April 26, 2026

Greetings, friends from the great state of New Mexico. I’ve got Albuquerque in my background as I’m here in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains.

I want to take a moment to thank you all for your continued prayers for my travel. As I take this next week in retreat to prepare myself for my marathon and to spend some time in prayer, I’m mindful that New Mexico has always held a special place in my heart. This became even more so during my years in seminary, where I met the Reverend Canon Cornelia Eaton, Canon to the Ordinary for the Episcopal Church in Navajo Land and one of the two current candidates for bishop in that diocese.

I wish I could have had Canon Eaton preach for you all this morning, because she knows intimately what Jesus is talking about today. Canon Cornelia is not only a shepherd in a spiritual sense, but also in a material one. In addition to her church duties, she manages her family’s multigenerational sheep farm on Navajo Nation in Upper Fruitland, New Mexico.

There is something profoundly similar in both aspects of her vocation. Sheep were first brought to the Caribbean in 1493 with Christopher Columbus’s second voyage across the Atlantic. By the 1540s, they had reached Mexico and what is today the American Southwest. The U.S. sheep industry reached its height in the 1880s, when more than 50 million sheep were being shepherded. But with the advent of cheap beef and synthetic fibers, demand for lamb and wool collapsed. Today, there are only about 5 million sheep still tended in the U.S.

What Canon Eaton does is increasingly a lost art — a commitment to something that feels out of touch with the modern world. In a similar way, we find ourselves with a juxtaposition in our readings today.

Regardless of when St. Luke wrote his gospel and Acts, the narrative is set right after Jesus’s resurrection and ascension. There is joy and optimism: “Awe came upon everyone, many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. They spent much time together, broke bread, and ate with glad and generous hearts.”

But by the time we reach St. Peter’s general epistle — written about 50 years later, in the mid to late 80s — the tone is very different. Peter writes: if you endure suffering for doing right, you have God’s approval. Christ suffered for you, setting an example that you should follow in his steps. We don’t know the exact circumstance, but persecution is close. There is foreboding and oppression, and the joy of the Acts community already feels like a thing of the past.

Still, like Canon Cornelia preserving her ways, St. Peter does not wallow in sorrow. He looks toward perseverance and steadfastness.

So much of what we confront today feels unprecedented, but Scripture reminds us this is not new. The faith of our forebearers shows we inherit both their struggles and their hope. What we face now often pales in comparison to their trials — and even to the dangers faced by modern Christians around the world.

But even beyond physical suffering, there’s another kind: that of feeling out of place. It can feel like sheep herding — a commitment to a way of life that seems outdated. When the flock is small, where is the shepherd? When the world feels dark, what is our guiding light?

Our friends on Navajo Nation offer a response. They have shown resilience through remembrance and faith, whether during their exile at Bosque Redondo in the 19th century or through their continuing efforts to preserve traditional ways like sheep herding. They have “kept on keeping on,” staying faithful to a way of life that endures even as the world changes.

For Navajo Episcopalians, this spirit is evident now as they call a new bishop. For decades, they have remained faithful to a church that did not always respect them equally. Yet they endured, kept the faith, and now see the national church recognizing the vitality of the Holy Spirit among them. They are becoming shepherds of their own people.

So today, friends, let us take heart in our own context — to encounter both the call to follow and the call to lead; to feel lightened in our burdens through the assurance of faithfulness; and to be recommitted to shepherding those entrusted to us.

What we do may feel strange or outdated, but may we remember who we are and whose we are — faithful sheep of the great Shepherd. Let us not lose hope but reclaim the joy and unity of spirit that our ancestors in faith knew.

Being free from sin, may we live for righteousness through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.