprisons and defiles, that
murders the whole earth freely. It is so-called “law and order†that we all too
often still hold up as righteous even though we should know better.
He is
condemned with the help of the religious authorities of the occupied territory,
desperate to maintain safety, surely knowing that nothing they did would ever
placate empire, which only seeks to devour and destroy, but thinking they could
buy a bit more time, a bit more peace, just a bit more until they could find
some way out. Do not all the oppressed have moments where nothing can be done
but grasp for pure survival – and does God not wish for humankind more than simple
survival? Does God not wish abundance of life and joyful union?
He is condemned around the time of Passover, the festival when his people remember their freedom. God gave the gifts of Passover and the Covenant to an enslaved people as a sign of liberation and new identity, and yet we the Church have abused and murdered the Jewish people, from blood libels to pogroms to Poway. Many of us liberal Christians also steal and appropriate the rituals which once did and still do come with the cost of violence for Jews, often at the hands of our own people. Despite all of this, God continues to call the enslaved forward, away from their oppression and into freedom.
God of the covenant, you are the One who breaks the chains of slavery, opens the doors of the prisons, and honours the prayers of your people. Teach us to be liberators. Teach us to learn.
The Second
Station: Jesus carries his cross
Jesus is condemned, and the instrument of his torment is laid across his back: a cross, hewn from a tree, once a symbol of steadfast and fruitful life now ragged and rough and splintered, a sign of the upending of God’s will for the human creature. Jesus is forced along his way with an imposed burden, and like all of the oppressed he struggles against that imposed weight. As he stumbles down the road, he is mocked and derided by those who observe him, as if he can help struggling, as if anyone could bear up under such crushing weight. Instead we point and laugh, curl our lips and wag our heads, and say, “Well if he had just followed the rules†or “If she had just dressed modestly†or “If they had just tried harder to fit in, this wouldn’t have happened.†We deny and turn away even though we know that we played a part in laying this burden across the shoulders of the oppressed.
God of the burdened, you are the One who walks beside us in times of difficulty, and calls us to stand in solidarity with those who carry Crosses of marginalization. Teach us to be strong. Teach us to lighten the loads of others.
The Third
Station: Jesus falls the first time
Jesus stumbles
through the streets and, no longer able to bear the weight, he falls. And how
we exult in his frailty, how we delight in our superiority, how we take comfort
in the notion that the world is just, and try to out-shout those around us, because
maybe if we shout and laugh louder than our neighbours, the system won’t grind
us up next, even though we know it’s not true. We know that the system is set
up to fail all of us at any time without our consent, and yet when it’s not
failing us it’s so, so warm and comforting. How blessed it feels when the boot
on the neck of the broken is our boot, and how peaceful ignorance feels to the powerful.
How close to heaven we feel when we are kept above the earth – and yet we are
all made of earth, and earth can and will meet earth at any time.
God of the fallen, you are the One who willingly chose lowliness in order to be closer to us, your beloved earth-creatures. Teach us to be earthly. Teach us to see.
The
Fourth Station: Jesus meets his mother
Jesus stumbles
through the streets and meets his mother, and how she must have wailed to see
him so scorned and humiliated and abused, how she must have wailed as all
mothers of desaparecidos and police murder victims must wail, on the
streets and in the courts and in their homes where the cameras can’t and won’t
capture their grief to make a nice photo for us to gawk at in our newspapers.
How she must have wailed and clung to him as Mamie Till clung to Emmett, as
Debbie Baptiste clung to Colten, as countless women in immigration camps and tenements
and reservations cling to photos or memories of their stolen children.
God of the connected, you are the One who embraced shame to better know the hearts of those who are shamed in our world. Teach us to be fierce in love. Teach us to wail at injustice.
The Fifth
Station: Simon of Cyrene helps to carry the cross
Jesus
stumbles through the streets and the architects of his misery and torment draft
Simon of Cyrene to help him carry his cross – and isn’t this always how we who
are white feed the cancer of our system and our comforts, secretly delighting
in the sorrow and degradation of people unlike us to make us feel both superior
but also paternalistic and wise? Isn’t it our insisting on a near pornographic
witness of trauma, pretending that we didn’t force Simon to bear the
burden alongside this person, watching as if it happened naturally because of the
identities they share, how we maintain our sense of wisdom and godliness? Do we
not tut at the difficulties of oppression as though they are not imposed, and
do we not erase the individuality of these two who are so different, making
them the same in order to feed the ever-ravenous engine of empire, which runs
on Black and Indigenous bodies? Do we not create a system of perpetual anguish,
denying needed resources, and then use the failure of those struggling within
that system as an excuse to pathologize their colour and culture and deny them
further?
God of the drafted, you are the One who has given the oppressed the gift of strength through community and solidarity. Teach us to be prophets against a system seeking to divide. Teach us to advocate.
The Sixth
Station: Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
Jesus stumbles
through the streets and meets Veronica, who wipes his face with her towel, a
prophetic act of kindness, and of course she does, because those who have known
oppression can offer care to others in the same position freely, and yet we who
are powerful, we who are white, we who are educated, we who are privileged by
the system demand kindness and patience and care and education from the
oppressed. We demand time and space. We insert ourselves into their narratives
claiming we are just like them. We steal their stories and share them as our
own. We immortalize suitably photogenic moments in pictures and share them for
points on social media. We parachute into places of pain and insist on leading
the charge toward freedom without tools or understanding or empathy – never considering
that the oppressed have their own strength and voices, never considering that
they may know far better than we do how to care for one another.
God of Hagar and Elizabeth, you are the One who pours out power not to the powerful but to the weak and despised. Teach us to be quiet. Teach us to listen.
The
Seventh Station: Jesus falls the second time
Jesus
stumbles through the streets and falls for the second time as the crowd jeers
around him – and so too do we heap abuse and disdain on those who need more
help than we are willing to give, refusing to take responsibility for one another
even as we spew platitudes of unity and the human family. So too do we moan
about entitlement and demand groveling and obeisance and perfection and “proper
language†and assimilation of those who demand what they need to survive, because
of course we truly believe that they don’t deserve it. So too do we insist on
only saving those who look and sound like us, and so too will we, once we find
ourselves in that position, or something that we deem is equivalent,
demand help and resources and education because “it’s different with me.â€
God of the silenced, you are the One who didn’t hold back from criticizing the sins of the powerful and idolatrous. Teach us to be vulnerable. Teach us to break the idol of imposed self-reliance.
The
Eighth Station: Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
Jesus
stumbles through the streets and meets the women of Jerusalem, and of course,
because women were the ones who refused to desert Jesus, and still are – women
of colour, immigrant women, working women who cook and maintain households and raise
children and care for elders (theirs and our own) and organize and
demand justice for themselves and their families and friends and children, women
who work when we won’t, women constantly forced to advocate for themselves and
others without recognition or remuneration only to be scorned and mocked and
raped and tone-policed and abused and gaslit and ignored, women who despite all
of that still show up while Jesus’s male so-called friends denied and
deserted, women who refuse to end the work because if they do, it won’t be
done.
God of workers and caregivers, you are the One who taught us to walk, who mothers us like a hen with a brood under her wings. Teach us to be tireless in the work of justice. Teach us to show up.
The Ninth
Station: Jesus falls the third time
Jesus stumbles
through the streets and falls the third time, the final time, and how often do
we, upon seeing the constant stumbling of others, “give up†and relinquish our
care, our money, and our time? How often do we withdraw our support because of
tone or differing goals or just plain pettiness? How often do we refuse to
admit that we might be a part of why the people we claim to care about keep
failing? How often do we refuse to hire people whom we know will challenge the
cultures of our workplaces? How often do we cut off support for friends and
family members for not following the rules we arbitrarily set for them? How
often do we run out of patience with those who continue to experience and tell
their stories of trauma, pain, and systemic oppression and tell them to “look
on the bright side,†to “not be such a downer,†to “try harder� How often do
we turn our backs on those who have enough respect for us to challenge us on
our behaviour and label them as “toxic� How often do we weaponize our tears
and fragility against them? How often do we look at those who fail to keep jobs
and housing, who fail to find love, who fail to heal from sickness, who fail to
assimilate or pass, and think “It has to be their fault?†How often do we say, “It
has nothing to do with me�
God of the losers, you are the One who never gives up on anyone, and to whom no-one is lost or dead. Teach us to be faithful. Teach us to help and give freely and with respect for the needs of others.
The Tenth
Station: Jesus is stripped
Jesus is
brought to Golgotha and stripped of his clothes. He is fully on display, and
how the crowd must have been both horrified and titillated by his shame, just
as we are horrified and titillated by stories of rape and sexual violence, just
as we are horrified and titillated by the sight or even just the idea of any
body that doesn’t look like our own, like the bodies of trans people and
intersex people and disabled people. We demand sexuality but only according to
our standards and whims, and fly into a rage whenever we see it owned or
celebrated by those who claim it for themselves, particularly cis and trans
women, sex workers, queer people, disabled people, and fat people. We also
demand different kinds of nakedness: emotional intimacy with people unlike us,
especially Black and Indigenous people of colour, coming out narratives,
details of stories of oppression and violence, the carving out of one’s most deeply
personal identities – not in order to learn, but to feel privileged and honoured
by the experience. We loathe and fear nakedness, and yet we are drawn to it. Perhaps
God knew that, and sought to help us transform our relationship to it. Maybe
God knew the only way to really get through to us was to embody that nakedness
Herself, in the body of a brown and executed prisoner of empire.
God of the naked, you are the One who hallowed all flesh, making holy what was once only dust. Teach us to be naked. Teach us to honour all flesh.
The
Eleventh Station: Jesus is nailed to the cross
Jesus is
nailed to the cross, and in this horror we see clearly how we love to objectify
and stare at the pain of the oppressed. When we as the powerful make mistakes,
we often claim “We didn’t know this would cause pain,†and demand again and
again that the oppressed crucify themselves, prove their pain, share their pain
– even though the oppressed have always shared their pain and stories, and we either
ignore or consume without thought; even though every day we ourselves crucify
them with our words and our bodies and our choices, with microaggressions and
macroaggressions, systemic and individual racism, homophobia and conversion
therapy, transphobia and bathroom bills and denial of care, with our platforms
and our everyday relationships, with our ignorance and our tears, with calls to
the police and calls for civility, with legislation and derisive laughter and
willful ignorance. We nail Jesus to the cross over and over, neither knowing or
caring that we forfeit our souls every time we do so.
God of the abused, you are the One who received violence yet had the power to break the cycle. Teach us to be instruments of peace. Teach us to break cycles of violence.
The Twelfth
Station: Jesus dies on the cross
Jesus is nailed
to the cross, and after feeling the total and abject pain of abandonment, dies
publicly, with the architects of his murder, his family, his friends, and the
gawking crowd around him. And how long did he hang there dead until gruesome
proof was sought in the form of a cruel spear? It wasn’t hours in the heat like
Michael Brown, or days in the Red River like Tina Fontaine. Jesus died a
criminal of empire, without comfort or advocacy, and how many do we continue to
allow to die this way in order for the system to continue to our benefit? How
many times will we do nothing but solemnly shake our heads as though it were an
act of God that killed these precious ones, rather than our own apathy and
unexamined, unconscious hate – for it must be hate we have for the murdered and
maimed, or we would not continue to allow these things to happen. If we didn’t
hate them, we would tear the empire down with our bare hands. Instead, we stand
within it and send out our scapegoats with rocks and taunts, all the while performatively
mourning and somehow even believing in the so-called necessity of this ritual.
God of the executed, you are the One who chose a lynching at Golgotha over siding with the rich and powerful. Teach us to be brave. Teach us to rage against murder.
The
Thirteenth Station: Jesus’s body is removed from the cross
Jesus is
dead, and his body is removed from the Cross and returned to the ones who loved
him. And what a strange and unbelievable gift is given to this criminal’s
family which is so often denied to others like him. How often are the
unclaimed, the unknown, and the unheard left to rot – the unhoused, the elderly
alone or in care homes, the disabled, the mentally ill, the incarcerated, missing
and murdered Indigenous women, murdered sex workers, and political desaparecidos
who are never found?
God of the forgotten, you are the One whose broken body was brought down from the Cross, and the One who therefore sees the bodies of all who are cast aside. Teach us to be compassionate. Teach us not to forget or turn away.
The
Fourteenth Station: Jesus is laid in the tomb
Jesus is
dead, removed from the Cross, and laid in the tomb. His strife and pain are
over. And how often the oppressed only escape their oppression in death. How
often we Christians normalize this state of affairs by focusing only on the
fate of our souls once life is past. How often we encourage others to set their
eyes on heaven, or let their fear of hell dictate their lives, as a way to
avoid the work of justice in the here and now, disregarding Jesus’s insistence
that the Kingdom of God was here and now as well as not yet.
And how many
of us will feel caught up short by these stations only to turn around and go
home, leaving the garden and the tomb and ourselves unchanged, forgetting that
in the joy and colour and delight that is to come, we are not being called to
celebrate our forgiveness but called to completely overturn everything we
thought we knew about life and death and the world God loves so dearly?
For the
annihilation of the sting of death demands unprecedented newness of life, demands
recklessness, demands redemption. How can we live in the ringing echo of resurrection
while continuing to prop up the same injustices, the same apathy, the same
oppression, continuing to crucify, continuing to fill an empty tomb with our
dead?
How, in the
wake of that incredible transformation, can we continue to live such a lie?
God of the living and the here and now, you are the One who shows us that the finality of death is no absolute. Teach us to be foolish. Teach us to dream the impossible.
Final
Prayer
Beloved
One, in sorrow and wonder we behold you and your mighty act of Love. With compassion
and selflessness you have redeemed the entire universe. Now, we pray for the
courage and grace to sit in solidarity with each other, waiting for the moment
of your return, when all will be made new in the grand sunrise of resurrection.
Holy God,
save us from the shackles of empire. Liberate us from the slavery of our sins.
Empower us with your Spirit of Life to tear down the walls we build around one
another, and the scaffold of empire, and fashion them into flowerbeds. Amen.