Good Sheperd Sunday

A Homily for IV Easter All Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, N.C. April 21, 2013 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

Acts 9:36-43 Psalm 23 Revelation 7:9-17 John 10:22-30

This is the 4^th Sunday of Easter which is usually known as “Good Shepherd Sunday”, the time in which we have the 23^rd Psalm and passages about Jesus as the Good Shepherd. I was first introduced to the 23^rd Psalm in Vacation Bible School in 2^nd grade. We memorized it and I earned a little plastic glow in the dark statue of Jesus carrying a little lamb. The vision I had was that little lamb shining on me during my nightly prayers: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep, and if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. God bless etc.”

 

The way it worked was that God would leave me alone if I did well and, if I should die before I wake, the Good Shepherd would take my soul in the form of the little lamb into the green pastures with the still water. It was a literal, surface understanding focused in on heaven as reward. I did not understand that the King James Version used “comfort” to mean strength from the Latin (cum= with and fortis = strength) and not a soft pillow. The Psalm stayed in my memory my whole life, the statue stayed by my bedside until I left for college, and my understanding of God never went deeper than it was when I was in the 2^nd grade surface - until I came to grips with the fact that the world is a rough place and maybe faith is how we live in this world and make it a better place by following Jesus. I thought of this Psalm as I tried to make sense of the terror of the last week and decided that little plastic glow in the dark statues were not going to cut it.

In John’s Gospel the author remembers Jesus using a lot of shepherd images for himself. In today’s Gospel lesson Jesus is walking on Solomon’s portico of the Temple during the Feast of the Dedication, the celebration which we call Hanukkah, the Hebrew word having a root meaning of “dedication”. The Festival remembers the time when the Jews in the 2^nd Century BC forgot their fear and were able to rebel under the leadership of the Maccabees against their Greek oppressors and re-claim the Temple for the worship of their God. In the dark days of the war the lights in the Temple were reminders to them that their God was with them. God’s rod and staff strengthened them.

The freedom of the Jews was not to last for their internal conflicts and external forces caused the Jewish state to fall under Roman control. Each dedication festival under Roman rule increased their longing for someone to unite the country and drive the Romans out. They looked for a leader, an anointed one, a Messiah, who would shepherd them into a new age of freedom. Some had hopes that Jesus would be that kind of Messiah. In response Jesus uses the Shepherd metaphor and says that he leads the sheep who follow him into a new way of living; it is not about the politics of changing the leaders at the top but about changing oneself for new way of deeply living daily life. To use God’s rod and staff as strength for faithful living in a world gone mad with hatred.

Life was rough for the people in Jesus’ time, as there were such enemies as grinding poverty, injustice, exploitive religion, corruption in government, the greed of the rich, and the constant threat of senseless violence. Life was rough when the 23^rd Psalm was first sung, as there were such enemies as grinding poverty, injustice, exploitive religion, corruption in government, the greed of the rich, and the constant threat of senseless violence. Life is rough now, as there are such enemies as grinding poverty, injustice, exploitive religion, corruption in government, the greed of the rich, and the constant threat of senseless violence. What is it that gets us through all of the darkness of the shadow of the brokenness of life? The 23^rd Psalm was probably written to suggest that the only way through was with the power of the one greater than ourselves, the one they called the LORD.

Originally the Hebrew people had a tribal God that they worshipped, but their experience caused them to go so deep in that relationship that they realized their God was bigger than their tribe and their understanding. They came be believe that the only way they could encounter this God was to enter into Mystery - not a mystery to be solved but a mystery which defied glib descriptions. They would use the Hebrew word Adonai, a word meaning “the Lord” in the 3^rd person or “sir” in the 2^nd person, in place of the old Tribal name of their God, so they would not violate the commandment against taking the name in vain.

The 23^rd Psalm’s first line begins with this metaphoric name “The LORD” and follows it with another metaphor of the shepherd because the composer of the song is trying to tell us that their God is a mystery not to be solved but embraced in relationship. We see this in any true relationship when, at the beginning, you think you know the other person, but the longer the relationship continues you find greater depths of complexity, greater shadows behind the outer persona. Love is not about approval or attraction but about trusting one another in the mysterious journey together in a broken world which can give us a rough time.

The Hebrews did not have a separate word for “soul”. Rather, they knew the word for breath - life force – spirit; one did not “have” a soul that lived on after them, but instead was a body full of a life force - spirit. They believed in a here and now and left the question of life after death to the mystery with whom they traveled. When Jesus dies he enters trustingly into the mystery and returns full of life force-spirit. In the first lesson from the Acts, Peter, filled with the life force of the resurrected Lord, shares it with Tabitha and brings her back to full life.

The Psalmist sings that this living double metaphor of mystery with whom he is in relationship takes him, guides him to a place where there are rich meadows and still water in that desert country, an oasis where the Psalmist has his/her depleted life force-spirit brought back to her/him so that s/he might work for justice in a world that sorely misses it. In the middle of all the things that are against life force, the double metaphor gives renewed breath by sitting down to eat at a table set with good things, an overflowing glass of wine, and, in the middle of terror, rubs luxuriant oil into his/her hair like a lover. Robert Alter translates from the Hebrew that the word the King James version uses for “anoint” is not to be used as sacramental but as sensual. It is about living fully in this life and not about religion. The double metaphor becomes a third as God is our lover into whose arms we climb, gathering calming strength until the world makes sense, echoing the lesson from Revelation for today, “the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes."

Bobby McFerrin arranged the 23^rd Psalm for the group Cantus to sing and dedicated it to his mother and uses the feminine for the metaphor for the God that will not be pressed into a box of definition. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91TbjlaS4kc )

Today may you be still and allow the God who will not be defined embrace you and allow you to embrace her/him, may you allow her/him to guide you into doing justice, and may you feel her/his hands drying your tears and fears and rubbing luxuriant oil in your hair as a lover or mother giving you strength, so you may live fully and face your enemies without fear.