A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — May 15, 2011
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Texts:  Psalm 23;  John 10:1-16

The Lord is my shepherd… — Psalm 23:1a

 “…[the shepherd] goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.  They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him  because they do no know the voice of strangers.” — John 10:4-5

 “The Lord is my shepherd…” sings the psalmist in Psalm 23.  “I am the Good Shepherd,” says Jesus.  So I guess that makes all us people sheep—which is not an especially nice thought when we realize what sheep are like.  Sheep are, well, sheep.  They’re not very smart, and they panic easily.  They follow some other sheep blindly or just wander off and get lost.  They make most of their decisions based on their appetites.  And they tend to get into head-butting contests for no reason at all.  OK, maybe we are sheep… but it’s not very complimentary at all.  Still, there must be something here, for this images of Jesus and God as a Good Shepherd have always been favorites throughout the church.

I used to see a lot of sheep in the winter fields of Western Oregon where farmers grow grass seed.  But I can’t recall seeing any sheep here in Ohio except at the state fair.  I expect few of us have any direct experience with shepherding sheep.  In the American west range wars were fought between cattle ranchers and sheep farmers mostly because sheep don’t behave like cattle.  If you don’t stop them, sheep overgraze and will eat everything in sight.  But the big difference is that you can herd cattle from the rear by hooting and hollering and cracking whips and such.  But if you get behind sheep and make loud noises, all they’ll do is run round behind you because sheep prefer to be led.  You push cows, but you lead sheep.  Sheep will follow after a shepherd who goes before them.

 

A Homily by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — May 8, 2011
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Text: John 15:12-17;  Ephesians 4:25 - 5:2

New Members & Communion

You did not choose me but I chose you… to go and bear fruit. — John 15:16

…we are members of one another… Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love as Christ loved us… — Ephesians 4:25 & 5:1-2

Often in our world it is hard to expand our vision beyond the horizon of our own wants and needs.  I recall a “Frank and Ernest” comic strip from several years ago where the two buddies are sitting on a park bench next to a man reading a newspaper.  Frank says to this stranger, “Long ago, I decided my life would be a success if I could make just one person happy.  I picked me.”  We want to be at the center as well as the one in charge.  We want to look out for ourselves, making our own decisions and choices to please ourselves.  But there’s a deeper truth here that Jesus was getting at when he said to his disciples, “You did not choose me but I chose you.”  This is something to keep in mind when we consider what it means to be a member of a Christian church. 

When we join the church, we think we’re the ones making the decision—especially when it comes time to respond to that most important question, “Do you accept and trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”  Yet Jesus says, “You did not choose me but I chose you.”  What this means is that even though we’re the ones deciding to say “Yes,” at some deeper, more fundamental level God chooses us for membership, for ministry, chooses us to be part of something larger than ourselves, part of a community.  It’s not unlike a family.  None of us chose the family into which we were born.

 

A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — April 24, 2011
First Presbyterian Church, Lebanon, Oregon
Texts:  John 11:17-44;  20:1-18

 

 

When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep.—John 11:32-35

“Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?”—John 20:15

In the midst of the pageantry and praise of this Easter morning, we should remember that the first Easter morning began with tears in a cemetery.  Cemeteries are good places to cry.  Mary Magdalene knows this as she sets out in the early morning darkness on the first day of the week, heading for the tomb where they put Jesus’ body.   Mary weeps outside that tomb, for cemeteries are good places to cry.  Another Mary, her sister Martha, and a whole crowd of people know this when they gather to weep before Lazarus’ tomb.  Even Jesus knows this.  The only place the gospels report Jesus weeping is in a cemetery.  Cemeteries are good places to cry.

The truth of this was especially brought home to me after I became a pastor.  Before, I rarely went to funerals or cemeteries.  I suppose I fit right in with our death-denying culture, trying to keep death locked up in some dusty attic of awareness, “out-of-sight, out-of-mind.”  There’s so much also to distract us.  Simon Peter and the other disciple are distracted by the stuff left in the tomb, but Mary weeps.  As a pastor I’ve stood with mourners beside caskets trying to speak words of comfort and hope while seeing tears, often trying to see through my own tears.  In such times, I always speak of the gift of life and the promise of new life in the resurrection.  But this Easter morning as we sing and celebrate the resurrection, we should remember that the first Easter morning began with tears in a cemetery.  For we—all of us—have way more direct experiences of tears than we have of resurrection.  We’ve all wept.  But no one here has ever seen anyone raised from the dead.

 

A Sermon by Sydney V. (Skip) Jackson — April 17, 2011
Indianola Presbyterian Church, Columbus, Ohio
Text:  John 12:12-37  —  PALM  SUNDAY

“Now my soul is troubled.  And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’?  No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.  Father, glorify your name.” — John 12:27-28a

 In our church tag-line we refer to ourselves as “a community of inquiry, prayer, and action.”  The emphasis on “inquiry” arises because, not only do we allow all kinds of questions, we value and encourage questions, seeing them as essential to a living, growing faith.  But some questions are really hard, like the four we will be singing in a short while… “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?  Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?  Were you there when they pierced Him in the side?  Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?”  Oh, in a literal sense they’re easy questions.  Of course we weren’t there so long ago.  But in a metaphorical sense, they’re hard… and would have been even harder before the wondrous events of the first Easter and Jesus’ resurrection.  On that first Palm Sunday, would we have been there as Jesus headed into Jerusalem, into the very center of political and religious power with the authorities united against him?

According to John, great crowds gather to see this man as he enters Jerusalem for the Passover festival.  Some may have been eyewitnesses when Jesus raised Lazarus from the tomb… or seen one of his signs and wonders in person.  Others have heard only rumors.  Still, they all go to greet him.  They wave palms and sing, “Hosanna!  Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” as Jesus rides into town on a colt of a donkey, in a kind of peaceful parody of Pontius Pilate’s imperial procession riding into the city astride a great war stallion.  So Yes, perhaps we’d have been there with Jesus out of curiosity or caught up in the spirit of the moment.