May 7, 2017                     Good Shepherds

                                                                            

         In 2006, I served as Chaplain for a group of Illinois South Conference UCC Youth, who participated in a Habitat for Humanity build in Catamayo, Ecuador. One of our hosts was a Pastor named Hugo, who had come to Catamayo just a few years earlier.  Pastor Hugo told us, that up until a few years ago, Protestants were unwelcome in Catamayo, and he told us about how he was received when he came to town.

         He had taken a 10 hour bus ride to get to the Valley of Catamayo. When he got off the bus, he asked where he might find a room for the night. Someone told him of a hotel, on the edge of town, where he might stay. So Pastor Hugo walked a mile to the hotel, and introduced himself to the owner as a new protestant minister in town, and asked for a room. The owner, a woman in her 50’s, told him plainly that Catamayo was for Catholics, and refused to put him up. So Pastor Hugo walked back into town, and spent the night on the streets.

         As he went about town the next week, Pastor Hugo discovered that there was a great deal of animosity between Catholics and Protestants in Catamay0. He discovered that a number of years earlier, a group of Protestants had come to Catamayo to build a church. When the Catholic priest heard of this, he told his parishoners to have nothing to do with them. And when the Protestant minister heard this, he told his people to have nothing to do with the Catholics. As you can imagine, this led to fear, mistrust, anger, and even violence between these two groups. This is what led to the animosity Pastor Hugo experienced when he came to town.

         Hearing that there was a new priest in town, who seemed to be more open towards non Catholics, Pastor Hugo decided to go visit him. The priest welcomed Pastor Hugo and they talked about the town, the animosity between Catholics and Protestants, and how they might work together to address it. They decided to have the newspaper print a picture of the priest welcoming the new protestant minister to town. Now at first, they were a little apprehensive about how the townspeople might react to this, but when the picture was printed, they both received strong support from the townspeople for making this effort to overcome their divisions.

Over the next two years, Pastor Hugo told us that relations between Catholics and Protestants had improved dramatically. So dramatically, that the very hotel we were staying in, was the hotel he had been refused a room in his first night in Catamayo.

         Now the reason I remembered this story, is because our gospel lesson this morning is about our Good Shepherd Jesus Christ. And this week, I got to thinking about Good Shepherds and Bad Shepherds. In our story from Catamayo, the first priest and minister were Bad Shepherds – or thieves and bandits as Jesus calls them. Their voices created fear, misunderstanding, anger, and violence among their flocks. Their voices created pain and suffering, and stole the life God intended for them, from them. Pastor Hugo and the second priest were Good Shepherds. Their voices sought to encourage peace, understanding, patience, and cooperation among their flocks. Their voices sought for their people to have peace and life in abundance together.

           Being able to recognize the Good Shepherds in our lives is particularly important for us today. It seems like we have some pretty poor shepherds who encourage us to fear just about everyone around us, be they people of other faiths, other nations, races, gender orientation, or social classes. These statements create fear, misunderstanding, anger and violence. These “thieves and bandits” make these statements to win votes, gain support for their political agenda, make money, or to gain power over others. The result of this is, that the life God intended for us is stolen away, and the world we live in is filled with chaos.  Even in our own lives, because of these voices, we are less likely to trust, to forgive, to seek justice, to show mercy, to be understanding, to show compassion, or to have peace in ourselves.

         And that is why it is so important that God has given us the Good Shepherd Jesus Christ. Because as followers of this Good Shepherd, we don’t have to be afraid, we don’t have to live in fear. We can recognize the voices of thieves and bandits, and choose not to follow them. We can realize the life that God intends for us, lives full of peace and abundance. And that’s why Jesus speaks of himself as the gate in our scripture this morning, because through following our Good Shepherd Jesus Christ, we can move from a world filled with fear, chaos and violence, to a world filled with pastures of peace and life in abundance. And that’s the Good News of Jesus Christ!