Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, May 11, 2025
Acts 9:36-43+Psalm 23+Revelation 7:9-17+John 10:22-30
I am a sucker for an inspirational story. If it's about kids or animals, then I am all in. For several years, I have followed a bunch of music-making 5th graders from Public School 22 in Staten Island. Maybe you've heard of them, because they have sung everywhere from the 2011 Oscars to the 2013 Obama inauguration to Oprah, Good Morning America, and other such media outlets. The chorus has done covers of the most well-known pop songs of the past couple of decades as well as standards from the American songbook, and singers like Lady Gaga and Carrie Underwood have dropped in to listen and sing along with them. PS-22 draws on a predominantly low-income neighborhood where most of the families are people of color. Every year, the chorus's director holds auditions among the fifth graders and selects anywhere from 50-80 students for the PS-22 chorus.
That director, Gregg Breinberg, grew up in the neighborhood. When he arrived at PS-22 as a teacher in 2000, there was no formal music program. Music teachers rotated among the elementary schools in the district, but he knew that music had to be an integral part of the students' education. He never set out to create a media and internet sensation. He wanted the kids to be able to express themselves through music. In a 2022 interview, Breinberg said
I want to reach these kids, and a lot of the children in my chorus do not necessarily succeed in other academic areas as much as they and their families would like. It's so important that we tap into other avenues that kids are capable of succeeding in. I think that every one of these kids in my chorus has something to offer. Maybe they don't have that prodigious, exceptional vocal talent, but there's more behind the music that these kids are tapping into within themselves. They're amazing people, and that's part of it, too. I want them to be open to each other. I want them to be open to life and new things.[1]
When you watch the videos - they have a YouTube channel - these kids are both locked in on Mr. B, as they call their teacher, and they are feeling the music, experiencing the creation of something beautiful that they would not be able to do on their own. You can feel the connection between them and rejoice in their sense of belonging, of working together, and the clear affection they have for their teacher.
In his first Maundy Thursday mass with his clergy back in 2013, the newly inaugurated Pope Francis told the 1,600 or so priests, bishops, and cardinals, "This is what I am asking you: be shepherds with the smell of sheep."[2] At this chrism mass, so called because it is at this annual gathering that the oils used during baptisms and healing rites are blessed, those in attendance renewed their ordination vows, a practice observed during Holy Week by clergy around the world, including me and my colleagues here in the Diocese of Newark. Francis told them that they had been anointed with this oil so that they would be there for those they are called to serve, “the poor, prisoners, the sick, for those who are sorrowing and alone..."[3] And that is not possible if all clergy do is administrative or introspective. “We need to ‘go out,’ then," he continued, "in order to experience our own anointing, its power and its redemptive efficacy: to the ‘outskirts’ where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters.”[4] In other words, we have to get out to where we pick up the smell of those we are called to serve, to smell like our sheep.
My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. (John 10:27)
I know them. Jesus did not spend all his time on the mountaintop or out praying alone, although he did these things. No, he was out and about among the people who crowded around to touch him. He used his spit to make mud to restore a man's sight. He took people by the hand, laid hands on them, walked the dusty roads of Galilee with them. He smelled like them.
Now, maybe you and I don't especially like being compared to livestock. It's a metaphor that worked really well for Jesus because that was part of his culture, just like seeds and farming and fishing and all that. Maybe a better metaphor for us is a bunch of students who most people have given up on until a special teacher inspires them to create beautiful music. Their teacher knows them, and they follow him. Or maybe it's the "group of about 40, consisting of 'poor people, homeless, prisoners, migrants and transgender individuals'” who greeted the coffin of Pope Francis as his body arrived at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, his final resting place.[5] He knew them, and they followed.
I'm not suggesting that Gregg Breinberg or Pope Francis are Jesus. But they both smell like their sheep. And if we are going to do the same, if we are going to know who it is we serve, we have to be with them. We do not just come here, as one of our eucharistic prayers says, "for solace only and not for strength; for pardon only and not for renewal."[6] We come here to be fed to be sent out.
In the reading we heard from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear about a woman, a disciple, name Tabitha, or Dorcas. She was so devoted to serving those in need that the idea that she had died threw them into a panic. What were they do without her? They sent for Peter who they had heard was nearby, and by his prayers she was restored to them. Peter, Tabitha, Mr. B., Pope Francis all show us what a shepherd does, getting close to other people so much so that the smell rubs off, so much that our cups run over. This is how we show who Jesus is, by showing the kind of love he showed for those around him - getting close, letting them hear his voice so that they recognized it above all the rabble that surrounded them. There's a lot of chaos in the world, a lot of competing voices vying for people's attention. The voice we need to point to is the voice of a God who pitched his tent among the people, and who, from the very beginning, smelled of livestock and struggle. The voice we point to is not a mighty king on a throne but a lamb who still bears the wounds of his slaughter.
Don't try to neaten up, sanitize, or air-freshen what it is to be a true follower of Jesus. If we aren’t walking around with dirt under our fingernails and mud on our boots, if we don't smell like the world around us, we have gone astray like lost sheep. The good news is that, even so, God will find us and bring us home rejoicing. What do we have to lose?
Go out and get your hands dirty, friends. Help those who do not know the sound of Jesus' voice to recognize that voice of love, and care, and invitation to new life. It is a high and holy - if smelly - calling.
[1] https://sbomagazine.com/gregg-breinberg-and-the-ps22-chorus-anything-is-possible-2/
[2] https://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/pope-francis-priests-should-be-shepherds-living-with-the-smell-of-the-sheep/13439
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] https://people.com/pope-francis-coffin-welcomed-members-marginalized-groups-trans-people-prisoners-11722579
[6] BCP Prayer C, p. 372