Sermon 12th June 2011
Today, one of our Lay Readers, Adjoa Andoh Cunnell, preaches based on the reading from John 10: 11-18.
In 1780 George Alfred Ripley of Skipwith farm, nr Selbey in Vale of York entered the annual local agricultural show for best flock, and won a solid silver sheep cup. The cup was inscribed with the initials GA Ripley and silver marked ‘1780’.
7 generations of the Ripley Family raised sheep at Skipwith farm and every eldest son thereafter was named George A Ripley, So honoured were they to have won that cup.
By the start of the 20th century the Ripley’s had fallen on hard times and were now tenant farmers in Shaklefield . As the Depression dragged on George Albert Ripley was forced to sell up what stock remained and leave the farm. With his wife and young daughter Lizzie, George walked from Yorkshire to Lincolnshire ,all the family belongings piled onto a handcart with little Lizzie on top. In a hamlet called Somersby, George got work as a farm labourer. When she grew up Lizzie probably worked in service locally, later daughters, Agnes and Dorothy at 14 went away to work in service. George, the youngest and the only boy, ran away to sea to avoid becoming a farm labourer. He worked in Liverpool as a valet , but Young George wanted to better himself and went to night school to study marine engineering, eventually getting his ticket and working his way up to become chief engineer on the QE2.
But back in1947, with Young George now at sea, his wife and young daughter went to Somersby to visit Grandad George. He wanted to give the cup to the wife to pass on to his only son. He had remained a labourer all his life and had nothing else to give. During the war when George senior had feared the Germans were going to invade, the only thing of value in the house was the sheep cup so he buried it in the garden and there it remained until this visit in 1947.
The soil was still clinging to it, it was battered, discoloured and had no base, just the cup. The wife dutifully took the battered thing back to Liverpool thinking what’s the fuss?, had it beaten out back into shape and every week the little girl had to polish the cup.
Why do I start with that story? - Because the little girl Jacqueline whose job it was, as she puts it, “to polish that blessed cup week!”, was my mum. Believe it or not I come from a long line of Shepherds!
But what touched me so much about this story, was the family’s pride in their flock and their care of that flock and their feeling so honoured at how well regarded they were by their sheep farming peers. That’s what the Cup meant to them.
So much that they honoured the meaning of the cup by the naming of every first born son after the cupwinning George A Ripley of 1780, right up to my seafaring granddad George Alwyn.
Even when hard times fell and they were no longer farm owners they still held the sheep cup in high regard for what it represented of their past skills, duties and constancy.
As I wrote this on last thunderous Friday evening, a huge rainbow has appeared in the sky, I know there is a meteorological explanation, but the rainbow, the visible reminder of God’s constancy through all the storms of life from Noah till today and beyond, brings fresh comfort each time it appears.
Something of that constancy I see in the Ripley sheep cup, buried in that Lincolnshire back garden during the war for safe keeping, never to be sold not even when the family were in direst poverty, a solid silver cup, but prized for a value beyond money.
The last George in our family was my Uncle Andrew who will have died a year ago this Friday. But we still have the sheep cup of which Uncle Andrew like the rest of the family remained incredibly proud, for what it says of family, care and constancy down the ages
When we think on this morning’s passage Jesus speaks of that care and constancy to be found in a Good Shepherd.
“I am the Good Shepherd” he says.
What image is conjured by the word Shepherd?
Sun filled skies?
Neat green fields?
Fluffy lambs?
Perhaps a ruddy-faced shepherd in a smock, pipe in mouth, crook in hand, trusty black and white sheep dog moving amongst the flock alert to his master’s every command….?
Well actually on some days, in some places, that image may still hold true,
but there are shepherds and flocks on rocky outcrops in hot dry places all over the world, a bit like the Palestine of Jesus’ day.
And in New Zealand the shepherd is most likely to be found on a motorbike, with huge flocks roaming vast areas of land.
The life of the shepherd remains a physically demanding and at times incredibly dangerous one, the vulnerability of numerous sheep has not changed, wolves, sheep rustlers, dangerous terrain, disease,….. none of that has changed since the time of the Gospels.
I went online (as you do) and there are so many diseases to look out for in sheep!!
Footrot, Sore mouth, Scrapie or Wasting disease, Pneumonia, muscular dystrophy, Bacterial meningitis, Rabies, Tetanus, and Lamb Starvation. To name but a few.
Lamb starvation, the number one killer of lambs, is often is associated with a lack of shepherding.
It takes a good shepherd to be on the alert, ready and willing to defend their sheep against all comers.
In Biblical times the bucolic nostalgic image of that benevolent besmocked shepherd, beloved of Sunday evening costume drama, would have seemed bizarre.
For many at that time a shepherd was regarded as about as trustworthy as todays used car salesman, or should that be banker or politician.
Shepherds might either own their flock, be the longterm employee of the flock’s owner or short termers travelling from place to place picking up work where they could. There were good shepherds but there were also bad shepherds.
In v 12 when Jesus talks about the hired hand who sees the wolf coming and abandons the flock, he is perhaps thinking of those short term workers. The bad Shepherds. They are not in it for the long haul, they have no relationship with the sheep or the owner, theirs is not a lifelong commitment.
They are not the ‘Good’ Shepherd’.
Jesus says I am the Good shepherd.
‘I know my sheep and my sheep know me’, he says.
When you hear of something dreadful or wonderful happening, doesn’t that event take on a special meaning when you know someone involved, doesn’t it change the attention you pay to that event?
One of my best friends was awarded an OBE, I now always pay more attention to the announcements. I’ve seen the photos of her in her big hat meeting the queen and the daughter of communist parents, who were very proud!
I have another friend who was in Sri Lanka with her 2 young daughters when the Tsunami hit and barely escaped with their lives from their beach guest house. They were all traumatised. I watched events unfold with especial horror.
Jesus the Good Shepherd, knows his sheep intimately: as well as God the father knows him and he knows God the father.
There is no closer knowledge than that and that is how closely, Jesus knows all the corners of our hearts, all the events of our lives.
And that is how keenly interested in us, he is, how deeply connected to us he is.
(He is)The shepherd who cares so much for his flock, who is so alert to the dangers which may beset them, who loves that flock so dearly that he would die for them, for us.
Jesus is in it for the longest term with us, for eternity.
In John 5:24 he tells us
Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
When he is the Good Shepherd of our lives no wolf can overcome us.
Jesus talks of having ‘other sheep’ who belong to him who must be brought into the same sheep pen as the first.
If we are the first sheep spoken of , who are these other sheep??
Well of course when Jesus was speaking to his disciples, they would have been the first sheep and we gentiles, non Jews across the globe, the other sheep.
Now as we listen to Jesus’ words in 2011, in a world where his message has reached our shores and our hearing, perhaps we also see ourselves as the first sheep, we who have heard the call to give our hearts and lives to Jesus,
And so perhaps we see the other sheep as those who have not yet given their lives to Christ ,
Or those who have no interest in giving their lives to Christ,
Who once did but have since wandered out of the pen
Or maybe those who feel they are not worth any shepherd bothering about their welfare..
We may have the comfort and encouragement of knowing that against the wolves that enter our lives we will be defended by the mightiest and most loving of shepherds,
yet beyond this comfort, if we are followers of Christ , then it is also his lead, his example that we must follow in the living of our lives.
If he is the Good Shepherd to all the sheep,
the we and the other,
then so must we be!
I was speaking at the Hay On Wye fringe festival – how the light gets in- last Saturday evening on the theme of altruism and charity.
One of the other panelists was a super smart, young very likable professor of Philisophy at the LSE. We were discussing the notion of the selfless deed and I spoke about the concept of a world family, for me out of a faith conviction that we are all God’s creation, therefore I would have a concern for my brothers and sisters globally. He argued that it is indeed a lovely idea, but was not convinced I meant it, since as a man of empirical evidence only, not faith, he argued that human beings really only care about kith and kin, family and friends but faraway people…? They are less likely to engage our interest or concern.
I can of course see why he would believe that and perhaps left to love the world as Jesus loves, under our own steam, that would be a much harder task,
but it is of huge encouragement and makes everything possible for us to attempt what Jesus asks of us,
when we remember on this Pentecost Sunday, that we are not required by Jesus to be Good Shepherds under our own steam at all!
We have the power of the Holy Spirit, the genuine power and inspiration left to us by Christ to support all our efforts.
Just as God the Father loves Jesus, just as Jesus loves we sheep,( loves us so much that he has willingly died to protect us from the wolfish conseqeunces of lives lived in the absence of God,) so we are called to love all of his sheep, those we consider in the pen with us and those we consider outside, for none of us are outside the love of Christ,
for all of us Jesus willingly died.
I come back to the comfort we have in knowing that we are defended by the mightiest of shepherds. Where we read at verses 17-18
GOOD NEWS:
“The Father loves me because I am willing to give up my life, in order that I may receive it back again. 18 No one takes my life away from me. I give it up of my own free will. I have the right to give it up, and I have the right to take it back. This is what my father has commanded me to do.”
NIV:
The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
The outcome of the struggle between the Good Shepherd and the wolves that torment and threaten our lives is not in doubt, Jesus tells us he lays down his life, but he will take that life back. He is mightier than death. He does so willingly with the authority of the creator and in obedience to this creator Father God. That he lays down and takes up his life again is a manifestation of the power of the creator in whom we put our trust. That Jesus submits himself to the protracted agonies involved in laying down his life is the measure of his love for us and the measure of his understanding of how we suffer.
Our comfort is then in the deep power, deep love and deep understanding of our Shepherd, our defender, our protector and our guide. The one who walks the steepest mountain track of our lives alongside us.
Yet it is also our Shepherd who gives us the commission to continue his work.
In John 21:15-17 later in this Gospel at the last supper Jesus commands Peter
Take care of my lambs
Take care of my sheep.
Take care of my sheep.
(GNT)
NIV “Feed my lambs.”
“Take care of my sheep
“Feed my sheep
Eventually Peter takes up this commission, laying down his own life in Christ’s service and urges us, we read at
1 Peter 5:2
Good News Translation (GNT)
to be shepherds of the flock that God gave you and to take care of it willingly, as God wants you to, and not unwillingly.
1 Peter 5:2
New International Version (NIV)
Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be;
In our Good Shepherding we look to Jesus’ instruction, we look to his Holy Spirit for support and we look to the Kingdom of God as our goal for his world.
The American theologian Rob Bell writes about God’s Kingdom of Heaven in his book “Love Wins”:
‘Taking Heaven seriously, then,’ he says, ‘means taking suffering seriously, now….because we have great confidence that God has not abandoned human history and is actively at work within it, taking it somewhere. Around a billion people in the world today do not have access to clean water. People will have access to clean water in the age to come (‘Heaven’), and so working for clean-water access for all is participating in the life of the age to come. That’s what happens when the future is dragged into the present.’
As we think about how Jesus the Good Shepherd laid down his life, poured out his life for us, I would ask that we look into our hearts this morning…
Are we bringing Christ’s Gospel to his Sheep?
Are we bringing God’s Kingdom to his world?
Are we taking up the commission given us to take care of Christ’s sheep?
In our dark times do we remember that we are all worthy of the Good Shepherd’s care?
Are we using the strength and support available to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit?
Do we remember that the Good Shepherd laid down his life willingly,knowing he would take it up again, because there is no wolf in our lives more powerful to hurt us,
than the Good Shepherd is powerful to heal us.
Our commission is a demanding one - feed my sheep
Our defender is a mighty one - I am the Good Shepherd Christ tells us,
And the Outcome is a wonderful One because in Christ LOVE ALWAYS WINS.
Amen
In 1780 George Alfred Ripley of Skipwith farm, nr Selbey in Vale of York entered the annual local agricultural show for best flock, and won a solid silver sheep cup. The cup was inscribed with the initials GA Ripley and silver marked ‘1780’.
7 generations of the Ripley Family raised sheep at Skipwith farm and every eldest son thereafter was named George A Ripley, So honoured were they to have won that cup.
By the start of the 20th century the Ripley’s had fallen on hard times and were now tenant farmers in Shaklefield . As the Depression dragged on George Albert Ripley was forced to sell up what stock remained and leave the farm. With his wife and young daughter Lizzie, George walked from Yorkshire to Lincolnshire ,all the family belongings piled onto a handcart with little Lizzie on top. In a hamlet called Somersby, George got work as a farm labourer. When she grew up Lizzie probably worked in service locally, later daughters, Agnes and Dorothy at 14 went away to work in service. George, the youngest and the only boy, ran away to sea to avoid becoming a farm labourer. He worked in Liverpool as a valet , but Young George wanted to better himself and went to night school to study marine engineering, eventually getting his ticket and working his way up to become chief engineer on the QE2.
But back in1947, with Young George now at sea, his wife and young daughter went to Somersby to visit Grandad George. He wanted to give the cup to the wife to pass on to his only son. He had remained a labourer all his life and had nothing else to give. During the war when George senior had feared the Germans were going to invade, the only thing of value in the house was the sheep cup so he buried it in the garden and there it remained until this visit in 1947.
The soil was still clinging to it, it was battered, discoloured and had no base, just the cup. The wife dutifully took the battered thing back to Liverpool thinking what’s the fuss?, had it beaten out back into shape and every week the little girl had to polish the cup.
Why do I start with that story? - Because the little girl Jacqueline whose job it was, as she puts it, “to polish that blessed cup week!”, was my mum. Believe it or not I come from a long line of Shepherds!
But what touched me so much about this story, was the family’s pride in their flock and their care of that flock and their feeling so honoured at how well regarded they were by their sheep farming peers. That’s what the Cup meant to them.
So much that they honoured the meaning of the cup by the naming of every first born son after the cupwinning George A Ripley of 1780, right up to my seafaring granddad George Alwyn.
Even when hard times fell and they were no longer farm owners they still held the sheep cup in high regard for what it represented of their past skills, duties and constancy.
As I wrote this on last thunderous Friday evening, a huge rainbow has appeared in the sky, I know there is a meteorological explanation, but the rainbow, the visible reminder of God’s constancy through all the storms of life from Noah till today and beyond, brings fresh comfort each time it appears.
Something of that constancy I see in the Ripley sheep cup, buried in that Lincolnshire back garden during the war for safe keeping, never to be sold not even when the family were in direst poverty, a solid silver cup, but prized for a value beyond money.
The last George in our family was my Uncle Andrew who will have died a year ago this Friday. But we still have the sheep cup of which Uncle Andrew like the rest of the family remained incredibly proud, for what it says of family, care and constancy down the ages
When we think on this morning’s passage Jesus speaks of that care and constancy to be found in a Good Shepherd.
“I am the Good Shepherd” he says.
What image is conjured by the word Shepherd?
Sun filled skies?
Neat green fields?
Fluffy lambs?
Perhaps a ruddy-faced shepherd in a smock, pipe in mouth, crook in hand, trusty black and white sheep dog moving amongst the flock alert to his master’s every command….?
Well actually on some days, in some places, that image may still hold true,
but there are shepherds and flocks on rocky outcrops in hot dry places all over the world, a bit like the Palestine of Jesus’ day.
And in New Zealand the shepherd is most likely to be found on a motorbike, with huge flocks roaming vast areas of land.
The life of the shepherd remains a physically demanding and at times incredibly dangerous one, the vulnerability of numerous sheep has not changed, wolves, sheep rustlers, dangerous terrain, disease,….. none of that has changed since the time of the Gospels.
I went online (as you do) and there are so many diseases to look out for in sheep!!
Footrot, Sore mouth, Scrapie or Wasting disease, Pneumonia, muscular dystrophy, Bacterial meningitis, Rabies, Tetanus, and Lamb Starvation. To name but a few.
Lamb starvation, the number one killer of lambs, is often is associated with a lack of shepherding.
It takes a good shepherd to be on the alert, ready and willing to defend their sheep against all comers.
In Biblical times the bucolic nostalgic image of that benevolent besmocked shepherd, beloved of Sunday evening costume drama, would have seemed bizarre.
For many at that time a shepherd was regarded as about as trustworthy as todays used car salesman, or should that be banker or politician.
Shepherds might either own their flock, be the longterm employee of the flock’s owner or short termers travelling from place to place picking up work where they could. There were good shepherds but there were also bad shepherds.
In v 12 when Jesus talks about the hired hand who sees the wolf coming and abandons the flock, he is perhaps thinking of those short term workers. The bad Shepherds. They are not in it for the long haul, they have no relationship with the sheep or the owner, theirs is not a lifelong commitment.
They are not the ‘Good’ Shepherd’.
Jesus says I am the Good shepherd.
‘I know my sheep and my sheep know me’, he says.
When you hear of something dreadful or wonderful happening, doesn’t that event take on a special meaning when you know someone involved, doesn’t it change the attention you pay to that event?
One of my best friends was awarded an OBE, I now always pay more attention to the announcements. I’ve seen the photos of her in her big hat meeting the queen and the daughter of communist parents, who were very proud!
I have another friend who was in Sri Lanka with her 2 young daughters when the Tsunami hit and barely escaped with their lives from their beach guest house. They were all traumatised. I watched events unfold with especial horror.
Jesus the Good Shepherd, knows his sheep intimately: as well as God the father knows him and he knows God the father.
There is no closer knowledge than that and that is how closely, Jesus knows all the corners of our hearts, all the events of our lives.
And that is how keenly interested in us, he is, how deeply connected to us he is.
(He is)The shepherd who cares so much for his flock, who is so alert to the dangers which may beset them, who loves that flock so dearly that he would die for them, for us.
Jesus is in it for the longest term with us, for eternity.
In John 5:24 he tells us
Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.
When he is the Good Shepherd of our lives no wolf can overcome us.
Jesus talks of having ‘other sheep’ who belong to him who must be brought into the same sheep pen as the first.
If we are the first sheep spoken of , who are these other sheep??
Well of course when Jesus was speaking to his disciples, they would have been the first sheep and we gentiles, non Jews across the globe, the other sheep.
Now as we listen to Jesus’ words in 2011, in a world where his message has reached our shores and our hearing, perhaps we also see ourselves as the first sheep, we who have heard the call to give our hearts and lives to Jesus,
And so perhaps we see the other sheep as those who have not yet given their lives to Christ ,
Or those who have no interest in giving their lives to Christ,
Who once did but have since wandered out of the pen
Or maybe those who feel they are not worth any shepherd bothering about their welfare..
We may have the comfort and encouragement of knowing that against the wolves that enter our lives we will be defended by the mightiest and most loving of shepherds,
yet beyond this comfort, if we are followers of Christ , then it is also his lead, his example that we must follow in the living of our lives.
If he is the Good Shepherd to all the sheep,
the we and the other,
then so must we be!
I was speaking at the Hay On Wye fringe festival – how the light gets in- last Saturday evening on the theme of altruism and charity.
One of the other panelists was a super smart, young very likable professor of Philisophy at the LSE. We were discussing the notion of the selfless deed and I spoke about the concept of a world family, for me out of a faith conviction that we are all God’s creation, therefore I would have a concern for my brothers and sisters globally. He argued that it is indeed a lovely idea, but was not convinced I meant it, since as a man of empirical evidence only, not faith, he argued that human beings really only care about kith and kin, family and friends but faraway people…? They are less likely to engage our interest or concern.
I can of course see why he would believe that and perhaps left to love the world as Jesus loves, under our own steam, that would be a much harder task,
but it is of huge encouragement and makes everything possible for us to attempt what Jesus asks of us,
when we remember on this Pentecost Sunday, that we are not required by Jesus to be Good Shepherds under our own steam at all!
We have the power of the Holy Spirit, the genuine power and inspiration left to us by Christ to support all our efforts.
Just as God the Father loves Jesus, just as Jesus loves we sheep,( loves us so much that he has willingly died to protect us from the wolfish conseqeunces of lives lived in the absence of God,) so we are called to love all of his sheep, those we consider in the pen with us and those we consider outside, for none of us are outside the love of Christ,
for all of us Jesus willingly died.
I come back to the comfort we have in knowing that we are defended by the mightiest of shepherds. Where we read at verses 17-18
GOOD NEWS:
“The Father loves me because I am willing to give up my life, in order that I may receive it back again. 18 No one takes my life away from me. I give it up of my own free will. I have the right to give it up, and I have the right to take it back. This is what my father has commanded me to do.”
NIV:
The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
The outcome of the struggle between the Good Shepherd and the wolves that torment and threaten our lives is not in doubt, Jesus tells us he lays down his life, but he will take that life back. He is mightier than death. He does so willingly with the authority of the creator and in obedience to this creator Father God. That he lays down and takes up his life again is a manifestation of the power of the creator in whom we put our trust. That Jesus submits himself to the protracted agonies involved in laying down his life is the measure of his love for us and the measure of his understanding of how we suffer.
Our comfort is then in the deep power, deep love and deep understanding of our Shepherd, our defender, our protector and our guide. The one who walks the steepest mountain track of our lives alongside us.
Yet it is also our Shepherd who gives us the commission to continue his work.
In John 21:15-17 later in this Gospel at the last supper Jesus commands Peter
Take care of my lambs
Take care of my sheep.
Take care of my sheep.
(GNT)
NIV “Feed my lambs.”
“Take care of my sheep
“Feed my sheep
Eventually Peter takes up this commission, laying down his own life in Christ’s service and urges us, we read at
1 Peter 5:2
Good News Translation (GNT)
to be shepherds of the flock that God gave you and to take care of it willingly, as God wants you to, and not unwillingly.
1 Peter 5:2
New International Version (NIV)
Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be;
In our Good Shepherding we look to Jesus’ instruction, we look to his Holy Spirit for support and we look to the Kingdom of God as our goal for his world.
The American theologian Rob Bell writes about God’s Kingdom of Heaven in his book “Love Wins”:
‘Taking Heaven seriously, then,’ he says, ‘means taking suffering seriously, now….because we have great confidence that God has not abandoned human history and is actively at work within it, taking it somewhere. Around a billion people in the world today do not have access to clean water. People will have access to clean water in the age to come (‘Heaven’), and so working for clean-water access for all is participating in the life of the age to come. That’s what happens when the future is dragged into the present.’
As we think about how Jesus the Good Shepherd laid down his life, poured out his life for us, I would ask that we look into our hearts this morning…
Are we bringing Christ’s Gospel to his Sheep?
Are we bringing God’s Kingdom to his world?
Are we taking up the commission given us to take care of Christ’s sheep?
In our dark times do we remember that we are all worthy of the Good Shepherd’s care?
Are we using the strength and support available to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit?
Do we remember that the Good Shepherd laid down his life willingly,knowing he would take it up again, because there is no wolf in our lives more powerful to hurt us,
than the Good Shepherd is powerful to heal us.
Our commission is a demanding one - feed my sheep
Our defender is a mighty one - I am the Good Shepherd Christ tells us,
And the Outcome is a wonderful One because in Christ LOVE ALWAYS WINS.
Amen
posted by Parish Administrator at 1:38 pm
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