I See You, I Care for You, I Love You: Easter 4C

Scriptures to read: Psalm 23, John 10: 22-30, Acts 9:36-43

I’ve been thinking and praying about you…and you…and you…well, frankly, about all of you. You are in my constant thoughts and my constant prayers. I see you. I care for you. I love you. You are my chosen family whom I love dearly. When you hurt, I hurt for you. When you cry, I can’t help but cry right along with you. When you are ill I worry about you. When you are out of work I am anxious for you to find employment as soon as possible. When you are depressed I hold out hope for you and try to give you reassurance. When you need to talk, I will make time in my schedule to listen to you.

I’ve taken some of you to the doctor’s office and sat with you while you waited to go in. I’ve gone to the hospital emergency room with some of you and waited while you received treatments and then took you home. I’ve been to the hospital when some of you have been ill and tried to lift your spirits and encourage your quick recovery.

We’ve helped some of you move out of old apartments and into new ones. In short, I’ve tried to be there when you needed someone to communicate to you that God is present with you and that God cares for you.


Many of you in this room have done the same thing for each other. You are truly tending to God’s sheep. You are truly feeding God’s lambs with the kindness and love that Christ calls us to give to others. Thank you.

Whether you’ve noticed it or not, there is a connection between the scripture passages we’ve been reading over the last several weeks. There is a very close connection between last week’s passage from the book of John and this week’s story about Peter from Acts. Does anyone remember what Jesus told Peter to do in last week’s scripture passage? Christ told him to “Feed my lambs. Take care of my sheep. Feed my sheep.” Jesus also said to Peter and the others, “Just as God has sent me into the world to care for the world, now I am sending you to do the same thing.”

The fact that Jesus was going to leave the world to return to the Parent did not mean that Jesus was abandoning the world. Jesus breathed God’s spirit into the disciples when he appeared to them after the resurrection and empowered them to become care-givers to others, to tell the world about how very much God cares for every single person, no matter who he or she is, no matter what he or she has done, or hasn’t done. God loves everyone, exactly the way God created them. You and I don’t have to do anything to earn God’s love and acceptance. We don’t have to stop becoming one kind of person and try to become a different kind of person in order to be acceptable to God. That isn’t the message that Jesus taught and it surely shouldn’t be the message that we share with others.

I got several messages through Facebook this week from a young man in North Carolina who took issue with the fact that I am the pastor of a Queer congregation. He started off by telling me that when he saw my picture on Facebook an evil spirit came upon him and he just had to reach out over the internet and condemn me for leading all of you to hell. He believed that because you and I are Queer in our sexuality that we are condemned by God and that we have no hope for God’s grace and love in our lives.

I responded by telling him that I thought he was missing the truth of Jesus’ teachings that all persons are acceptable to God, something Jesus demonstrated during his time on earth by eating with so-called sinners that were unacceptable to the Pharisees, that is the Pharisees thought these people were such sinners that they were certainly condemned to hell and it was therefore obvious that Jesus was a sinner too because he hung out with sinners instead of the righteous stuck-up Pharisees. I told the young man that perhaps he needed to look at things differently, to really read what Jesus had said and try to make room in his life for God to speak to him about being a more loving kind of person, especially to those who are different from him.

He wrote back that I couldn’t change his mind. However, he then used that horrible phrase that so many of our so-called fundamentalist Christian critics use against us. He said, “I love the sinner, but I hate their sin.” Well, that really crawls all over me because that means that this young man gets to define me as a sinner because I don’t live up to his self-determined rules and regulations of what it means to be righteous, that is right with God. He wants to define my love for Mark and our life-time commitment to each other as a sin. The problem is that I don’t define my relationship with Mark that way. I define my relationship with Mark as one that is loving, blessed by God, and given to the two of us as a demonstration of God’s love and care for the two of us.

I sent him my final message asking him to re-read the story of the Prodigal Son and see how the Parent welcomed the son back home even before the boy asked for forgiveness. God loves us with a supreme love and runs to welcome us whenever we turn our thoughts and selves back to God…even before we can ask God to forgive us. However, there was another son in that story, the older brother who refused to come into the party that the parent had given to celebrate the return of the younger much loved, and sorely missed younger son. The older brother thought that the younger son shouldn’t be seen, shouldn’t be welcomed, shouldn’t be loved, shouldn’t receive any care or kindness from the parent, and so the older brother refused to come into the celebration himself. I asked the young man to reflect on the older brother and ask himself if he wasn’t being more like the older brother himself than anyone else in the story.

I could see that the conversation with this young man wasn’t going to go much of anywhere so I cut him off from being able to communicate with me. As I’ve told you before I will not argue with anyone. I will talk with anyone honestly about how I feel, about what I have read in the scriptures, about how I interpret those scriptures just as long as they will have an considerate, polite, and intelligent conversation with me and not try to abuse me or put me down for feeling that I am one of God’s beloved just the way that I am. A one-sided conversation isn’t a conversation at all.

Jesus didn’t tell Peter or the rest of the disciples to go out and care for only those who were acceptable to them, only those who dressed like them, talked like them, observed the same religious laws they did, ate the same kosher foods. Jesus told Peter and the others to go and love everyone and care for everyone just like he had cared for them, just like God cares for everyone. There would be no exceptions, even though the disciples in the book of Acts had to work through their own misunderstandings about who was acceptable to and loved by God. Every time they thought they had figured out who they could exclude, who they could ignore, who they could refuse to care for, God demonstrated for them that they were wrong, that God’s love included even those they thought were unloved and hated by God.

I went to the Northwest Preaching Conference this week here in Seattle at Pilgrim Church downtown where more than 200 pastors, seminary students, and other Christians gathered to hear some rather astounding preachers both preach and lecture on preaching to our society from a Progressive Christian viewpoint. I heard about pastors who were crossing the boundaries that had never been crossed in their church communities in order to care for and love all of God’s children.

One Pastor from Stone Mountain Georgia founded his predominantly black church more than 20 years ago when he was a very young man. The church grew rapidly to over 6,000 members and they built an amazing facility ending up with a huge mortgage that had to be paid off. A few years ago the pastor became convicted that homophobia was wrong and he began to preach and teach his beliefs. He then decided that pushing women to the sidelines was wrong and he opened the door for women in his very Southern Baptist Church to become deacons and pastors. He then decided that being a Southern Baptist Church wasn’t in line with who he and the church were any longer and he went first independent, then he led his church to align itself with the Disciples denomination. He tackled other issues of exclusion and taught his people that God was including everyone in God’s family. It was too much for many of them to take and more than 3,000 members of the church left. Faced with an inability to pay the mortgage and support the ministries of the church the board of directors of his congregation called him in and told him that he needed to cool it. He could have his own private theology and his own private opinions but that he should preach what the people wanted to hear on Sunday, what would keep them coming and giving. He told them that he couldn’t do that and be true to himself and to God. They asked him if he believed what he was saying enough to take a pay cut. He said that he did and they cut his pay, but they didn’t stop him from preaching the truth about God’s love for everyone. His church is thriving again and everyone that comes to that church knows that its pastor believes and practices exactly what he says about God’s love and care for everyone.

One of the amazing things about the Preaching conference was the large number of women in attendance and women as presenters and preachers and lecturers. It was thrilling to see how God is using both women and men to lead their churches and their denominations to question the status quo about the acceptance of same-sex loving persons, transgender persons, those of a different racial or ethnic group, and more. God’s Spirit is alive and moving throughout the church in America in very progressive ways. Yes, there are those churches who do not share our progressive spirit, but it is glorious indeed to find out how many others do share our concerns and our convictions. I heard one amazing sermon on homophobia that will stay with me forever. It was preached by a woman pastor who knew all too well that many of her own church members didn’t share her conviction, but she preached the sermon anyway in a powerful and loving way. To demonstrate how society excludes others who should be included she told about how widowed women have been abused and excluded throughout the centuries. She told the story of a very young child, a girl in India whose parents had married her off to an old man as part of a business deal. After the wedding the girl continued to live with her parents in their home until she would be old enough to consummate the marriage.

However one morning this eight year old girl’s parents woke her up and told her that her husband had died and that they were taking her to the temple where the widows lived and where she would have to stay from then on, rejected by her family and her society because the husband she had never even known had died. At the widows’ temple lived several other women all of whom were supported financially by one of their number, a younger woman who was prostituted out in order to bring in the money they needed to live on. They began to groom the little girl to take her role as their financial provider when she became old enough. Though the laws in India eventually did change, there are places where it isn’t that different even today.

The book of Acts tells us the story of Tabitha a woman of good report and probable wealth who is referred to as a disciple of Christ, the first and only use of the feminine form of the word disciple in the new testament. She must have been a pretty amazing woman. We know the life of widows and orphans was horrible in the early first century. In most of the ancient world women had no right to own property or even conduct business, but Tabitha has an obvious ministry to the widows in her city, offering them clothing that she makes for them herself. She is caring for others in the name of Jesus who others think don’t deserve their time, their attention, or their love. A widow had nothing and nowhere to go if her children turned her out or if she had no children. But here we see a disciple of Christ caring for those on the edge of acceptability to the rest of society, saying to the widows, “I see you. I care for you. I love you.”

When Tabitha becomes ill and dies those to whom she has ministered call for Peter who is nearby to come and comfort them. Peter arrives and the women show him the clothing that Tabitha has made for them and tell him about her amazing ministry to them.
Peter asks to be alone with her body and then says to her, “Tabitha arise.” She is revived and gets up and joins her friends.

Why does Luke tell us this story? In the gospel of Luke Jesus goes to Jarius’ home and says to his little daughter who has died, “Talitha arise” and she revives and Jesus presents her to her unbelievably thrilled parents. Luke is telling us that even though Jesus isn’t physically with us any longer, the power and love of God that Christ brought to us is just as alive and just as present and powerful as it ever was. You and I may not be able to bring someone back from the dead, but we can give them the very presence and power of God through the way we love and care for them. Are you a follower of Christ? Then feed his lambs. Care for his sheep.

Interestingly enough when Peter departs from Tabitha’s home he goes to stay with Simon the Tanner. Because of Simon’s trade as one who handles the dead bodies and skins of animals he would not have been a very acceptable person in society. He would have been considered unclean and outside the boundaries of acceptability, but we see Peter going to his home and staying there with him.

Let me leave you with a passage from the book of Revelation. *

* Revelation 7: 9-17
........I had a vision of an enormous crowd, bigger than anyone could ever count. It was made up of people from every nation; from all the different ethnic groups, cultural groups and language groups. They were all standing together before the throne and before the Lamb of God. They were dressed in white robes and were waving banners and throwing flowers in the air. Their voices rose as one — an enormous roar — saying:
........“The life into which we have been saved
........belongs to our God who is seated on the throne,
........and to the Lamb of our God.”
Around the throne stood the four awesome creatures, and around them stood the twenty four elders, and around them stood all the angels. All together they fell to their knees before the throne, with their faces to the ground, and worshipped God, singing:
........“So say all of us!
........May glory and wisdom
........and gratitude and honor
........and authority and strength
........and every good thing
........be given to our God,
........from now to forever!
........So say all of us!
........Then one of the elders came and spoke to me, saying, “What can you tell me about these people in white robes? Who are they, and where have they come from?”
........I replied, “I’m not sure, Sir, but you have the answers.”
........Then he said to me, “These are the people who have come through the ultimate atrocity. They have been cleansed by the Lamb.

........For this reason they now have the privilege
................of gathering before the throne of God,
........and there in the Temple they serve God, day and night,
................and the one who is seated on the throne
........................provides them refuge and safe shelter.

........Never again will they go hungry;
................never again will they go thirsty;
........never again will they be burned by the sun,
................or left exposed to any searing heat.

........The Lamb who is at the centre of the throne
................has guided them through the wilderness
........................and will now care for them forever.
........He will wipe every tear from their eyes
................and guide them to crystal clear springs
........................where the water of life bubbles up freely.”

©2001 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net



God is saying to each one of us today: I see you. I care for you. I love you. God wants to give you a River of Life springing up inside of you so that you can face the challenges that life will bring to you and so you can know that God loves you no matter how unacceptable you may feel , no matter how unacceptable others might tell you that you are. And when you’ve been filled from that non-stop fountain of hope, you can become God’s gift of love to those who need your care and your presence in their lives this week. And you will be able to say to them:
“I see you. I care for you. I love you.”