The Rev. Leyla King, canon for mission of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, opens her Week Four chaplaincy Sunday in the Amphitheater.
The Rev. Leyla King began her sermon at the 9:15 a.m. Tuesday morning worship service in the Amphitheater with a description of hills speckled with sheep surrounding a lone shepherd. Her sermon title was “Getting in the Groove,” and the scripture reading was 1 John 3:16-24.
Mahmoud, the cousin of King’s friend Cindy, is a shepherd. To keep the sheep near him he calls to them: “hirrr, hirrr, Ta’eiiyaha.” The first part, “hirrr, hirrr,” is to gain the attention of the sheep. The second part, “Ta’eiiyaha” is a command, come here to me, said when the sheep have gone too far away to “heed the music of his voice.”
King suggested that in Psalm 23, “path” was not the best translation for “he leads me in right paths.” The paths are more like ruts, deep tracts in the ground. She said they are not flat pathways, but hard ground shaped by human feet and sheep’s hooves.
To be the sheep of the Good Shepherd, she told the congregation, we need to “get into God’s groove.” Jesus’ voice is the one calling us to come to him and follow the steps of his dance.
Jesus knows what it means to be a sheep. In 1 John, Jesus showed love by laying down his life for all people, and John called his readers to love in truth and action.
King said if we want to get into Jesus’ groove, we have to lay down our lives for others. We tend, though, to think of Jesus on the cross or martyrs like the early saints; Martin Luther King Jr. or the elderly woman shot by snipers in a church yard whose daughter, in trying to help her, was also shot.
There are other ways to show our love for each other, King said to the congregation. Most people are called to lay down their lives over the expanse of a lifetime, spending the whole of their lives getting into God’s groove.
Laying down your life means loving each other daily, standing up when people are terrorized by violence, when you realize your needs are not the main point of life. This movement in life is not done alone. These righteous acts can only be done together, by joining the Lord’s dance to get in the groove of Christ Jesus.
Getting into Jesus’ groove, King said, is where we find hope. When we are stuck in Christ’s rut, patterning our lives on Jesus, we find him welcoming us home when “we have gone astray.”
Getting into Jesus’ groove also makes the path deeper and wider for others. A community comes together for justice and peace. More and more people are invited into the groove of the “Shepherd-who-knows-us-as-sheep.”
The disciples of Jesus are those who walk in his ways, but they are not only walking. This is a dancing shepherd and he invites us to dance with him to get in his groove, King said. “Hirr, Hirr, Ta’eiiyaha. Come. Come. Come here to me.”
The Rev. George Wirth, pastor emeritus of Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta, presided. James Denvil, junior warden of the Cathedral of the Ascension in Baltimore — where Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton, senior pastor of Chautauqua, served — read the scripture. Owen Reyda, 2024 organ scholar, played “Pastorale,” by Louis Lefébure-Wély, for the prelude on the Massey Memorial Organ. The Motet Choir, under the direction of Joshua Stafford, director of sacred music and the Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist, sang “The Lord is my Shepherd,” music by Howard Goodall and text from Psalm 23. Rachel Veto served as soloist. Reyda accompanied the choir on the Massey Organ. The postlude was Lefébure-Wély’s “Boléro de concert,” on the Massey Organ. Support for this week’s chaplaincy and preaching is provided by the Alison and Craig Marthinsen Endowment for the Department of Religion.
