Will your wonders be known in the dark?
or your righteousness in the country where all is forgotten?

But as for me, O Lord, I cry to you for help;
in the morning my prayer comes before you. (Psalm 88:13-14)

Many years ago, about the time that we moved to Wisconsin, I struggled through a period when I was certainly clinically depressed.

I was stuck in my head, unable to translate any plan into action. We lived in a beautiful wooded area near Lake Geneva, and I thought it would be lovely to take a walk in the morning, but I could never even make myself actually put on my shoes.

At the time I was reading Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and I was impressed by a concept he calls the “daily private victory.”

Whatever simple action or task you decide, if you accomplish it, by definition the day is won. The daily private victory is won, and you have not failed.

I remember reading that description, thinking “I will make walking my daily private victory,” and then getting up and walking through the door! As I came out into the actual sunshine, I felt I had also come out of the darkness in my mind.

The psalmist knows the interior darkness, knows what it is to live “in the country where all is forgotten.” He also knows, as I do, that coming out of the dark is not simply a matter of will.

I could never have simply willed myself out of my depression. It took an insight, a grace from outside of me, to help me take one single step.

That is the central message of our Christian faith. By ourselves we cannot save ourselves. It takes grace from outside ourselves that helps us take the first faltering steps into the sunshine. “We have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Or, to put it in another way, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:13).

The daily private victory is also a cumulative process. “In the morning my prayer comes before you,” says the psalmist, and it is the same for us. As we daily practice the basics — walking, praying, being thankful — we get stronger and stronger until one day we fear the dark no longer.

Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. But the Jews became jealous, and with the help of some ruffians in the marketplaces they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar …. When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, “These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus.” (Acts 17:4-7)

“Turning the world upside down.” Just what was so crazy about Paul and Silas’ preaching that prompted such a backlash?

Well, for one thing, their message resonated not just with some of the Jews in the synagogue at Thessalonica, but also with some “devout Greeks,” those Gentiles known as “God-fearers” who were attracted to Jewish worship and teaching. We’ve also been reading over the last several days about the presence of “leading women” like Lydia, slave-girls set free from evil spirits, and jailers treated with kindness finding a place in the new community and being baptized as new believers.

Paul and Silas, and the communities they were creating, mixed up Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, jailers and prisoners, men and women into a new family of believers that was in sharp contrast to the divided, patriarchal Greco-Roman culture of their time.

Their egalitarian preaching so threatened some people’s sense of order that Jewish believers joined up with “ruffians” to attack someone’s house, drag him before the authorities, and loudly support the emperor’s position.

Think about that for a minute.

When was the last time you saw such angry energy directed against people who believe that everyone has a place in Christ’s new community of love?

When was the last time you saw believers joining with those in power to keep women and the poor and prisoners “in their proper place”?

The world still needs to be turned upside down.

“Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you into the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name” (BCP 101).

O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. (BCP 100)

In the Gospel reading appointed for today (John 10:1-18), Jesus first tries to use the metaphor of the sheepfold to describe his relation to the disciples. “The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.”

Blank stares. As John wryly observes, “Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.”

So he tries again. “I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and they will come in and go out and find pasture.” The disciples scratch their heads. Which is it, the shepherd or the gate?

One more time. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Now, at least those of us reading the Gospel get it, even if the disciples at the time didn’t. “Lays down his life” — we know what that means. We have trusted in Jesus’ death and resurrection, and we know what it means for him to be the Good Shepherd. We even painted some of our earliest churches with that very image of Jesus bearing a lamb in his arms.

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. He goes on to say that “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” (John 10:16).

Now he goes right over our heads, too. We’re the sheep, right? We came in through the gate, didn’t we? What about that other parable, the one with the goats — all the others are goats, right?

But what if the Good Shepherd has many flocks? What if the Gate himself opens in many directions — the one we came through and many more besides? What if we are not the flock, but rather simply a flock? I think about this image when I look around at the many branches and denominations that make up the Christian world.

“Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold,” we pray today.

It’s Jesus’ sheepfold, not ours. We know that we have found the gate we needed to enter. Others may not enter by the same gate we did, but if the Good Shepherd “brings them also,” then they too “will come in and go out and find pasture.”