Being the good Shepherd and being his sheep.
This past week I was supposed to have attended yet another zoom meeting. This amazing tool that lets us meet across borders and time zones and despite long distances and obstacles like Covid19, lockdown and travel restrictions.
So, I was to met once again with the delightful group of DSAA: Danish Shepherds Association Abroad.
We would be talking about the shared responsibility and difficulty of being a shepherd: how to keep the flock in the fold, how to keep the flock safe, fed, calm and secure, and how to reach those promised green, green pastures. We once again would share the concerns of any shepherd, as to how to stay alert and keep the hired hands, the wolfs in sheep clothes, the deceitful salesmen away – and truly to be a good shepherd and care for the flock.
We would also again agree on the fact that the flock gives so much back to the shepherd – the satisfaction of herd immunity, the joy of fellowship and the hope for the coming community.
Oh, what a joy to be a shepherd!
The title of pastor means shepherd, and it is a title that I wear with humility, pride, joy, and honesty. I do not have a shepherd’s staff, but I do however have my own private shepherd dog Saxo, who in all earnest would be more afraid of sheep than being able to lead them anywhere….
But I prefer a gentle dog with brown loving eyes and a wagging tale, then a wolf in sheep’s clothing!
We have been listening to the wonderful iconic and beloved reading of Psalm 23… The Lord is my Shepherd. A reading filled with beautiful imagery and comforting hope. A reading often read at memorials and funerals. A reading that we as Christian often now quite well.
Psalm 23 is a large green tapestry of good pastures, still waters and hope. But it is also the acknowledgement of life as it is: places of danger, where you can get lost, frightened, confused or even die.
The good shepherd did not seem to avoid these dangerous, dark places, and remarkably so, he did not abandon the sheep either. He stayed in the darkness and despair.
Isn’t that exactly what makes the good shepherd a good shepherd? That he walks along and stays, he cares, and he comforts.
The Lord is my shepherd, the old psalm says.
I am the good shepherd; Jesus says in the Gospel.
We often think of shepherds as boys or men, like Abraham or David among some of the prominent ones. But ethnographic studies shows that shepherding was a work done by girls and young women as well as boys and young men. Rachel and Zipporah are two biblical examples of young women who were skilled shepherds. The work involved being able to safeguard one’s flock with a slingshot, a staff, care and alertness.
I do think many of us know of good family shepherds being female with a power and strength and love…. Where these family shepherds would lay down their lives for their offspring.
The association of Danish Shepherds Abroad aka Danish Lutheran Pastors abroad gathering from Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, New York, and California meets in the virtual fold of zoom, equally representing male and female pastors (which is an absurd distinction as it is simply pastors)- as we are meeting, we are also to discuss a book: “Rehearsing Scripture. Discovering God’s World in Community.” By Anna Carter Florence. The book is about reading the Bible in a different way – reading the Verbs.
If you do a quick survey of any bible passage, you’ll find that what is true in life is also true in scripture: the verbs dominate. It’s what we do and don’t do that preoccupies human beings. And it’s the verbs we reach for week after week in church; forgive, live, love, resurrect, care. eat, drink, baptize and listen.
So, what happens when we read scripture and let the verbs lead? One of the main points of the book is that we share the same verbs with the people in scripture. We are connected as humans despite time, age and difference, because of the verbs.
Abraham and Sarah walked, talked, and prayed. We do the same. Adam and Eve ate, realized they were naked, were afraid and hid. We do the same. The disciples his behind closed doors when they did not know how to live and what to believe. We do the same.
This book invites shepherds and sheep, pastors and congregation, to read the Bible together, in community, and one exiting way of reading is to focus on the verbs. Because all the action, all the movements, all the human common feelings, are found in the verbs. Too often we spend a lot of time on the nouns…. The Shepherd, The Samaritan, The Tax Collector, the Fisherman, the region of Galilee, Jerusalem, - and sometimes these nouns, these persons, these titles, or these professions and places take too much place as we must explain how, who, when and where. But if we focus on the verbs, we focus on the actions, the sentiments, the movements that are universal and not bound by place, person or time.
So, why do not we focus on the verbs of the Gospel today…. And let them speak to us about
the Good Shepherd that:
· Is the good shepherd
· Lays down his life for the sheep
· Knows his sheep and they know him
· Have other sheep that I must bring to the fold
· Lay down his life to take it up again
On the other hand, we have the hired hand who
· Is not the good shepherd
· Does not own the sheep
· Sees the wolf and leaves and runs away
· Does not care for the sheep
The good shepherd knows he is the good shepherd and finds strength and purpose in that knowledge. “I am the good shepherd… I am good, I am the only God:”
The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep because he cares for this flock. The good shepherd does give his own life but gives his life to save others…… lays down his life to take it up again.
On the other hand, you have the verbs describing the hired hand or the deceitful leader who sees the dangers, the wolfs, leaves and runs – and does not care for the flock, and does preserve and protect his own life first and foremost.
The image of the Good Shepherd is also reflected on in 1 John: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. “
Let us love in active verbs! Let us love and live not only in word or speech, but in truth and action. It is indeed easer to give or to listen to 10 sermons than to live one!
This is a solemn reminder to us as a Christian community in a time, where we do not just need love in words and speeches but need love in truth and action.
In this time following the emotional and important verdict in the killing of George Floyd, we are encouraged to embrace truth and action even more as it is needed, and have the boldness to try to make the world a better more just place. To look with honesty to find the common truth and then to act.
In a time, when daily terrible mass shootings rattle our families and communities, we need more truth and action to protect our children and brothers and sisters.
These conversations are hard, but the action on the truth unfolded may be even harder.
Love is action and truth… and love is the central verb of the second reading today. “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”
And love is the only power that can break the vicious circle of hate, discrimination, racism and injustice. We can not hate our way to salvation, wholeness or unity.
Late rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, preached it in Dexter Avenue Baptist church on November 17, 1957:
“… hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that is the strong person. The strong person is the person who can cut off the chain of hate, the chain of evil. …..Somebody must have religion enough and morality enough to cut it off and inject within the very structure of the universe that strong and powerful element of love.”
As it is written: “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of this Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he commanded us. …”
The Good Shepherd shows us the way of service, sacrifice and love.
A way in which love will finally break the cycle of hate.
Let us love and be honest about injustice and racism.
Let us love and work to end injustice and racism.
Let us love and work to end mass shootings and senseless killings.
Let us love and embody the verbs of the good shepherd in a world that needs more good shepherd and less wolfs and hired hands.
Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.
And the Good Shepherd will lead us, guide us, protect us and sustain us….
The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.
AMEN