by Fr. Bill Garrison
Please note that the following sermon text was provided prior to the audio recording. The two versions may differ substantially.
Psalm 23
1 The Lord is my shepherd; *
I shall not be in want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures *
and leads me beside still waters.
3 He revives my soul *
and guides me along right pathways for his Name's sake.
4 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil; *
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
5 You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; *
you have anointed my head with oil,
and my cup is running over.
6 Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, *
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
The metaphor of shepherds and sheep as instruction for our relationship with God is a big part of our conversation today. So, before we get serious, I thought I would share a little story with you.
A big city police officer stopped a man in a car with a sheep in the front seat. “What are you doing with that sheep in your car? You should take it to the zoo, or at least a sheep farm where there are other sheep,” the officer said.
The following week, the same police officer saw the same man with what looked like the same sheep in the front seat. Both of them were wearing sunglasses. The police officer pulled him over.
“I thought you were going to take that sheep to the country or the zoo!” the officer said.
The man replied, “I did. We had such a good time we are going to the beach this weekend!”
We have heard the 23rd Psalm so many times most of us can almost recite it in our sleep. I wonder though how many of us have taken the time to get to know it beyond a surface understanding. It sounds great, and it is comforting, but what is meant by a good shepherd? Let’s take a few minutes to think about it, because it’s important. The good shepherd is after all an abiding metaphor telling us a lot about the nature of God.
This ancient scripture, dating back several centuries before the time of Christ, speaks volumes. During the first century, the time of Jesus, the metaphors carried within it would have been deeply understood since shepherds and sheep were everywhere in this agrarian society. Today we are not as knowledgeable about shepherds so I hope this explanation will bring more meaning to the psalm the next time you say or hear it.
The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not be in want. As the psalm begins, we see very clearly that the writer is telling us that we are like sheep and God is the shepherd. We understand this is a metaphor from the opening lines.
He makes me lie down in green pastures. The shepherd knows the nicest places for the sheep to eat and leads them there. The shepherd will only lead the sheep to this best of all grazing area when they are tired and ready to lie down. Interestingly enough at the Feeding of the 5000 we are told that Jesus had the people sit down on the green grass.
Photo by Paul Seling: https://www.pexels.com/photo/selective-photography-of-white-lamb-on-hay-891607/
He leads me beside still waters. Simply put sheep are afraid of water that is running fast and making noise. They will not approach it, much less drink from it. The good shepherd knows this and takes the sheep to water that is not moving or at least moving quietly.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. This is more than just a metaphor, it exists. It is a route on which shepherds walked their flocks in order to move to better pastures. It consisted of a steep hill on one side and a drop off on the other.
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. The first and most obvious use for the rod and staff is to protect the sheep. They are weapons. But they are more than that. They are also used to rescue sheep and to guide them.
You have anointed my head with oil, and my cup is running over. These are beautiful images. At the end of the day the sheep are brought back to the sheep fold and inspected carefully by the shepherd. If a sheep has hurt himself the shepherd puts oil on the wound and if a sheep appears to be thirsty the shepherd dips a cup into a water jug till it is overflowing and a sheep will drink from it.
Aren’t these wonderful images? Jesus used the image of the shepherd constantly when he was describing himself and when he was describing God. Jesus said the sheep know the sound of his voice. I’d like to tell you a quick story that illustrates the point beautifully if I may.
During the Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s the Israeli army decided to punish a village near Bethlehem for not paying its taxes (which, the village claimed, simply financed their occupation). The officer in command rounded up all of the village animals and placed them in a large barbed-wire pen. Later in the week he was approached by a woman who begged him to release her flock, arguing that since her husband was dead the animals were her only source of livelihood. He pointed to the pen containing hundreds of animals and humorously quipped that it was impossible because he couldn’t find her animals. She asked that if she could in fact separate them herself, would he be willing to let her take them? He agreed. A soldier opened the gate and the woman's son produced a small reed flute. He played a simple tune again and again-and soon sheep heads began popping up across the pen. The young boy continued his music and walked home, followed by his flock of twenty-five sheep.
Nice story, isn’t it? There is a reason the image of shepherd and sheep have been used for over three thousand years to describe the relationship between God and God’s people.
In the gospel today we heard Jesus continuing a long speech to the authorities that had gathered around him. Out of the crowd comes someone to ask him a question, trying to trap him. If I might paraphrase, here is what he said.
Why do you keep us in suspense? Are you the messiah or are you not? A simple yes or no answer would be nice. Instead, you keep beating around the bush talking about signs.
The trap he was setting was this. If Jesus said yes, he was the Messiah he would be guilty of blasphemy, and they would be free to stone him to death. If he said no then he would be guilty of lying.
Jesus saw the trap and refused to bite. He said again to look at the works and make up your own minds about who he was. Then using the sheep/shepherd metaphor he said that his sheep knew his voice and if you didn’t believe then you obviously had not become one of his sheep. He said that his sheep were his. God had placed him as the shepherd. He would never lose them. Finally, he said that he and God are one and the sheep will never be lost.
This world in which we live can be a tough one. I don’t need to give you examples. It was tough in the time of Jesus and it is tough now. The people in the first century needed the shepherd, and we need the shepherd more than ever today. The shepherd, if allowed, will tend our needs and guide us in right paths if we will but listen.
The shepherd reaches out to us in our prayer life, in the scriptures, in our community of believers, and in our common worship. We in the Kingdom of God are never alone, and need never be afraid when we listen to our shepherd and follow him to green pastures. And when we do find ourselves surrounded by other sheep, we know all we need do is listen for the sound of his voice. He will take us home.