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Sermon
Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – May 5, 2019
Centenary United Methodist Church Psalm
30; John 21:15-19 Our lesson this morning from John's Gospel features a discussion between
Jesus and the Apostle Peter.
Jesus asked Peter if he loved him.
He asked Peter this question three times.
After each of Peter's responses, Jesus told him,
Feed my sheep.
Today, we are going to discuss what Jesus was
telling Peter. What did
"Feed my sheep" mean? Most
of us know this story and yet if we discussed our thoughts about the
meaning of Jesus' words, they could easily be very different. Since Jesus understood his mission as teaching
people how to live in this world, how are we to feed people? Was Jesus
suggesting that we share beliefs, theologies, and specific teachings
with others? That really
sounds like another discipline that the Jews had with Hebrew Laws.
If Jesus was offering a path to teach for the
world's vast populations how to live, the way we
feed the sheep would have to
be universally accepted.
What we present to others would have to rise above cultural differences
and language. How would we do
that? There is a new book on the market that describes
studies that clearly demonstrate the wisdom of what Jesus meant when he
told Peter, feed my sheep.
The authors never referenced Jesus or the Scriptures but they captured
perfectly the essence of what Jesus taught. The title of this book is
Compassionomics,
The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence that caring Makes a Difference.
The authors are two physicians: Dr. Stephen Trzeciak and Dr. Anthony
Mazzarelli. These doctors have conducted numerous studies of
what happens to people when they are
bombarded with
compassionate energy from
those around them. The data
these doctors have assembled is most impressive.
In fact, they call
this
discovery the same title that
I gave to my message this morning.
They have put the
clothing of scientific
inquiry on to what Jesus was modeling for his disciples. When patients have these attitudes and behaviors
modeled for them, hopeless cases of the terminally ill have dramatically
and inexplicably reversed their doomed-spiral and have returned to
health. This reversal of the direction of their ill-health was not the
result of miracle drugs or experimental surgery involving modified gene
implants. The reversal
resulted from attending physicians, nursing staff, and blue coat
cleaning personnel intentionally communicating positive, loving, and
compassionate energy with
these targeted patients in the study.
Years ago, several medical schools experimented
with doctors praying for their patients just prior to surgery the
following day, even though many of the doctors had no desire to offer a
prayer. However, when the
study revealed the astounding results from patients recovering
completely following their doctors praying for them, more physicians got
involved in the study.
In most hospitals where this was done, there was a
recovery rate of 80 percent when prayers were offered.
The physicians were
feeding the sheep in an unorthodox manner.
The follow-up with patients was most interesting.
Many commented that they were not involved with any religion
but when the doctor prayed for them, the anxieties and worries of
these patients vaporized and they fell to sleep almost immediately. Did God actually become involved because of the prayers of the physicians, or was there an energy transfer to the patients from the doctors? Any answer to this would be purely speculative. However, what became undeniable was the effect that praying had on the patients. One wonders today if the surgeons are continuing the practice after the study ended. Think about this.
What happens to us when we are around people who are
on fire for life and when
insignificant events really excite them with joy and enthusiasm?
They communicate that they are
constantly walking on the sunny
side of the street.
They are always sharing optimistic information.
On the other side of the emotional spectrum, how do
we feel when we are around people who have to let us know that they were
abused and mistreated as a child, that their superiors have miserable
management skills, and nearly every day they manage to find fault with
some experience that is causing their lives to be miserable? I happened to enter the ministry at a transitional
time for women who felt called to be pastors. The first wave of ordained
women really struggled with acceptance by their congregations in most of
their churches. Women had never been in United Methodists pulpits. One female pastor that I know was unphased by the
initial rejection she faced.
I inquired to several members of her church while attending a
district function. I asked, "How
is Kay working out for you?" The women told me that all of them equally
struggled with her appointment.
They said: Our reticence about her appointment did not last
very long. In fact, we did
not know what hit us. We
never had a pastor with such energy.
She has her hands in everything and even sings in our choir. None
of us have trouble smiling when we see her coming.
She is a fireball that
has caused all of us to fall in love with her.
We do not think that she ever has a bad day.
She knows exactly what to say to
make us want to get up and dance.
This is what frequently happens when pastors stop
needing to feel acceptance before they begin modeling and leading their
congregations.
When people are happy every day,
there is no way they can prevent this energy from transferring to
others. When my parents relocated from their apartment to
Asbury Methodist Village, a continuing care retirement community, my
mother became a volunteer in the Wilson Health Care Center.
She visited the residents.
She entered the room of a man who was in the Memory Support Unit
suffering from a bi-polar disorder.
He screamed and swore at her like an angry man who has had too
much alcohol to drink. He
spiced up his language with every expletive you can imagine. He
exclaimed, "Get out of my room!
Get out! Do you hear
me, get out!" She excused herself and left without saying a word.
One of the nurses met her in the hallway after
hearing the clamor and said, "Oh, Mrs. Stetler, did Mr. Williams throw
you out of his room again?"
She said, "Yes, but he'll be better tomorrow."
This attitude is one that reflects Jesus' admonition to Peter,
to Feed my sheep.
Mom never allowed anyone's toxic attitudes to stick
to her. For as long as she
could, she carried her
compassionate energy everywhere. It would be marvelous if all of us
could be coated with such Teflon
skin where nothing hostile and pessimistic sticks to us.
We generate such
skin when every day we experience so much
joy, gratitude, and happiness for being alive that we
glow in the dark.
Life is not about our self-centered attitudes and neediness.
Feed my sheep has to do with
how we affect others.
When we worry and fear that we will never find love, such
feelings come as a result of our needy-energy flowing back on us with
"poor me" thoughts. Neediness never invites love to come into our lives. In fact, I have often told single people to run if someone they are dating tells them, "I need you." That sounds wonderful to hear but, in some people, there is no end to their neediness. Needy people can develop a host of expectations as they try to hold their fragile self-esteem together. In so doing, they can exhaust the one they claim to love. Feed my
sheep can be done more easily when we feel very comfortable in our
own skin. When we feed
others, the authors of
Compassionomics call this energy flow
a 21st Century Miracle
Drug. Three times during my ministry, I have experienced
the same response that my mother encountered from Mr. Williams.
I was asked to leave someone I was visiting and never come back.
These members in my congregations, however, were not suffering
from having bi-polar disorder. I discussed their response with a
psychiatrist friend of mine.
She gave me an answer that made sense.
She said: Dick, there are people out there that need to
receive pity and empathy for how miserable life has been treating them.
Their silent calling card is: 'come and love me, feel sorry for me, and
listen to my story.' The
problem is that their storyline never changes because others continue to
feed that neediness. With your
spirit of optimism and encouragement, you would not be appreciated. Fortunately, people do have the choice either to
walk on the sunny side of the
street or wallow in their self-pity as they convince themselves that
life has betrayed them. It
is amazing that two doctors validated Jesus' two-thousand-year-old
message of love your neighbors and enemies with scientific evidence.
What this means is that authentic love is not a two-way street . For those who want to follow Jesus' teaching, feed my sheep, means putting off our own need for gratification so that others may experience healing energy by what we are communicating. This energy flow is not impossible to achieve but it is difficult to maintain. Most people cannot sustain such a path. (Matthew 7:14) The remedy is to trust God for the outcome of all
things as we try to feed Jesus'
sheep every day. There
is no need to allow anything in the external world to control our
enthusiasm for life unless that has become our need.
The joy is that we can always overcome such a need in ourselves
by extending our compassion to others.
CONGREGATIONAL PRAYER
Each time we gather
for worship, O God, we are challenged to think differently.
It remains difficult to do since many of our self-taught
responses have been in place for most of our lives.
Jesus taught us to measure success by our experience of happiness
and peace. He taught us
that those who have light should let it shine in all circumstances.
Heal us, O God, when we give authority to the voices that prevent
us from taking leaps of faith and that cast doubts on our ability to
shed old habits. In spite of our struggles, thank you for continuing to
work through us to help make our world a more compassionate place to
live. Amen. PASTORAL PRAYER
Loving and
merciful God, we are grateful for our Sabbath mornings when we can pause
to refresh that part of ourselves that we often neglect. We wonder
what would become of us, if we never took the time to nourish
the captain of our ship, the
decision maker inside of us, or the spirit that responds creatively to
all of life’s many varied circumstances.
We thank
you for the little reminders that teach us how strong we are when our
steps falter. How easy it is to be filled with regret when we make
mistakes or when we belittle ourselves for not being perfect.
We thank you for the lessons we have learned from hindsight, or
from realizing the power that distractions have to blind and immobilize
us. You always show us any way. We thank you for your presence in the
lives of our friends. When we receive firm handshakes, their
smiles and laughter, and their support, we are reminded how love coming
from others heals us.
We live in
a world with people that are starving for affection and compassion.
We pray that our own worries and fears will not prevent your
presence within us from being seen by others.
Help us let go of our need for a certain
stage presence so that you
can bring peace to others because we are kindred spirits to Jesus, the
Christ, who taught his disciples to say when they prayed . . .
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