Psalm 23
The Lord is my shepherd. For a lot of us urbanites, that doesn't have a lot of content, aside from the fact that shepherds are people who take care of sheep. We have little idea what's involved in that. Personally, when I hear the word "shepherd," the image that comes to my mind immediately is what my brother looked like when we were children wearing a bathrobe when dressed as a shepherd in the Christmas Sunday School pageant. I, of course the adoring sister, pointing and laughing at him with my friends. In other words, the picture that comes to my mind doesn't have a whole lot to do with what Jesus is talking about here.
Shepherds had a hard life, since they faced all of the hardships of the hostile landscape through which they herded their sheep. Being with the flock, they faced all of the dangers and difficulties that the flock faced, and they were just as vulnerable -- to heat in the day, to cold at night, and to human and animal predators at all times. They slept with their flocks on quiet peaceful nights and on nights when there were so many predators they got no sleep at all. Shepherds were seen as poor prospects as husbands and fathers, since they had to leave their families alone and vulnerable at night as well.
That's the kind of life Jesus lives for and with us. Jesus journeys with the most vulnerable, and takes on all of their vulnerability. Jesus knows what it's like to be out in the cold. Jesus knows what he’s talking about when he calls people to leave their homes and villages, and even their families, since he had done the same himself. He knows what it's like to have people think that you're crazy or irresponsible because of what you leave behind and let go of, because people said the same things about him.
And he knows something else, too: this crazy life he lived, and calls us to live, is abundant life (John 14:10). It's THE abundant life, to be precise. How could it be that the abundant life is a life of vulnerability? Most of us think of abundant life as one with all the security and comfort of a large bank account and good health. How could a life cut free from security be the abundant life?
In March 1985 after playing a game of tennis in Beirut, Terry Anderson was abducted and put in the trunk of a car. Many of you remember the story, if you are my age, you remember all of it. It was a story which consumed the media. At the time Terry Anderson was the Mideast correspondent for the Associated Press. He was held most of the time in isolation, even though there were other hostages. His captors were a group of Hezbollah (Party of God) Shiite Muslims. At the time he returned, another journalist wrote about Terry’s experience in prison this way: "You cannot get a refund or a credit on the days of your lives. Once you have lived them, they're gone.... What I was struck by was Terry Anderson's determination to live each day—one hour at a time. Every day isn't the day you win the Pulitzer, make love, win the lottery and lose three pounds. Some days you take what you can get and make the most of it. Terry Anderson had a run of bad days—2,455 of them. He decided to play the hand he was dealt. He did it with faith, anger, humor and a lot of help from his friends."
Anderson a lapsed Catholic requested a Bible from his captors and eventually was given one. He said it came as a "gift from heaven," which he read and reread, experiencing a rebirth of his Christian faith. He has done many things since his return including a run as a Democratic candidate from Ohio in 2004 for the U. S. Senate.
I am certain Terry Anderson, like most of us did not intend to take the risks he ended up with. Being a Mideast correspondent is dangerous, but it was not as dangerous as Vietnam where he had served as a soldier. What is interesting is how he survived mentally and emotionally the six years he was held in captivity. His memoirs were entitled Bound to Forgive. When in 2004 he ran for a U. S. Senate seat in the state of Ohio, his Republican opponent’s campaign distributed a pamphlet implying that Anderson would be soft on terror. The pamphlet featured a picture of Anderson confronting the secretary general of Hezbollah, who is not identified in the pamphlet, some time after his release from captivity. That the abundant life includes a measure of forgiveness toward those who persecute you will be one thing the world cannot ever understand about the vulnerability of the faithful.
As hard as it can be to follow the shepherd, it's much better than being prey for the others, thieves and bandits. It may be costly to confess our faith. But there are two ways to that confession which are implicit in this Sunday's gospel.
The first is that if Jesus is Lord, then the position is filled; no others need apply. If Jesus is not Lord, then there are countless others who will try to take that position in your life: lovers, bosses, politicians, parents; acquisitions, ambitions, causes; always just one more favor to do, one more promotion to get, one more enemy to defeat, before you can rest secure. All those other would-be masters are bad news, keeping us penned with anxiety and work toward things which never turn out to be quite what was promised -- international, personal, or job "security" which really mean a lifetime of vigilance while trying to deny or hide vulnerabilities that are still very real.
The second is the Good News. Jesus is the good shepherd. Like God we will be lead to what we need: food, water, air; true security, deep rest, and real love. Trusting God frees us to enjoy all of those good gifts as fully as God gives them, and the richness of God's blessings are far beyond what I know how to describe. When we understand that we are God’s own, we experience abundant life that no one can take away. When Jesus is the gate, there's no need for us to try to do that job. We have no anxieties about whether the "wrong" sort of people are getting in – and we are replaced with freedom to love whomever we find ourselves with. Jesus is our Shepherd, we need fear no evil; surely, as we follow him, goodness and mercy will follow us.
When we hear a particular and familiar voice, we recognize the person whose voice we hear. For us the voice of James Earl Jones whether it be as Darth Vader, or "This is CNN", or "Welcome to Verizon Wireless", or the voice of a loved one, can be clearly recognized. As a young mother, I was never distracted during preaching except by the sound of my own child’s voice. When you are a parent you can hear the voice of your child above all the others even in the midst of crowds and noise. When someone else’s children would make noise during the service and on the way out the door they would say I am really sorry Joey made so much noice during worship, I would think what noise? The only voice I heard was Pierce’s.
God calls each of us by name, God hears our voice as if each of us were an only child. The difficulty for us today is that we are bombarded by thousands of voices, each calling us to follow them. They come to us through radio, television, newspapers, magazines, the internet, billboards, etc. And we hit the point of overload right about the second cup of morning coffee. And in order to combat the overload, those voices need to get louder, more clever, each having a "hook" so that their message gets through to us and is heard. In the 1950 it was estimated that the average America saw 76 Coke signs or ad’s a day. And that’s just one product.
The voice of Jesus our Good Shepherd is not just another voice among the din for us. Jesus voice comes to us bringing us Good News, bringing us hope, challenging us, guiding and directing us, and calling us to follow. It’s a risky but abundant life. Amen.
Pastor Scott Jacob
Assistant to the Bishop, Stewardship Specialist
Northeastern Minnesota Synod, ELCA
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