Prayer of Blessing: Shannon Cook Hymn of Faith *God Is My Shepherd* Witness of Scripture: John 10: 11-18 Anthem *With a Voice of Singing* Martin Shaw. Chancel Choir Sermon *Shepherd Care* David Spain
Recorded on April 21, 2024
In the summer sandlot days of childhood, the boys in the neighborhood would start gathering about 9:30 in the morning, divide into teams for baseball or football or basketball, and play until about lunch time, then reconvene for the afternoon and play until we were called home. Most of us lived within earshot of the sandlot, so when it was time to go home for the evening, we would hear a familiar voice calling our names.Several boys were called home by a distinctive whistle, true for me as my father had a whistle you could hear for a country mile.
Those scenes of childhood came back to mind this week when reading the 23rd Psalm along with John’s gospel story of Jesus, the Good Shepherd. On the off chance urban dwellers in the 21st century might not know that much about shepherding sheep, it helps to remember that when Jesus used this image for himself, his 1st century companions would have been familiar with the metaphor. Our sense of shepherd and sheep is mostly stain-glass oriented as depicted in the image of Jesus holding a little lamb flanked by two sheep as we see on the north wall in this sanctuary. It is a good image, just incomplete.
To follow the logic of Psalm 23 and John 10, with the Lord as our shepherd and Jesus as the Good Shepherd, we are cast among the flock, not unlike those woolly boys on the sandlot all those years ago. It is helpful to remember, contrary to some images of sheep being bashful or even foolish, that sheep embody a certain wisdom about life. Rather than being driven from behind as is true with cattle, sheep are led by a shepherd who goes in front to make sure the landscape is safe for their passage. Sheep develop a relationship with their shepherd, knowing the sound of their shepherd’s voice or whistle. It is the language of comfort, security, care—in fact a rather sophisticated language with a certain whistle or clicking of the tongue or a tone on a reed pipe meaning food or water or time to move. Because of their unique language, different flocks can mingle at the watering hole yet still know the sound of their shepherd’s voice. Sheep therefore, are far from dumb. What’s more, their inclination to move in flocks—to be in community —provides safety. Sheep are not safe going it alone—a sheep separated from the flock is vulnerable and stressed. In a delightful mix of metaphors, Elizabeth Webb writes “a lost sheep is a sitting duck.”When the Psalmist writes of God and when Jesus says of himself Shepherd, we are presented with an image of God who is steadfast, guiding, leading, compassionate, giving, present, engaging, known. Both the Psalm and the Gospel proclaim the foundational affirmation of faith—God is with us, God is for us, God leads us. We certainly do not have to follow, but we have a Shepherd who is good.
For those who have grown up around the church, and perhaps for those who have not, the image of God as shepherd is familiar. If we were to play finish the sentence, most people would be able to respond, “I shall not want” if we lead with “The Lord is my Shepherd.” This foundational truth of love and care is especially important to affirm in a world where too much religion is known for too much hatred, hostility and horror. The writer of the 23rd Psalm, often attributed to David who was at one point a shepherd in the field before he became a king on the throne; and Jesus the Good Shepherd as the gospel of John tells us, proclaim a religion that is to be known for and lived with healing, hope, and humility. Our images of God, our depictions of Christ, inform how we live our faith. Shepherd, Good Shepherd is our core affirmation, for God is neither angry nor aloof; Christ is neither distant nor indifferent.
When Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd,” those who heard him would have remembered.“Ah yes, Moses was a shepherd; David of course was a shepherd; Ezekiel identified God’s action toward a broken and scattered people as the work of a shepherd. Jesus, the Good Shepherd—who is he? He is the one who heals the man born blind as John tells us and says to him, ‘you belong to the fold,’ even though others make him an object of theological argument about good and evil. Jesus, the Good Shepherd—who is he? He is the one who enters weeping where Lazarus is entombed to create new life and stir new hope. Jesus, the Good Shepherd—who is he? He is the one who restores the dignity of a woman shamed by social and religious practice into coming to the well at noon by herself; the one who saves a woman sentenced to stoning by a legal system unfairly stacked against the vulnerable; the one who tells old faithful named Nicodemus that he is never too old for new life. Jesus, the Good Shepherd—who is he? He is the One who says, “I have other sheep not of this fold…they belong to me as well,” which is to say when Jesus whistles for his children to come home from the sandlot, who knows how many woolly friends will come running?!
Jesus, the Good Shepherd is not “meek or tame or even unobjectionable,” writes Cynthia Lindner. “Christ enacts God’s relationship with the beloved creation, instigated by God not by us…this is no fair-weather friendship, no transactional contract. The sheep do not earn the Shepherd or elect the Shepherd…we cannot stray or fall or fail in such a way as to be lost to God—ever—because we belong to God.” (The Christian Century, 4/21/09). This is both cosmic and personal—the Lord of the universe is the Shepherd to each, the Good Shepherd to whom all belong for no one is out of the fold. Karl Barth said it this way—“there is no such thing as an individual Christian; in the English language, there is no separate singular form of the word sheep. In our essential belongingness, we are bound up with the entire flock who break bread and recite prayers with us, and with those sheep whom Jesus knows and God sees, but whom we can scarcely bring ourselves to acknowledge.” The Lord is my and our Good Shepherd.
If we wonder who we are or what we are to believe about God, or as is true for almost all of
us—on some days very confident while on other days not sure of much of anything—hear the promise, hear the assurance. The Good Shepherd is with you, is for you.That’s what this Table means around which we gather every Sunday. We speak of this being an inclusive Table and it is; but it is more than that…this is a Table of belonging. You belong here, the world belongs here, for the Good Shepherd would have it no other way.Hear his voice, his come home call of love and compassion, justice and mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation.
As good as the 23rd Psalm is, as good as the Good Shepherd is, we would not only hear it as the sheep. We are, the church is Christ’s Body, which means for all the ways the church thinks of who it is, we too are called to be Good Shepherds in the fields where we lay.What does that look like 2,000 years later in our technological, urbanized world? Two unlikely images come to mind, the first from Isaac Villegas who tells of building a birdhouse at the top of a pole. Unfortunately, his first effort did not go well, as he used a wooden pole easily scaled by cats. His second effort replaced the wooden pole with a metal one—the birds came back, nested, the chicks were born and raised. He concludes, “the Christian life is all about nesting—about creating a home for the gospel, a shelter for hope and joy and all things good. Villegas recounted sitting in a hospital room with a man recovering from an illness, as he told all about the people from the church who had been with him—some who sang to him, some who played Appalachian tunes with a fiddle, all who stopped by on lunch breaks or after work. “All those people make it easier to believe in God, for when they were with me,” the man said, “I know God is with me.” Villegas concludes, “the gospel can be summed up in the psalmist’s word ‘with’—that God is with us, that we are with one another, and that we are with God when we are with one another. [Sometimes] it feels as if our world has stumbled into a valley of death; the psalmist knows this world. There is no promise here of life without enemies or evil. Instead, in the valley the psalmist sees a table—a place for fellowship and communion, for being with God and one another. Around the table, that’s where God happens.” (The Christian Century, 4/15/24)
The second image is personal. Early in the morning of this past November 16th, I received a phone call from the facility where my father was living that he was entering the last stages of his life.A few hasty arrangements were made and a quick trip to Waco followed, thankfully able to spend the last six hours of my father’s life with him in his room, as people would come and go. What I had forgotten was that a few weeks prior to this date, the facility where he lived had invited family members to join residents for their Thanksgiving dinner that day. When I needed to get the nurse shortly before 6:00 p.m. confirming that my father had slipped quietly from this world to the next, I passed through the dining room and suddenly recalled they were celebrating their thanksgiving meal.I returned to his room with the nurse who tenderly confirmed his death, and then sat there for a while. Another nurse came in and asked if I would like something to eat. In the rush to get to Waco, the lunch meal was skipped, so it seemed like a good idea.What she brought me was turkey, dressing, potatoes, green beans—in other words Thanksgiving dinner. This one who had called me home from the sandlot was now the one who had been called home, and with whom I had a final thanksgiving meal...a perfect Eucharist. But that’s not the best part of the story. What I realized this week is who those nurses are. I don’t know how they are known personally, but I know who they are…good shepherds. They restored my soul, they walked through the valley of the shadows, they prepared a table and anointed my soul with kindness, they were goodness and mercy pursuing and abiding. That’s what good shepherds do, that’s what this church whose image is on the front of the bulletin is called to do…shepherd care for the world God gives us, and for each other. That is the house we dwell in, that is the way we lay down our lives. Thanks be to God, we are called to live the good shepherd’s care.