Easter 4

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
[FMC1]
SEASON: Easter 4
PROPER: A
PLACE: Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, Essex
DATE: April 21,2002

Memorial Service, The Rev. Robert Grumbine

TEXT: John 10:11-16 – “I am the good shepherd.”

ISSUE: The imagery of God as the Good Shepherd is deeply rooted in the Judaic-Christian Tradition. God is the Good Shepherd, and Jesus reveals specifically what that means in terms of a beautiful life given in servanthood. And we are all called to be Good Shepherds to one another in the image of Christ Jesus. Fr. Robert (Bob) Grumbine while hardly perfect, did his part to be a faithful serving shepherd.
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What could be a more appropriate day to offer this Memorial Service for Fr. Robert Grumbine than on this evening of the Sunday that a large part of Christendom refers to as Good Shepherd Sunday!
This evening we are gathered here to celebrate and to give thanks for Bob’s relatively long life as a husband, father, grandfather, and devoted pastor, both in the parish ministry and in the Franklin Square Chaplain’s Department. We come to remember and to give thanks to God for Bob’s work with the Baltimore County Police and Fire Departments as their chaplain. I personally remember the many times that Bob and I were together. I used to search him out at Franklin Square Hospital when I made pastoral calls there. We had some delightful coffee “glotches” together in the Coffee Shop. We roomed together at some Diocesan Conventions, and Clergy Conferences, and shared our thoughts and feelings at many of the proverbial “small group discussions” at an interminable number of diocesan meetings and conferences. Bob was for me a mentor. He was an extraordinarily sober, trustworthy, dedicated priest. His ministry was indeed a most faithful and honorable one. His devotion to the Diocese of Maryland was unique. While working as a chaplain at the hospital, Bob also did some interim work in various parishes in the Diocese, and it is my guess that he either preached, or at least visited almost every Episcopal parish and mission in the Diocese. He was honored for his devotion to the Fire Department. And most important of all his devotion to his Lord goes without question, worshipping on Sundays in his last days in parishes, when many of us in his condition would have preferred the comfort of our home. I thank God for what I learned from Bob and give heart felt thanks for his long devoted ministry.
When we have remains present, like a casket or urn of ashes, they are usually place in front of the altar in the same way that church ushers bring before God the offerings of the people. So tonight we might think of Bob being here and we are offering up his full, untiring, and vivacious life to the Glory of God.
Let me interject here that we are often persuaded to say all the good things we can about a person when they die, especially in eulogies. I recognize fully that Bob was human. He had much to offer that was good, wholesome, honorable, and worthy. I am not so naïve to think that there isn’t some one here, perhaps family members, who can remember some not so pleasant. “Oh yea, ”they might say, “if only you had been there when . . . .” Bob, like the rest of us, was not perfect, none of us is. My own children have said to me, “Dad, you’re not the same person here at home as you are over there in that church with other people.” But this evening we come to offer up both and good and the not so good, and seek to hold up before God what was his best, doing our best to forgive the other, as God does.
We do think of our pastors as shepherds. The image of the Good Shepherd is deeply rooted in and developed in our Judaic-Christian tradition. One of the first things that many of us may have learned in Sunday School or church was the beautiful 23rd Psalm: “The Lord is my shepherd. . . . . And though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for you are with me.” First and foremost we think of God as being like a strong and Good Shepherd, carrying his rod and staff to protect and guide us. In the Hebrew Scriptures several of the servants of God were also considered shepherds to their people, Moses and King David were seen as good shepherds. Kings of Judah and Israel were also supposed to be shepherds to their people.
In the prophet Ezekiel 34, however, there is a condemnation of some of the kings and leaders who failed miserably to be good shepherds to God’s people. “How I hate the shepherds of Israel who care only for themselves! Should not the shepherd care for the sheep? You consume the milk, wear the wool, and slaughter the fat beasts, but you do not feed the sheep. You have not encouraged the weary, tended the sick, bandaged the hurt, recovered the weary, recovered the straggler, or searched for the lost; and even the strong you have driven with ruthless severity. They are scattered, they have no shepherd; they have become the prey of wild beasts.” Then, God goes on to say, “I myself will tend my flock, I myself pen them in their fold. I will search for the lost, recover the straggler, bandage the hurt, strengthen the sick, leave the healthy and strong to play, and give them their proper food.” . . . . . “I myself will tend my flock.”
For the Christian Community, it is Jesus Christ, who is Son of God, who is the revelation of the living Good Shepherd. He feeds his flock like a shepherd. On a green hill, in green pasture he invites the 5,000 sheep of his pasture to sit down and be fed with his abundant bread and fish of love. He is the living healer of the broken and down trodden, the untouchable lepers. He raises the fallen, the death ridden hopeless and despairing folk. He is the joy and the witness of God to the healthy and the strong. Jesus Christ is the living word of God, and the hope of the least, the last, the lonely, and the lost. He is the Lord who walks with his sheep through the valley of the shadow of death to heal, to love, and to give hope, carrying the rod and staff. He is the one who himself had laid down his own life for his sheep.
In the conclusion of John’s Gospel, the Risen Lord and Good Shepherd, Jesus meets with his disciple Peter for breakfast. Peter is one of his own sheep. Now we know that Peter had denied Jesus at his trial and crucifixion. Rock that he was; like all of us, and like Bob, Peter was hardly perfect.
And yet Jesus calls him out of the shadows, “Peter, Simon, son of John, do you love me more than all else?”
“Yes, Lord,” Peter answers, “You know that I love you.”
“Then feed my lambs.”
Again Jesus asks Peter, “Simon, Son of John, do you love me?”
“Yes Lord, you know I love you.”
“Tend my sheep.” Jesus replies.
Peter was hurt that the Good Shepherd asks him a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” But after all Peter had denied Jesus three times, and the Bible loves to do things in threes.
“Lord, “ Peter says, “You know everything. You know I love you.”
“Feed my sheep.” says the Good Shepherd even once again.
And so, Fr. Robert Grumbine, Bob, heard the call from the Good Shepherd to feed and tend the sheep, weak and strong. I am convinced he did his best in the service of others. And whatsoever defilements he may have contracted in the midst of this early life, may they be purged and done away and his soul offered and returned to the Good Shepherd of us all, Jesus Christ our Lord. We rejoice in his long and faithful ministry.
And a brief epilogue: We are also gathered here tonight to face our own mortality. We also know our grief and sorrow, our fears, failures, and uncertainties for the future. Death of a loved one is always threatening to our own well being in life. Even when a loved one has had a long illness, death is still like having the rug pulled out from under us. It is a time for some reflection on our own lives. As God is our shepherd, in the midst of things we cannot always understand, we are called too to be shepherds to one another in our weakness and grief. Love the Lord. Be good to one another. We need one another. Remember Edna, (Fern), Kathy, Anne, Carol, Edward, Raymond, and Richard. Remember the stepchildren: Lee, Deborah, and Lisa, and all the wonderful grand and great grand children.
Be there for one another, be patient in this difficult time. Live into our calling as Christ’s shepherds; be shepherds for one another. No greater love is there, than we lay down our life in service for our friends. May God bless us all in our shepherding of one another.
Good night, Bob, (+) and may your soul and the souls of all the faithful through the mercy of God rest in peace.