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In addition to everything we will experience this month Monday through Saturday, we experience a wonderfully pregnant Sunday morning line-up: Next Sunday, baptism and Worship, Music and Arts recognition. Two Sundays from today, baptism and the reception of our wonderful Commissioning Class. Three Sundays hence, Memorial Day weekend, where we will, contrary to rumor, gather for worship. And the last Sunday of the month is Pentecost, a central experience in the biblical story and, despite our best Presbyterian efforts to misunderstand it, a central day in the life of the church. Kind of leaves you breathless, doesn’t it? But breathless in a wonderful way. And to launch things today, communion, baptism and the ordination and installation of church officers, a veritable liturgical kitchen sink. I love it! And I love it more because it offers a wonderful connect-the-dots opportunity. We have shared Psalm 23 twice already – read and sung, and we have just heard Jesus’ punctuation to that familiar psalm, namely, that he is the good shepherd whose business is to know the sheep and care for the sheep and track lost sheep down, and, when the moment comes, to lay down his life for the sheep. No other shepherd would do that, he says, but we are that important. We do not have to work too hard to connect the dots. We do not have to work too hard to connect the dots, but to do so is to claim and re-claim some profound affirmations about who Jesus is and who we are and who we are called to be and what we are called to do. Enter the words “books” and “leadership” in a Google search and you will be surprised, perhaps, and certainly compelled by what you find. You will find books with such titles as “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” and “The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader.” I hope that no indispensable qualities refute any of the irrefutable laws. You could read about Primal Leadership, Monday Morning Leadership, Total Leadership, Jazz Leadership, Principle Centered Leadership, Tribal Leadership, Organic Leadership, Toy Box Leadership, Engaged Leadership, Quantum Leadership, Transforming Leadership, Authentic Leadership (a book called Inauthentic Leadership might not sell so well). You could read about Adaptive Leadership, Quiet Leadership, Change Leadership, Resonant Leadership, Heroic Leadership, High-Altitude Leadership, Contrarian Leadership, Courageous Leadership (again, as opposed to Cowardly Leadership, I presume) and 360 Degree Leadership. And if it is role models you seek, you could learn about leadership from such figures as Abraham Lincoln, the great basketball coach John Wooden, Rudolph Giuliani, General Colin Powell, General George Patton, General George Washington, or, to change pace just a bit, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. My favorite, though, might be “Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun.” But in case you are concerned, be assured that there are plenty of titles concerning Christian leadership, and more so, more than any other historical figure, including Attila the Hun, Jesus on leadership. We do not need books, or seminars, or websites to tell us. We don’t need to learn our lessons from well-known people. Because here is the promise we are called to embrace this day – that we are all leaders. That we are all leaders because of the Easter promise in which we continue to dwell. That we are all leaders in an Easter movement, the resurrection promise, and that our leadership is exercised in the lives that each of us lives, in our communities, in our work and play, in church – wherever the transforming news of resurrection needs to be shared. We may dispute the notion that we are leaders. But let me dispute your disputation, if I may. This summer will mark the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin, the central theological forbear of Presbyterianism. We will touch on the themes of Calvin now and then this spring, but will do so more comprehensively this fall. Calvin, you will remember, embraced Martin Luther’s notion of the “priesthood of all believers” and ran with it, insisting that all have access to grace, and not a few, that all have access to scripture, and not a few, that all were called and given important work to do in God’s kingdom, and not a few. That is radical and revolutionary, to be sure, but it is not new. It is at the heart of the biblical story – God calling unlikely people to do extraordinary things, to exercise leadership in the face of threat and crisis, in the face of their own fear or the fear of the community. Psalm 23 takes on that fear on head-on: despite walking through the valley of the shadow of death, however the psalmist perceives that, I will not fear. I shall not want. And Jesus brings that point home in his own life and death, in his own rising to new life. Whatever fears we face that would impede our ability to be the people God fully intends us to be are swallowed up by the commitment and witness and sacrifice of this good shepherd. We sheep may safely graze, to be sure, so we are safe from fear in order that we may exercise the leadership so drastically needed within and beyond the flock. Walter Brueggemann reminds us not to overly romanticize the Psalm’s understanding of shepherd – “It means,” Brueggemann writes, “not only herder of sheep…but…the king who actively intervenes to protect and secure the poor and needy who lack resources to guard their own lives. Thus the term is at once pastoral (bespeaking caring attentiveness) and political (bespeaking power).” (Texts for Preaching, Year A, page 300) And while Jesus’ words in John provide comfort, Charles Cousar reminds us, it is “comfort at a cost.” (Page 304) We have one shepherd, and one shepherd is enough. That that does not mean as sheep we are fearful and helpless. That means that because of the witness and new life of this good shepherd, we are empowered in extraordinary ways to be the disciples, the followers, and the leaders we are called to be. Because of the good shepherd, we are leaders, freed to lead without fear. To connect the dots this morning, we are leaders because we are baptized. And as leaders we are sustained at the communion table. And because we are all leaders, and therefore all gifted, some are given particular gifts, not BETTER gifts, but particular gifts, to be used through the ordained offices of the church: deacon, elder and minister, as well as the office of trustee. We are all like sheep that have gone astray and the good shepherd has pursued us and saved us and welcomed us home, and because of that, we all have a home, a place, and all have been given gifts to deepen and enrich life for all sheep, those within and beyond the church’s walls. Those ordained and installed into office this morning will be asked to help us think about how we do that in particular ways over these coming few years – how do we help craft the kind of life together where we all live into and grow into our gifts. But really, that is the job of all of us. Sometimes I will hear the phrase “I am just a member.” The promise of this morning, the promise of Easter, the promise of our faith, is that there is no “just” anything – no “just” a member, or “just” a deacon or elder or minister, no “just” a child or youth. We are all in this together – here in this place and in every place where the good shepherd leads us. So we connect the dots, or rather, the dots are connected for us – from the promise of the shepherd to baptism to communion to ordination and installation to all the things we are called to do to following to leading. And the next time I am on Amazon.com, the book I will look for is this – “The One Irrefutable and Indispensable Law of Leadership as Told by the Good Shepherd: Live without Fear, Follow without Fear, Lead without Fear.” Amen.
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