May 3, 2009
Edwards (Knox) United Church
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Psalm 23
Read the passage: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
1 John 3:16-24
Read the passage: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
John 10:11-18
Read the passage: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
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The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson
The image of the Good Shepherd is one of the most iconic images in the church. It is one that is found in the Hebrew texts and of course Psalm 23. Every Sunday, when I was growing up, I looked at the stain glass image at the front of the church. It was so vivid that when I close my eyes I can still see that iconic picture of Jesus as the great Shepherd. There he was in vivid color, with the lamb over his shoulders.
There was a strange comfort in that image. Yet most of us are at some distance from the care of sheep. Being a prairie boy, lambs and sheep were not in my experience. Cows, pigs and chickens, yes. Sheep, no.
Suzanne tells of the time when she was the minister in three remote hamlets in the wilds of Renfrew County. She went to visit two women who were members of her parish. They lived on the mountain behind Palmer Rapids. It was up hill all the way. She had to drive up their long winding lane, through the forest to the open meadow that offered a view to their 100 year old log farmhouse. The lane took her past the chickens and ducks and the very proud goose and her goslings and their immaculate garden. And the Border collie sleeping on the porch.
She was there on that spring day to see the sheep and the lambs. Her parishioners were shepherdesses. They knew firsthand about the sheep recognizing the shepherd's voice. And they knew about predators - about wolves and coyotes. There had been wolves on Palmer Mountain a few years before. They come in the early spring when new lambs make easy prey. Her parishioners camped out on the hills many nights when the wolves were on the prowl. On this day they were going to find the ewes, the ewes with new lambs, and bring them back to the meadow nearest the house where they could keep better watch over them.
Suddenly these texts - our Psalm, our Gospel - weren't just ancient stories, quaint and far away. They came alive, right into the present.
The full description of the good shepherd is in Psalm 23. The good shepherd supplies our most basic physical needs. He provides food, drink, rest. In addition to that, God revives our spirits; comforts us in times of trouble, illness and death; offers us hospitality in the face trouble and those who wish us ill; blesses us; shows us goodness and compassion; welcomes us into the presence of God's own being; and continually lures us into relationship with God's self. We are those in God's care.
Yet the image of us being sheep also has it problems. It tends to be used to put down those who follow without thought. It is kind of mindlessness that some critics of religion place on believers. I think most of us are uncomfortable with being thought of as unthinking, sheep like followers.
Competing images. Comfort and threat. Unthinking following and being cared for. The good shepherd, the shepherd who guides you through the valley of the shadow of death, evokes a sense of calm and strength. What does it mean to feed my sheep?
Metaphors and images are powerful when they function on the emotional and poetic level. It was the risk and vulnerability of the lamb that the poet was getting at - in the 23rd Psalm - it was from the view point of the lamb who now has no fear, for the rod and staff comfort. The shepherd of shepherds cares for me, as the hymn puts it. Now I can face my enemies - external and internal - and overcome in love.
There is the obvious image that the role of the shepherd is keep the wolves at bay - to protect. In those words of, "I know their voice," we get the sense of God who gets down with us and knows us in the most intimate ways. That works but there is more. For there is the whole kingly image of the shepherd. But it is a strange image for a king - the boy shepherd David becomes the king. A reversal of all conventional images of power and prestige.
In the poetry the good shepherd as the sign of divinity. The lamb of sacrifice being the force of love that overcomes the threat of Imperial Powers. It turns all images of kingship and power upside down. From the outsider comes redemption. From the edges of experience comes resurrection life. It reinforces the biblical theme that God upsets the notions of respectability. It reinforces the images that the God of love welcomes all who society would call the least.
The letter of John tells us what our role is. We are called to witness, to be shepherds. God is the force of love that sustains all of us and the world. It is a powerful image of the God who protects us and suffers with us. With the help of others we can overcome suffering. Together, we can build a new kingdom of love on earth. Given that we are called to the task of care. It is to move from words to action.
What does it mean for us to lay down our life for one another? I think it means to bear our responsibilities in relationship to other people. It means to be there for each other in good times and bad. It means to care for and support one another. In John's letter, the statement to lay down our lives for each other appears in the context of loving one another. God is love, and the characteristic of God's people is love. To love each other is to become part of God. It is to learn what it means to be a community of lovers.
It is to make clear that the lure of God brings together those things we often take apart. Think of the line in John "of different folds." We live in a pluralistic reality, with many different meaning frames or groups, but they are all cared for by God. Our job is to create a community that works with others for the common good.
This is unlimited love. Unlimited love is that despite all human waywardness, God's love is always here. It comes to us unmerited. We don't need to earn it. It is unlimited love. Unlimited love confronts evil. It is done in love not malice. This is the wise, effective, and efficient art of confronting destructive behaviours in ourselves and others. The good shepherd and his followers, like Martin Luther King, make a point in putting themselves in the path of malice when necessary, and are willing to pay the price. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, "the children of light must have the cunning of the children of darkness, but none of their malice." The bottom line of God walking with us and facing the real wolves of reality is that we are formed by God's unlimited love to care for all. This is putting words into actions.
We know those people, named and not named who can be counted upon to speak justice and compassion to the forces that seek to destroy. They are the Nelson Mandelas, the Martin Luther Kings and those whose name never hit the front page. We have all had a shepherd who revealed to us the persuasive love of God for all of creation. And know what. We too can be that shepherd. And know what. We have been that shepherd who brings healing comfort to those in pain, who feel in our very being the fears of the world and are not undone. We are to be those who have kept the wolves of life away. We are called to this vocation.
George Hermanson
www.georgehermanson.com
