Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come.  Take my lips and speak with them, take our minds and think with them, take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you.  In Christ’s name, we ask it.  Amen.

Perhaps you have heard of or even played the game “Lifeboat”.  It is a game played often with groups, quite ironically, as a community building exercise or with business executives who are trying to figure how to scale a business back to increase profits.  The game is also often played with children in schools and churches to help them begin to struggle with question of the value of a human life. 

The game is based on a Titanic scenario, if you will.  There are a number of people on a lifeboat after a ship has sunk the problem is the lifeboat is sinking from to much weight; therefore, two people have to go overboard or the whole lot will end up sinking.  Each person who is “in the boat” is assigned a role to play.  For example, one is a pregnant woman, one is a doctor, one is a ten year old boy, one is a father of three small children, one is a married, middle-aged lawyer, one is a seventy year old widower, etc…The group is then charged with determining as a collective which two persons must be thrown out of the boat and into the freezing waters where they very well might meet their eventual doom—which two peoples lives are the most expendable—which two lives are the least valuable.

Sadly, this game is played in some elementary schools to encourage children to work hard in school and become disciplined students because if you are and A+ student you can become a doctor and in the game of Lifeboat the doctor is always among those who are saved.  After all what happens if someone in the lifeboat needs medical attention?  A doctor because of his or her skills and training is a very valuable person.  I mean no offence to those who have enjoyed this game over the years or found it helpful in some way, but in my opinion, this game, at least, as used in schools, as my good ole’ southern evangelical Christian mother would say, is a lie from the pit of hell.

Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd.  The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep…I am the good shepherd.  I know my own and my own know me…And I lay down my life for the sheep.  I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold.  I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.  So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” 

Jesus’ metaphor of shepherd and sheep is fairly accessible.  To begin with, Jesus, as he claims for himself, is the Good Shepherd, our gracious leader and protector.  When visiting Turkey on a trip to promote interfaith dialogue this past December, I remember one moment in particular.  We had just visited the ruins of the Roman town of Pergamon which sits on a hilltop in southwestern Turkey near the city of Izmir.  It was dusk and we were descending the hill in a very large tourist bus when suddenly the driver slammed on the brakes and brought the bus to an unexpected and abrupt stop.  Standing smack dab in the middle of the road un-phased and unafraid of the large bus that was barreling down on him was a shepherd standing guard over his sheep that were crossing the road behind him at a leisurely pace.  I don’t know if I would have demonstrated the same amount of courage if standing in the path of a huge bus headed straight for me at dusk, but this shepherd did to protect his flock.  After the last sheep safely crossed the road, the shepherd once again took his place at the head of the flock to lead the sheep along their way.  Likewise, Jesus saves us from the dangers of sin and death and leads us into all truth and into life everlasting. 

Jesus is the Good Shepherd and we, those who follow him, are his sheep.  However, Jesus points out that his sheep consist of more than just the usual suspects—Christians, like you and me, who follow Jesus as Lord and Savior.  Jesus goes on to say that he has sheep from other folds and that they will listen to his voice as well.  It seems to me that if we are to take the Gospel of John and our Baptismal covenant seriously these sheep of another fold are all people created in God’s image—every person, in every place, in every generation.  As the often quoted John chapter three verse sixteen reminds us, “For God so loved the world (not just some of it or some of the people in it but the whole world), that he gave his only begotten son.”  Or as our Baptismal covenant asks of us, “Will you seek and serve Christ in all (not some but all) persons…and respect the dignity of every (not just those who believe and look like us but every) human being?”  Therefore, it is for the flock of sheep that is composed of the entire human family that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, lays down his life. 

How much then is a human life worth?  How valuable is each and every individual person?  Infinite…every human life is of equal and infinite value because God in Christ gave his own life on the cross not for some people but for all and for each without distinction.  The good news then is that God’s boat, which truly is a life boat since God is the author and source of all life, has room for everyone—nobody has to be thrown overboard, no life is expendable, there is room for all, each and every one of us is of equal and infinite value and has a place in God’s boat. 

Perhaps ironically, the people who have the hardest time with the message of God’s radically inclusive love are the people who already believe they are in the boat.  We call the inside of a church building a nave.  I am sure you have noticed that churches with traditional architecture, and there is no more traditional a church in this part of the world than All Saints’, look like an upside down navel vessel, or said simply, a boat.  Symbolically our church’s architecture exists is to remind us that we live in God’s boat which safely navigates us through the troubled waters of this world and delivers us safely at the end of life’s journey to the promise land—life forever in God’s warm embrace. 

That really sounds nice doesn’t it?  The problem is, in churches all around this world, the people of God truly believe that some people belong in the boat and some don’t, and we have created all sorts of criteria for determining who belongs in and who gets thrown overboard.  It’s like we are afraid that we will become less valuable ourselves if we associate with those that we consider beneath us.  Even when Jesus tells us, that it is among the least that he himself is to be found.  It’s time for the church to quit living by this most deceitful of lies.  If Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, believed that each of our lives was valuable enough to lay down his own life for, shouldn’t we be willing to love in the same way—and not just those with whom we agree, or look like, or who share our lifestyle or beliefs, but, like God, shouldn’t we love all people?  It is time to create communities of welcome that recognize the infinite and equal value of each and every individual that comes to us.  With a self-giving love, it is time to seek and serve Christ in all persons.  We are one flock who follow one Shepherd—and he is so good. 

On June 22, 1996 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Ku Klux Klan held a rally at the City Hall.  They had a permit for the event and it was advertised in advance, so not only did the Klan showed up; but more than 300 demonstrators appeared to protest the rally, as well.  One Klansman was wearing clothes that displayed the Confederate flag, and he was attacked by a swarm of demonstrators and pushed to the ground.  Appalled, an 18-year-old African-American girl named Keisha Thomas threw herself over the fallen man, shielding him with her own body from the kicks and punches.  When asked why, a black teen-ager, would risk injury to protect a man who was a white supremacist, she responded, “He’s still somebody’s child.  I don’t want people to remember my name but I’d like them to remember I did the right thing.”

If we don’t remember Keisha Thomas’ name, we should at least remember her example.  For as difficult as it may be to swallow, and I readily admit it is for me, Keisha was right.  The man she shielded with her own body is somebody’s child—God’s—in all of his good and in all of his bad. 

Jesus the Good Shepherd laid down his life for us all, so there is room in God’s boat for everyone.  Don’t be fooled by the lie that some people are expendable while others are not or that some people belong in the church but others don’t.  For the one who lays down his life and, therefore, for us, as well, each and every person is welcome—each and every person is of equal and infinite value—each and every person has a place in the life boat.  Amen.

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