The Rev. Dan Rondeau
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School
Acts 4:32-37 | Psalm 23 | 1 John 3:1-8 | John 10:11-16
Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd….” John 10:11
The question posed to the Rabbi was direct and unflinching: “How do you live in a dangerous and unpredictable world?”1 Rabbi Kushner, the author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People responded for all believers.
“Right after 9/11—when everybody was asking me, “Where was God that Tuesday? How could God have let such a thing happen?”—the answer I found myself giving was, “God’s promise was never that life would be fair. God’s promise was, when it’s your turn to confront the unfairness of life, no matter how hard it is, you’ll be able to handle it, because He’ll be on your side. He will give you the strength you need to find your way through.”
Elaborating, his words give light to the scriptures we just heard. “I was paraphrasing the twenty-third Psalm: ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.’ The psalmist is not saying, ‘I will fear no evil because evil only happens to people who deserve it.’ He’s saying, ‘This is a scary, out-of-control world, but it doesn’t scare me, because I know that God is on my side, not on the side of the hijacker. God is on my side, not on the side of the illness, or the accident, or the terrible thing that happened. And that’s enough to give me the confidence.’ The twenty-third Psalm is the answer to the question, ‘How do you live in a dangerous, unpredictable, frightening world?’”2
In addition to the words of the Psalmist, we have the words and the assurance of Jesus himself: “I am the good shepherd…The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep….I am the good shepherd, I know my own and my own know me….And I lay down my life for the sheep.” The truth of what Jesus is saying here is captured beautifully and eloquently in the words of Charles Kingsley preaching in England in the late 19th Century. Listen again to the words of Psalm 23 and of Jesus, the good shepherd, and let the Holy Spirit remind you that you belong to the Good Shepherd.
But what a wide, deep, noble and wonderful blessing…That the Shepherd should give His life for the servant, The Good for the bad, the Wise one for the fools, the pure One for the foul, the loving One for the spiteful, the King for those who had rebelled against Him, the Creator for His creatures. That God should give His life for man!
Herein is the beauty of God, and the glory of God; That He spared nothing, shrank from nothing, that He Might save [us]. Because the Sheep were lost, the Good Shepherd would go forth into the rough and dark paces of the earth to seek and to save that which was lost. That was enough.
But that seemed little in the eyes of Jesus, little to the greatness of His divine love. He would understand the weakness of His sheep by being weak Himself; understand the sorrows of His sheep, by sorrowing Himself; understand the sins of His sheep, by bearing all their sins; understand the temptations of His sheep, by conquering them Himself; and lastly, He would understand and conquer the death of His sheep, by dying Himself.
Because the sheep must die, He would die too, that in all things He might show Himself the Good Shepherd, Who shared all with His sheep, as if they had been his children, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. He would become in all things like His sheep, that He might show Himself the Good Shepherd.
Because they died, He would die, that so, because He rose, they might rise.3
I stand before you this morning as one who believes the Psalmist and who believes what Jesus says. I was thrilled to discover the rich words of Charles Kingsley. And I want to highlight and reiterate a theme that both Robert4 and I have sounded before.
The psalmist writes “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Jesus reassures us that the good shepherd will stay, not flee, in the face of danger. Through the years since Jesus walked and taught and healed, lived, died, and rose again, the shepherding praised in Psalm 23 and the shepherding promised by Jesus have been accomplished through people like you and me.
Jesus, the good shepherd, stands beside us in the person of a family member, a neighbor, or a friend, or sometimes a stranger, a good Samaritan, appearing in the moment of our need.
Jesus, the good shepherd, speaks a word of strength or comfort through a pastor, a teacher, a doctor, a nurse, a therapist, a parent or sibling, or again, through that good Samaritan who appears at just the right moment to speak the words we most need to hear.
Jesus, the good shepherd, touches and reassures us, comforts and enfolds us through the hands or embrace of a child, or a neighbor, or co-worker, or family member, or friend, or our spouse.
Jesus, the good shepherd, is present in this gathering as the Peace is shared among us and the physical presence of others, who have come to know and love him as good shepherd, is sensed and celebrated in this community and in this communion.
You are the face, the hands, the eyes, ears, touch and voice of the Good Shepherd for me. You are the face, the hands, the eyes, ears, touch and voice of the Good Shepherd in your neighborhood, in your school or workplace, in the market place and the mall, and even here among fellow believers. And I pray that Robert and I are this for you. I pray that our entire Staff will, in the moment of encounter, be the face, hands, eyes, ears, touch and voice of the Good Shepherd for you.
St. Francis of Assisi lived and preached this. Let us finish in prayer this morning with the prayer of his heart; may we have the grace to live this way and thus become the Good Shepherd to those around us:
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.5
1 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week813/feature.html
2 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week813/feature.html
3 From Sermons on National Subjects (London: Macmillan, 1890), p. 275 quoted in Synthesis, April 21, 1991
4 The Rev. Dr. Robert G. Certain, Rector of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church
5 A Prayer Attributed to St. Francis, The Book of Common Prayer, p. 833
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