Naming

Psalm 23   John 10:1-10

Fourth Sunday of Easter    April 13, 2008

            The other day I received a phone call from someone who greeted me warmly by name, "Shirley?  How are you today?"  The voice was not one I recognized, but I thought I had best respond kindly, since I wasn't sure who it was and I thought they could be calling for one of the churches.  It turned out that the call was a solicitation.  The person on the other end, who had given me his name (which I have promptly forgotten) wanted me to know about a wonderful opportunity, available for only a short time to very special people like me.  I very sweetly said, "No thank you," and hung up the phone without waiting for a reply.  I have learned that it doesn't pay to wait for a response from the caller.  Either they will strive all the harder to get you to consider the deal they are offering to you, or they will hang up in your ear.  But this was a hard lesson to learn.  I was taught it is not polite to hang up the phone without giving the other party a chance to respond.  I was taught to be nice to folks, and hanging up the phone on them does not feel very nice, but there you have it.  We are living in a very different age than the one in which most of us were taught manners.  I think a big part of what throws me off with these solicitation calls, is the fact that the caller knows my name, my first name, and uses it to make me think he or she is familiar, a friend.  When they were formal enough to use my last name, that wasn't so bad because none of my friends did that, but using my first name weasels their way under my protective barriers.  Somehow, when a stranger uses my first name, it makes me feel vulnerable, as if something precious has been violated in some way.

            Who knows your name and uses it legitimately?  Most of us have a reasonably large circle of people who know us personally or through our work.  Living in a small town, even a city the size of Rutland, where you are known by name can be a really nice feeling.  It is nice to know that people notice you and think about you enough to remember your name.  Remembering names is even one of the hallmarks of a good pastor to some folks' way of thinking.  (I do try to do my best on that count, but sometimes my mind plays tricks on me, I have to admit.)  Isn't it interesting that, on the one hand we want certain people to know our names and use them, and on the other hand there are many people out there, such as telemarketers, whom we would rather didn't know or use our personal names.

            Our scripture this morning talks about Jesus as the good shepherd.   One of the characteristics used to describe the good shepherd is that he will know us , call us by our names and we will respond to him.  I remember reading a line at some point, whether in a novel or a spiritual book, I am not certain, but the thought has stayed with me.  It was something to the effect of liking the sound of your name in another person's mouth.  There is something comforting about hearing your name spoken by someone who loves you, isn't there?  It seems as though this is what this morning's reading is addressing.  Each of us sheep, each of us who would follow Jesus, likes the sound of our name in his mouth.  We respond to the sound of his voice. 

Travelers to the Holy Land to this day tell you that sheep know the sound of their shepherd's voice and follow him and only him.  Tangles of flocks sometimes converge on green meadows, and an outsider might wonder how the poor shepherds are ever going to sort out their sheep from the rest.  But all they have to do is call and start walking.  The sheep of their flock start following, doing the sorting themselves.

            This phenomena is alluded to in this morning's reading, however, as Jesus says that sheep from other flocks will follow him as will those who are officially his own.  "I 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."  There is such a hunger in us to be known and cared for, isn't there?  This is probably a good portion of why the Twenty-third Psalm, which we read today, resonates in our hearts as it has in the hearts of countless people before us.  To be loved and known, taken care of and guided along the winding, sometimes frightening paths of our lives, is powerful medicine. 

It was powerful way back in the days of the wandering Hebrew people.  Their sojourn in the desert, homeless for forty years must have been a time of incredibly uncertainty on so many levels.  Imagine how difficult the words of the 23^rd psalm must have been for them to really trust and believe as they faced year after year of wilderness living, with no real place to call home?  Children born on that journey never knew the comfort of a true, solid house.  All they knew were the tents of nomads.  Public Radio carried a story on Friday about a young woman who had lived in homeless shelters with her mother for many years.  As a young adult, she was determined that her life was going to be different.  The thing she wanted above all was to have a place to call home, an apartment of her own that she could furnish with the things that spoke of comfort to her – a big cozy leather sofa was at the top of her list.  Somewhere she had gotten an idea of what home might be like, even though she had never experienced it herself.  She held that image in her mind as a touchstone, helping her see her way through the present difficulties and frustrations. 

            I dare say that you don't need to be homeless to know what it feels like to be without a true home.  Many of us have spent a good bit of our lives wandering in search of something that looks like home, feels like home, smells like home, tastes like home, sounds like home.  What are some of the hallmarks of "home" to you?  What are the things that absolutely have to be there in order for you to know that you have arrived there?  Are there people who have to be there for it to feel like home?  Do certain foods evoke the sense of home for you?  When I posed the question to my daughter, Sarah, she wrote me the following: "when I am away from home I can hear certain sounds or smell smells that put me right back at home.  NPR on the radio, lawnmowers, dogs...  It is kind of melancholy though, sometimes a comfort, but can also make me homesick."  We long for home, each of us in our own way.  Being away from the people and things we love can be difficult and so we develop ways of maintaining the connection as best we can.  Sarah closed her note by reminding me of a song by James Horner that expresses this desire to be connected and held in love.

Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight

Someone's thinking of me and loving me tonight

Somewhere out there someone's saying a prayer

That we'll find one another in that big somewhere out there

And even though I know how very far apart we are

It helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star

And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby

It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky

To many of us, Jesus voice sounds like home.  It is the voice that calls to us through the ages, through the busyness, through whatever else may be happening in our lives.  This is the premise of the passage we read from John this morning.  When we hear Jesus' voice, then we know we are safe.   We know where home is.  All of the other concerns and fears fall away at that point, or at least, they could if we would let them.  The important thing is that we have found our way into Jesus' flock.  All is well because we have found our way home.

Something in our soul resonates with Jesus' voice.  Perhaps it is that we remember his voice from beyond time?  Perhaps our relationship with him goes back beyond this lifetime, back when we were a part of the divine, a part of the great possibility, a part of the twinkle in God's eye?  If this is so, then it is easy to see how Jesus' voice would call in folks who didn't even realize they were a part of his flock, folks from different folds (different churches, synagogues, temples, even different spiritual traditions.)  Perhaps Jesus' voice is a voice we all recognize from so far back it stretches beyond memory itself?

However we recognize his voice, however we finally find our way home, we can all agree that it is good to be there.  It is good to be in a place in which you are loved, cared for and nourished.  And it is good when we can offer these gifts to one another as well.